Downgrade Rights

IT Asset Management (Cloud)

A downgrade right means that the license allows you to continue using a previous version of the product after a licensed upgrade is installed.

Note: This accordion is displayed only when a license has at least one product linked to it. For multi-product licenses and Microsoft CALs, the upgrade and downgrade rights can be set through the Product use rights pop up (see Configure Product Use Rights). This accordion is not displayed for SAP Named User, SAP Package, Microsoft User CAL, Microsoft Device CAL licenses, or where it is not relevant.

Variations

Carefully read your license agreement, and any applicable contract (purchasing agreement or support agreement), as the meaning of a 'downgrade right' varies across products and publishers. Some varieties include;

• Backward compatibility model. To protect from possible backward compatibility problems, some publishers permit the licensed release and an earlier release to be installed simultaneously on the same computer for use by the same user. The two installations of the product will consume only one entitlement. In this model, the use of different releases on separate computers by different users is often specifically or implicitly excluded — each such use will require a separate license entitlement. This model commonly occurs when you purchase a separate upgrade license. You may need to also adjust the Right of Multiple Use settings.

  Example: Early licenses for Adobe Photoshop.

• License aggregation model. Usually only under purchasing agreements, some publishers allow the one, current license to cover installations of the current release on some of the computer fleet, and installations of earlier releases on separate computers. Usually in this model, each computer may have only one installation of the product (regardless of which release). If the agreement specifically excludes multiple installations, you may also need to adjust the Right of Multiple Use settings.

  Example: See the terms of the Microsoft Select License and Select Plus agreements.

Restrictions

• For Custom Metric, IBM Concurrent User, and IBM Floating User licenses, these controls are purely for your record keeping and do not impact any calculations.
• For IBM PVU licenses, these properties have no effect on the PVU counts imported from ILMT. However, if a computer is reported in inventory from another source and not matched by a record imported from ILMT, IT Asset Management performs its own calculations of license consumption on that computer. In this latter case, the following controls are taken into account.

Controls

This license does not have contracts with downgrade rights

This label indicates that this license has no linked contract attached to it that has applicable downgrade rights. Downgrade rights can be inherited from a contract, or specified in this section. This label appears when the contract attached to this license has no downgrade rights. See Contracts Tab.

Inherit downgrade rights from contract

Indicates the name of the linked contract from which this license can inherit license consumption rules and rights. When you select this check box, you instruct IT Asset Management to dynamically inherit license use rights and rules from an automatically-selected linked contract. If a license is linked to multiple contracts, the license inherits use rights and rules from one of the linked contracts based on the following conditions:

• If one of the linked contracts has a value Yes for the Evergreen field, its use rights and rules are inherited by the license.
• If none of the linked contracts has a value Yes for the Evergreen field, the license inherits use rights and rules from the contract that has a greater value for the Expiry date field.
• If none of the linked contracts has a value Yes for the Evergreen field, and all of the linked contracts have same value for the Expiry date field, the license inherits use rights and rules from the contract that appears first in database order (normally the contract record that was created first).
• If all of the linked contracts have a value Yes for the Evergreen field, or all of the linked contracts have same expiry date, the license inherits use rights and rules from the contract that appears first in database order.
  Note: You cannot use other rights options when you select this check box.

No downgrade rights

Choose this option when you do not have a downgrade right (for example, software packages that were purchased through a retail channel, or a license outside a support agreement). This means that every application version must be separately licensed.

Support downgrades from most recent application

Select this option when the license allows a downgrade right. This reveals the following additional controls.

Downgrade to version

Choose one of the following values:

• Any Version allows downgrades without limit.
• Not Allowed prohibits downgrades across versions (you may wish to allow them across editions, but not versions).
• Other options may appear, listing other versions of the same product from the same publisher. By default these are listed from the latest version to the oldest, as determined by the Application Recognition Library. If you choose one of these versions, it is the earliest one to which you are allowed to downgrade under your current license.

Downgrade to edition

Choose one of the following values:

• Any Edition allows downgrades without limit.
• Not Allowed prohibits downgrades across editions (you may wish to allow them across versions, but not editions).
• Other options may appear, listing other editions of the same product from the same publisher. By default these are listed from the greatest edition to the least capable, as determined by the Application Recognition Library. If you select one of these editions, it is the least capable edition to which you are allowed to downgrade under your current license.

Note: You cannot set both Downgrade to version and Downgrade to edition to Not Allowed. If neither is allowed, set the radio button for No downgrade rights. You cannot track the changes made to downgrade rights.