Downgrade Rights
Summarize
Summary of Downgrade Rights
Downgrade rights allow ServiceNow customers to use licenses for earlier versions of software when they have acquired rights for the latest version. This capability is integrated into the Software Asset Management (SAM) plugin and operates at the software model level, enabling effective license management across different software versions.
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Key Features
- Automated Downgrade Rights Management: The SAM content service generates downgrade rights linked to discovery maps. A scheduled weekly job updates the Downgrade Rights tables ([sampdmapdowngrademodel] and [sampswdowngrademodel]) with this data, ensuring synchronization of downgrade rights with software models and entitlements.
- Automatic Software Model Creation: When no software model exists for a discovery map, the system creates one automatically, facilitating comprehensive tracking of downgrade rights.
- Hierarchical Downgrade Rights Listing: Downgrade rights are displayed as a hierarchical list of software versions related to each software model, simplifying visibility and management.
- Non-Deletion but Deactivation Possible: Once recorded, downgrade rights cannot be deleted but can be deactivated, providing control while preserving historical data integrity.
- Cross-Product Downgrade Rights: Supports downgrade rights across different products from the same publisher, useful for managing product renames and transitions (e.g., from Captivate to Illustrator).
- Duplicate Prevention: The system prevents creation of duplicate downgrade rights by checking key fields such as publisher, product, version, edition, platform, language, install conditions, and Named User Type (for SAP products), both during automated jobs and manual entry.
- Handling of Inactive and Existing Duplicates: Attempts to create duplicates with inactive downgrade rights prompt an error suggesting reactivation. Existing duplicates from earlier SAM releases remain unaffected.
- License Metric Compatibility: Downgrade rights apply to all license metrics, ensuring broad applicability.
Practical Benefits
By leveraging downgrade rights, ServiceNow customers can:
- Maintain compliance and optimize license usage by legally using earlier software versions without requiring separate licenses.
- Automate the management and tracking of downgrade rights, reducing administrative overhead.
- Handle product name changes and transitions efficiently by managing downgrade rights across related products.
- Avoid errors and inconsistencies through built-in duplicate checks and controlled deactivation rather than deletion.
The concept of downgrading licenses is built into the Software Asset Management plugin feature. Downgrade rights is the process of having acquired the rights to the latest version of software but using the rights to license earlier versions of the same software.
Downgrade rights are added at the software model level.
The Software Asset Management content service generates downgrade rights. The downgrade rights correspond to a discovery map. A scheduled job, Download software content: Downgrade Rights triggered on a weekly basis, gets the downgrade rights from the Software Asset Management content service and pushes the data to the Downgrade Rights [samp_dmap_downgrade_model] table.
Another scheduled job, SAM- Create downgrades/upgrades for a software entitlement, picks up the information from the [samp_dmap_downgrade_model] table. The table propagates the next version and the downgrade rights on the existing software models and their corresponding entitlements.
If there is no software model corresponding to a discovery map, when populating the Downgrade Rights [samp_sw_downgrade_model] table, a new software model is automatically created.
If the discovery map, corresponding to the software model, has downgrade rights, the Downgrade Rights related list is automatically populated with a hierarchical list of downgraded versions of the software.
Once downgrade rights are created and saved in the Downgrade Rights tables, [samp_sw_downgrade_model] and [samp_downgrade_model], the downgrade rights can't be deleted. However, you can deactivate the downgrade rights.
If you delete a software model, all records corresponding to the software model in the Downgrade Rights [samp_sw_downgrade_model] table are automatically deleted.
Downgrade rights are supported across products for the same publisher, which helps in effectively managing product name changes. When a product is renamed, it's treated as two products. For example, if the product Captivate is renamed to Illustrator, both Captivate and Illustrator are considered distinct products. You can manually add software model downgrade rights from Illustrator to Captivate either in the software model form or in the software entitlement form.
- Publisher
- Product
- Version condition
- Version
- Edition condition
- Edition
- Platform
- Language
- Software install condition
- Named User Type- is displayed only for SAP products.
If you already have duplicate downgrade rights from previous Software Asset Management Professional releases, then those duplicate downgrade rights aren't modified or deleted.
If you try to create a duplicate downgrade right for an inactive downgrade right, an error message appears. The error message informs you that an inactive downgrade right exists and you can reactivate it.
Downgrade support is available for all license metrics.