Administration Guide

Managing Software License Policy lookup list

Software License Policy is a software license's property that controls how Alloy Navigator checks its licensing compliance. This article lists and explains system software license policies and describes how to create new ones.

INFO: For details on how to create Software License records, see How-to: Configuring Software Licenses.

Alloy Navigator provides the following standard system policies:

  • Per Installation — This policy states that respective software requires one license entitlement per every installation. The license remains compliant as long as the number of software installations does not exceed the number of allowed installations. This policy is applied by default for all newly created licenses.

  • Named Computer — This policy states that respective software can be installed only on certain computers. The license remains compliant as long as the software product is installed only on specific computers and the number of software installations does not exceed the number of allowed installations.

  • Site License — This policy states that respective software can be installed within a particular location and/or organization only. The license remains compliant as long as there are no installations detected outside the specified location or organization and the number of software installations does not exceed the number of allowed installations.

    NOTE: Site licenses must have at least one "Restriction by Organization" or "Restriction by Location" compliance rule specified. Otherwise, they would appear as non-compliant.

  • No License Required — This policy states that no license is required for the software. Any license with this policy is always compliant. You may want to use this policy to temporary pause checking licensing compliance for a software product.

  • Per User — This policy states that respective software is licensed on a per user basis. This type of policy is frequently used for single user licenses, that typically can be installed on multiple computers. This license remains compliant as long as the number of the device owners does not exceed the allowed number of users.

If needed, you can rename system policies or create new policies and use them in the Software License workflow as you need.

INFO: For details, see Workflow Management.

Software License policy have a Tracking attribute. Trackingdefines how Alloy Navigator tracks a license's usage:

  • By Device — Tells Alloy Navigator to track the number of devices (computers and hardware devices) to which the license is allocated.

    The license remains in compliance as long as the total number of used devices does not exceed the License Quantity. License usage tally is displayed in the Summary section of the Software License details window.

    For illustration, see the image below and How-to: Software licensing compliance integration).

  • By Device Owner — Specifies that Alloy Navigator tracks the number of unique owners of the devices (computers and hardware devices) to which the license is allocated. The license remains in compliance as long as the total number of unique users does not exceed the License Quantity.

    For example, a software license with License Quantity: 3 is allocated to four different devices. Two of those devices belong to the same user, and the other two devices — to other users (total of 3 unique users). This license is compliant, and the Summary sections displays Used: 3.

  • By User — Tells Alloy Navigator to track the number of users to whom the license is allocated, and determines usage and compliance of the license based on that number. License usage tally is displayed in the Summary section of the Software License details window (see the image below).

    IMPORTANT: The licenses covered by "tracking by user" policy are excluded from the auto-allocation process and can be allocated to users only manually. You can not switch between "tracking by user" and "tracking by device" policies when the license is already allocated. To switch tracking policy you must first deallocate the license.

  • None — Indicates that Alloy Navigator does not calculate the license usage tally. The compliance status for the license will depend only on expiration date of the license and other restriction rules, if specified.

INFO: For details, see How to Monitor Software Licensing Compliance.

For illustration, see how Alloy Navigator shows license summary for "tracking by device/device owner" policies (left), "tracking by user" policy (center), and a "no tracking" policy (right).

To add a new licensing policy:

  1. From the Sidebar, navigate to software licensing policies: Workflow and Business Logic > Software Asset Management > Software Licenses > Classification > License Policy.

  2. Click New. The New Software License Policy dialog box opens.

  3. Specify the name of the software license policy in the License Policy field.

  4. By default, license usage tracking is turned on. If you want to disable usage tracking, select None in the Tracking drop-down list.

  5. You may want to filter out some policies when displaying the drop-down list with policies to technicians as they perform certain steps within a workflow process. In this case, tag the list item: click Manage in the Tags section and create a list of tags associated with this item.

    INFO: For details, see Tagging List Items.

  6. Click OK.