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Allocating Software Licenses

Updated in 2022.1

Once you have organized Tracked Software and Software License records, allocate your software licenses to computers and hardware devices. This will help you determine the areas where your company is over-licensed or under-licensed.

When the Alloy Discovery Connector imports audit snapshots to Alloy Navigator, it compares data from discovered installations in audit snapshots with existing Software License records in Alloy Navigator and automatically allocate licenses to computers. However, you can always adjust license allocations manually.

Auto-allocation

Each time the Alloy Discovery Synchronization job synchronization runs, the Discovery Connector attempts to match data from discovered installations in audit snapshots to existing Software License records.

If a positive match is detected, the license becomes auto-allocated to the corresponding computer. If there is no positive match, the Discovery Connector associates the computer with the main license for that software product, if the main license exists. If there is no main license, the discovered installation becomes "unreconciled" and requires manual allocation.

ClosedClick here to view how the auto-allocation works for each discovered installation.

  1. Serial Number — the Discovery Connector checks the serial number specified in the Serial Num field in existing Software Licenses. If a positive match is detected, the license becomes auto-allocated to the corresponding computer. If there are several licenses with a positive match, the first license (sorted alphabetically by license name) will be used.

NOTE: If there are several licenses with a matching Serial Number and one of them has a matching Installation Key, the Discovery Connector associates the computer with that license.

Otherwise, the subsequent rules are applied.

  1. Installation Key — the Discovery Connector checks the installation key specified in the Install Key field in existing Software Licenses. If a positive match is detected, the license becomes auto-allocated to the corresponding computer. If there are several licenses with a positive match, the first license (sorted alphabetically by license name) will be used.

Otherwise, the subsequent rules are applied.

  1. Device, Organization, Location:

    • Device Name — the Discovery Connector attempts to match the computer name from the snapshot to the computer names specified in the Restriction by Device Name restriction rules in existing Software Licenses for that software product.

    • Device Owner — the Discovery Connector attempts to match the user name from the snapshot with the names of persons specified in the Restriction by Device Owner restriction rules in existing Software Licenses for that software product.

    • Organization — the Discovery Connector attempts to match the user’s department from the snapshot to the Organization value specified in existing licenses for that software product. If the license has a Restriction by Organization rule with the Restrict Software License by its Organization and its sub-organizations option, the Discovery Connector checks whether the department from the snapshot satisfies that rule.

    • Location — the Discovery Connector attempts to match the office location from the snapshot to the Location value specified in existing licenses for that software product. If the license has a Restriction by Location rule with the Restrict Software License by its Location and its sub-locations option, the Discovery Connector checks whether the location from the snapshot satisfies that rule.

The Discovery Connector attempts to match the above-listed values in the following order:

    1. Device Name AND Organization AND Location

    2. Device Name AND Organization

    3. Device Name AND Location

    4. Device Name

    5. Device Owner AND Organization AND Location

    6. Device Owner AND Organization

    7. Device Owner AND Location

    8. Device Owner

If a positive match is detected, the license becomes auto-allocated to the corresponding computer. If there are several licenses with a positive match, the first license (sorted alphabetically by license name) will be used.

Otherwise, the subsequent rule is applied.

  1. Organization, Location — If there is no restriction on the Device value, the Discovery Connector compares the Organization and Location values in the following order:

    1. Organization AND Location

    2. Organization

    3. Location

  2. Master License — If none of the above rules are matched, the Discovery Connector associates the computer with the main license for that software product, if the master license exists.

    NOTE: The main license has the Main License check box selected. For details, see Marking a Software License as main.

    When there is no main license, the discovered installation becomes “unreconciled” and requires manual allocation.

    NOTE: The licenses covered by the "tracking by user" policy are not included into auto allocation. For details, see Managing License Policies.

Manual allocation

You may want to manually allocate licenses to specific computers, specific users, or you may need to adjust the results of automatic license allocation. In certain situations you may need to allocate a license to a hardware device, such as a cell phone or network router. In this case you must use manual allocation.

You can manually allocate a license to specific users from the following locations:

There are several methods of allocating Software Licenses to Computers and Hardware Devices:

Related Information:

Deallocating Software Licenses

Marking a Software License as main

Related Information for Administrators:

Integration with Alloy Discovery