Creating a License

To calculate the license compliance position of your enterprise, IT Asset Management requires license records to compare against the corresponding application installation records. In addition to the recommended way of creating licenses through purchase processing, IT Asset Management also enables you to create licenses from a number of pages under the Licenses menu. Select the Create a license option from the appropriate place, based on your reason for creating a license.

Tip:Some licenses may be created automatically:

• Uploading a Microsoft License Statement may cause licenses to be automatically created
• A Microsoft Office 365 data import may create a license (typically Named User), using the Office 365 connector
• An import from the Salesforce connector may create SaaS User licenses
• Superseding both of the above, an import from the SaaS Management connector may create all required licenses to match those already present in the source (and if you have overlapping licenses created by either of the preceding connectors, an import from Flexera SaaS Manager automatically marks those as Retired, so that only licenses imported from Flexera SaaS Manager are included in license compliance calculations)
• If an IBM PVU license position has been generated in ILMT, IT Asset Management automatically imports the IBM PVU license definitions with the ILMT inventory imports, creating licenses to match. (In this scenario, any license deletions must be performed in both products within the same inventory import cycle. For more details, see IBM PVU (license type).)

You may wish to create a license (of any type) manually under any of the following scenarios:

• You have purchased a new license and you want to create a license record for it. You may create the license record manually; although the preferred path is to import or record the purchase details, and process those to create the license, taking advantage of all the specialized knowledge embedded in the downloaded libraries.
• Application installation evidence has been detected that is linked to the appropriate application, triggering an installation record. Select the application record from the appropriate page under the Applications menu and click Create a license. IT Asset Management automatically links the selected application to the new license.
• You have procured a license with some purchased software, but the licensed application has not yet been installed in your enterprise, and you do not have a purchase record that could be processed to create the appropriate license. You can create a license manually so that it can be linked to the application later on.
• You may need to create a Client Access License (CAL) to correct an entry in the Unlicensed CAL Usage page.

Tip:The Unlicensed CAL Usage page displays records of application access (not installation) that appear to need a CAL. License records (in this case, CAL records) are still required; but instead of being compared with installation evidence, the CALs are assessed against access evidence. The collected access evidence indicates that an application (that requires a CAL) has been accessed by a user through an accessing device. For example, if ten users are accessing an instance of Microsoft SharePoint Server, there should be a CAL record for Microsoft SharePoint Server to record the consumption of those access rights. You may need to purchase Microsoft User CALs or Microsoft Device CALs to achieve license compliance for such access.

• You want to create CAL Legacy licenses for managing CALs manually.

To create a license manually:

Important:In order to show purchased entitlements on this license, do not create the license using this method. Instead, navigate to Unprocessed Purchases, select a purchase from the table, click Process and then follow the purchase process steps. This will open the Purchase Processing wizard which is a blue pop-up work area at the top of the page. The appearance and behavior of this wizard varies depending on all aspects of the purchase. Manually creating the license and linking purchases instead of processing a purchase into a license will prevent the quantities of linked purchases from counting as entitlements on the license.

1. From a license-related page under Licenses, such as Licenses > License Management > All Licenses click Create a license from the desired page.

Tip:Adding a license to an unmanaged application does not automatically switch its status to another value (such as Authorized). Remember to update the application's status separately.

If you reached this page as part of processing a purchase, the relevant purchase is displayed at the top of the page (for information only—no need to do anything with this list). For details about the columns identifying the purchase, see the end of this help topic.

2. If this process started from any of the pages under Applications, the application is already identified, and you should skip to step 3. Otherwise:
a. Enter (part of) the name of the application in the Application search area and click Search.

IT Asset Management displays a list of applications matching the search string.

Tip:Any applications that you have ignored for management (Status is Ignored) are correctly omitted from this list. However, applications that you deferred for later consideration (Status is Deferred) are included in this list, in case creation of this license means you are changing your mind. However, simply creating the license does not automatically change the status of the application (you may wish to open the application properties and adjust the status value manually).

b. Select the application that should be linked to this license and click Add application.
3. Select the appropriate value from the Purchase type list:
• OEM—A purchase from an Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM) that included the software license, such as the operating system license supplied when you buy or lease hardware.
• Retail—A purchase direct from a retailer, generally without influence by other agreements (purchasing agreements, maintenance agreements). For example, Microsoft calls this a fully packaged product.
• Subscription—A purchase that requires regular payments to maintain the license entitlement.
• Volume—A purchase subject to a volume purchasing agreement.
4. If applicable, select a purchasing program from the Purchase Program list.

The purchase programs are available for selected vendors and may influence product use rights.

5. From the Maintenance list:
• Select Yes if this same purchase also provide maintenance coverage for the purchased license entitlements; or, if the purchase is not yet specified, where you are sure that the license is covered by maintenance (or a support agreement, or Software Assurance, and the like)—at some point you will need to substantiate this by linking a purchase of maintenance to the new license
• Select No if you are sure that maintenance is not applicable to the license
• Leave the default Any if unclear, and you plan to resolve this later (remembering that having maintenance coverages can sometimes improve your product use rights).
6. From the License type list, select the applicable license type (you can check the relevant entry in Terminology for more details about each type):
• Appliance—Appliance (license type)
• CAL Legacy—CAL Legacy (license type)
• Client Server—Client Server (license type)
• Concurrent User—Concurrent User (license type)
• Core Points—Core Points (license type)
• Custom Metric—Custom Metric (license type)
• Device—Device (license type)
• Device (Core-Limited)—Device (Core-Limited) (license type)
• Device (Processor-Limited)—Device (Processor-Limited) (license type)
• Enterprise—Enterprise (license type)
• Enterprise Agreement—Enterprise Agreement (license type)
• Evaluation—Evaluation (license type)
• IBM Authorized User—IBM Authorized User (license type)
• IBM Concurrent User—IIBM Concurrent User (license type)
• IBM Floating User—IBM Floating User (license type)
• IBM MVS—IBM MVS (license type)
• IBM PVU—IBM PVU (license type)
• IBM RU—IBM RU (license type)
• IBM RVU—IBM RVU (license type)
• IBM UVU—IBM User Value Unit (license type)
• IBM VPC—IBM VPC (license type)
• Microsoft Device CAL—Microsoft Device CAL (license type)
• Microsoft SCCM Client Device—Microsoft SCCM Client Device (license type)
• Microsoft SCCM Client User—Microsoft SCCM Client User (license type)
• Microsoft Server Core—Microsoft Server Core (license type)
• Microsoft Server Processor—Microsoft Server Processor (license type)
• Microsoft Server/Management Core—Microsoft Server/Management Core (license type)
• Microsoft User CAL—Microsoft User CAL (license type)
• Named User—Named User (license type)
• Node-Locked—Node Locked (license type)
• OEM—OEM (license type)
• Oracle Application User—Oracle Application User (license type)
• Oracle Legacy—Oracle Legacy (license type)
• Oracle Named User Plus—Oracle Named User Plus (license type)
• Oracle Processor—Oracle Processor (license type)
• Processor—Processor (license type)
• Processor Points—Processor Points (license type)
• Run-Time—Run-Time (license type)
• SaaS User—SaaS User (license type)
• Site—Site (license type)
• Tiered Device—Tiered Device (license type)
• User—User (license type)
7. If required, change the License name field.

Tip:By default, the license is named for the linked application. You may wish to apply a corporate naming convention and add any known conditions of the license.

8. Where available, select a License model from the list.

The following controls may help in selecting the license model:

• Show all bundles: 
• When unselected, displays the license models for product bundles that contain the selected application as primary
• When selected, displays the license models for product bundles that contain the selected application as either primary or supplementary.
• Show only recommended license models: 
• When selected, displays license models that contain the selected application
• When unselected, displays all license models from the application's publisher.

The list displays the following columns:

Column

Details

License model

The name of the licenses model as retrieved from the content library (PURL).

License type

The kind of license which determines what properties are available for the license, and how compliance is calculated for the license. It can have any of the following values:

Device

Appliance

CAL

Client Server

Concurrent User

Core Points

Custom Metric

Device (Core-Limited)

Device (Processor-Limited)

Enterprise

Enterprise Agreement

Evaluation

IBM Authorized User

IBM Concurrent User

IBM Floating User

IBM PVU

IBM RVU

IBM UVU

IBM VPC

Microsoft Device CAL

Microsoft SCCM Client Device

Microsoft SCCM Client User

Microsoft Server Core

Microsoft Server Processor

Microsoft Server/Management Core

Microsoft User CAL

Named User

Node-Locked

OEM

Oracle Application User

Oracle Legacy

Oracle Named User Plus

Oracle Processor

Processor

Processor Points

Run-Time

SaaS User

Site

Tiered Device

User

Bundle

If the license model is covering a product bundle, one of the following values is displayed:

• Yes (Primary) if your Application to license is a primary product on the multi-product license modelled in this row
• Yes (Supplementary) if your chosen application is a supplementary product on the multi-product license model (and therefore, most often, licensed as part of the product bundle at no additional cost)
• No if this license model is for a single product license that cannot cover product bundles.

Bundle name

The license name for the product bundle as reported by the Application Recognition Library. This field is only populated when the Bundle field displays one of its Yes... answers.

Maintenance

Indicates if maintenance is included in the license model.

Tip:A license model defines the product use rights that are added to the license (for example, the second-use, downgrade or upgrade rights). License models and their links to applications are a part of the product use templates from the Product Use Rights Library. Therefore, there are no recommended license models when:

• You have not purchased the appropriate option for IT Asset Management that covers the Product Use Rights Library (PURL) for the publisher of your application (as above, clear the Show only recommended license models check box to see other models from this publisher)
• The particular application is not listed in any Product Use Rights Library (clearing the same check box now shows general models for the selected license type).

If you choose not to select any license model, or the selected model does not meet all of your requirements, you can later edit these details in license properties.

9. Click Create.

IT Asset Management displays the License Properties page for the license, populated with the results of your input so far. You may edit individual properties within any tab of the license properties. Remember to click Save when done.

Available Purchase Properties

If you arrived at the Create a License page as part of processing a purchase, the relevant purchase displays at the top of this page in a list that includes the following columns, some displayed by default and others in the column chooser (and all listed here alphabetically):

Available Purchase Properties

Property

Description

Accepted

If this purchase was processed automatically, this is the date of processing. If the link was created manually through property sheet adjustments, this is the date that the purchase was linked to this license.

Assigned entitlements

The number of entitlements assigned from this purchase to the license. This cannot exceed the Effective quantity shown in the General tab of the purchase properties.

Editable in the Assigned entitlements field in the Licenses tab of the purchase properties.

Tip:The process of creating a new license from a purchase record assumes that this is a purchase of a single license, and therefore defaults the Assigned entitlements to the entire value of the Effective quantity of the purchase. You may, however, edit this to some lower value if you are planning to split the purchased entitlements across several licenses. Just take care that your total assigned to all licenses does not exceed the effective quantity you purchased.

Authorized by

The person who authorized this purchase.

Editable in the Ownership tab of the purchase properties.

Contract description

The name (or brief description) of the contract. This is the contract linked directly to the purchase. (Linking of contracts to the license is separate.)

Editable in the Description field in the General tab of the contract properties.

Contract no.

The identifying code for the contract.

Again, this is displayed from the purchase properties, showing the one contract that is directly linked to the purchase.

Corporate unit, Cost center, or Location

The name of the related enterprise group.

Each named group has been linked directly with the purchase.

Tip: If you want to restrict consumption of license entitlements to those enterprise groups who purchased them, keep in mind that it is the license record, rather than the purchase, that controls consumption. This means that to restrict consumption, you must:

• Create a separate license for each distinct set of enterprise groups, and in the Group assignment tab of the license properties, list the enterprise groups who may consume from each license
• Link purchases made by those same enterprise groups to each license record.

Recording the enterprise groups on this purchase record is an administrative aid, but does not directly affect license consumption.

Current

This column displays Yes when the purchase can have some effect on the license today (at the moment the listing was refreshed).

• If the license is a perpetual license and the purchase type is Software or Not set, the Current column displays Yes because the purchase is able to contribute license entitlements.
• Where the purchase provides only maintenance, or the purchase type is Software subscription, the Current column displays Yes when today's date falls between the relevant Effective date and Expiry date on the purchase properties. These may be the dates in the Maintenance section of the General tab of the license properties; or, if the Purchase type is Software subscription, it is the subscription dates shown in the Purchase details section of the General tab of the purchase properties.
• If the purchase was for perpetual license entitlements plus time-limited maintenance, the Current column displays Yes because the license entitlements are always applicable.

Tip:To find out whether the maintenance is current, display the Current maintenance column on the Purchases tab of the license properties to see the amount that remains current.

Note:The value of Current takes into account the license type, purchase type, and time-related settings. However, it does not take into account the Entitlement status on the Purchases tab of the license properties. In other words, a purchase may be current but disabled, in which case it has no effect on license consumption calculations.

Description

Details of the item purchased.

Editable in the Description field in General tab of the purchase properties (in the Purchase details group).

Effective date

The first date that the purchase can contribute to this license. If the Purchase type is Software subscription, the license is effective/renewed from that date (for the purchased number of entitlements). If the purchase contributes maintenance coverage, it is the first date that the coverage applies.

Tip:If the Entitlement status is Disabled, neither kind of contribution is permitted (look instead for rights or maintenance provided in a separate purchase record created by an import of a Microsoft License Statement).

Editable in the General tab of the purchase properties, when the purchase is for a Software subscription.

Effective quantity

Total number of units acquired with this purchase. Depending on purchase type, these 'units' may be license entitlements, or maintenance coverage for this number of license entitlements.

This value is shown as Effective quantity in the General tab of the purchase properties.

Expiry date

The last date that the purchase can contribute to this license. If the Purchase type is Software subscription, the purchased number of entitlements on this license expire, and cannot be used after that date. If the purchase contributes maintenance coverage, it is the last date that the coverage in this purchase applies. In the normal course of business where you want to continue using the software (or have continuous maintenance coverage), you should look for a different purchase with an Effective date for the day after the Expiry date of this purchase.

Tip: If the Entitlement status is Disabled, neither kind of contribution is permitted (look instead for entitlements or maintenance provided in a separate purchase record created by an import of a Microsoft License Statement).

Editable in the General tab of the purchase properties.

Invoice date

The date recorded on the invoice related to this purchase.

Editable in the Financial tab of the purchase properties.

Invoice number

Identifies the invoice, payment of which completed this purchase.

Editable in the Financial tab of the purchase properties.

Item

The number of this purchase within its related purchase order.

Not editable (reflects the order of data entry for purchases given the same purchase order number).

Item sales tax (currency)

The sales tax (if any) applicable to this purchase.

Editable in the Financial tab of the purchase properties.

Item subtotal (currency)

The value of this purchase excluding tax, shipping, and handling, and displayed in the currency shown in the column header.

Automatically calculated from the purchased quantity and unit price values, set in the purchase properties.

Number of assets

The total number of assets already linked to this purchase.

Not editable.

Number of licenses

The total number of licenses already linked to this purchase.

Not editable.

Part no./SKU

The vendor's code that identifies the purchased item (the Stock Keeping Unit).

This value is added as Part no./SKU in the General tab of the purchase properties.

Processed by

The person who handled data entry for this purchase.

Editable in the Ownership tab of the purchase properties.

Product points

The points Microsoft assigns to this purchase for tracking discounts under your Microsoft Select Agreement.

Editable in the General tab of the purchase properties.

Product pool

The grouping of Microsoft products under your Microsoft Select agreement, used for calculating your appropriate discounts on license purchases.

Editable in the General tab of the purchase properties.

Publisher

The manufacturer of the software that licenses its use to you.

Editable in the General tab of the purchase properties.

Purchase date

The date that goods were ordered.

The Purchase date is recorded when the first purchase from the same purchase order is created. Thereafter it is accessible through the General tab of the purchase properties.

Purchase order no.

The identifying code of the purchase order authorizing the purchase.

Editable in the Purchase order no. field in the General tab of the purchase properties.

Purchase quantity

Number of units of a product in this purchase.

Note:This quantity is not the license quantity for this purchase. It is a unit quantity which may apply to a purchase where a group or pack of entitlements is sold (for example, 10 units of a pack of 5 license entitlements), or to non-license purchases such as maintenance.

The Purchase quantity value is added on the General tab of the purchase properties.

Purchase type

The nature of this purchase, such as software, hardware, maintenance and so on. Determines whether automated processing of the purchase can occur, and whether the purchase can contribute to license entitlements.

Tip:At purchase processing time, when the purchase is linked to a license, the purchase type from a recognized SKU is given priority over this Purchase type set in the purchase properties. It is best practice to keep these two values aligned.

The Purchase type value is selected on the General tab on the purchase properties.

Quantity per unit

The multiplier for the number of individual items included in each purchased unit (relevant for purchases of groups or packs).

The Quantity per unit value is added on the General tab on the purchase properties.

Request date

The date of a purchase requisition or similar request initiating this purchase.

Editable in the Ownership tab of the purchase properties.

Request number

The identifying code for the request that triggered this purchase.

Editable in the Ownership tab of the purchase properties.

Requestor

The person who asked for the item purchased.

Editable in the Ownership tab of the purchase properties.

Shipping and handling (currency)

The shipping and handling costs attributed to this purchase.

The Shipping and handling field is editable in the Financial tab of the purchase properties (under Cost Details).

Shipping date

The date of dispatch from the vendor.

Editable in the Financial tab of the purchase properties.

Shipping location

The destination office receiving the shipment of this purchase.

Editable in the Financial tab of the purchase properties.

Status

Shows the current progress of the purchase through the purchasing process. Values may be:

• Cancelled 
• Completed 
• New 
• Pending 

Tip:These values have no effect on license compliance calculations. If a purchase conveys license entitlements and is linked to a license, the entitlements are counted regardless of this status value. If you intend to cancel a purchase so that it no longer contributes to your license entitlements, be sure to disconnect the purchase from any licenses.

The Status value is selected on the General tab of the purchase properties.

Total price (currency)

The overall cost of this purchase, including tax and shipping.

Read-only calculated value in the Financial tab of the purchase properties.

Unit price (currency)

The cost of an individual item in this purchase (exclusive of taxes and shipping).

Editable in the Financial tab of the purchase properties.

Vendor

The reseller who sold this product.

The Vendor value is editable in the General tab of the purchase properties.