Software models and Software entitlements

  • Release version: Xanadu
  • Updated August 1, 2024
  • 4 minutes to read
    • Summarize
    Summarized using AI
    This content was generated using new OpenAI-powered functionality. Results are provided on an as is basis and are not guaranteed to be accurate or complete.

    Summary of Software models and Software entitlements

    This documentation explains how ServiceNow Software Asset Management (SAM) uses software models and software entitlements to manage software licensing and lifecycle effectively. Software models define profiles of purchased software, including publisher and version details, while software entitlements track the rights and licenses associated with those software models.

    Show full answer Show less

    Software Models

    Software models capture publisher information and create a detailed profile of software products. Multiple entitlements can be linked to a single software model. Deleting a software model also removes associated downgrade rights records automatically. Software models can be created manually or automatically through discovery processes.

    Software Product Lifecycle Management

    The Software Product Lifecycle feature enables tracking of software lifecycle phases (such as General Availability, End of Support) within Technology Portfolio Management. Lifecycle phases are stored in the samswproductlifecycle table, which includes details like lifecycle type, version, phase start dates, and risk levels. You can control which lifecycle phases appear on the TPM timeline by toggling the Active status.

    The Software Lifecycle Report consolidates lifecycle phase data to avoid duplicate counts of software installations across phases. It includes new columns such as current phase, current phase start date, upcoming phase, upcoming phase start date, and the software owner, helping you monitor software approaching end-of-life or support dates.

    Software Entitlements

    Software entitlements document the license terms and rights purchased for software. They allow you to:

    • Identify and rectify license overuse by removing unauthorized installations or acquiring more licenses.
    • Optimize license procurement by reducing unused licenses.

    For example, if a license entitlement covers 100 users but Discovery finds 200 installations, you can pinpoint unlicensed usage and remediate accordingly.

    Importing and Managing Software Entitlements

    You can import software entitlements in bulk. When a Publisher Part Number (PPN) is included, it is matched against the Content Service Library to automatically create corresponding software models. If the PPN is missing or conflicts during import, ServiceNow can create custom PPNs or discovery maps to maintain accurate software identification.

    Special considerations apply for Microsoft entitlements, such as requiring start and end dates for contractual licenses and limiting certain license types exclusively to Microsoft products.

    Automatic Software Model Creation and Custom PPNs

    Software models are automatically generated when new software installations are discovered and no existing model matches. You are encouraged to replace custom PPNs and discovery maps with those from the Software Asset Management Content Service to ensure consistency and propagate updates effectively across entitlements and software models.

    A software model is a profile of the software that you've purchased, including information about the publisher, version, and discovery map. Software entitlements are used to relate the software model to the rights that you've purchased.

    Software models

    Software models are used to record publisher information and create a profile. You can link multiple entitlements to one software model.

    If you delete a software model, all records related to the software model, in the Downgrade Rights [samp_sw_downgrade_model and samp_downgrade_model] tables, are automatically deleted. For detailed information on downgrade rights, see Downgrade Rights.

    For details on manually creating software models, see Create software models in workspace. For details on automatic creation of software models, see Automatic creation of software models.

    Software Product Lifecycle report

    You can also track a software lifecycle phase for use with the Technology Portfolio Management.

    The Software Product Lifecycle [sam_sw_product_lifecycle] table holds the information of the software product, its lifecycle type (internal or external), full version, lifecycle phases, start date of the phase, and the risk.

    The Content active column in the Software Product lifecycle [sam_sw_product_lifecycle] table is set to the value true by the Software Asset Management content service if the lifecycle records are valid. If you do not want a lifecycle phase to be rendered on the Technology Portfolio Management (TPM) timeline, then set the Active column to false. For example, you can have General Availability, End of Extended Support, and End of Support lifecycle phases as three records for Oracle DB Server software model in the Software Product Lifecycles list. However, if you do not want General Availability phase to be shown on the timeline, you can clear the Active check box in the Software Product Lifecycle form for that lifecycle phase record. As a result, the timeline starts with the End of Support phase. Although the lifecycle phase record exists for the software product lifecycle, the lifecycle data will not be rendered on the timeline. Because only active lifecycle records are considered and plotted in the TPM timeline.

    View the Software Product Lifecycle report to be informed about the products nearing end-of-life, end-of-support, and end-of-extended support. View the report by navigating to Reports > View/Run. The report is based on the scheduled job, SAM - Generate Data For Software Lifecycle Report.

    Software Lifecycle Report

    The Software Lifecycle Report [sam_sw_product_lifecycle_report] table calculates the current and upcoming lifecycle phases from the lifecycle phases mentioned in the Software Product Lifecycle [sam_sw_product_lifecyle] table.

    For records with the same publisher, product, version, full version, and edition, there's a single record for different lifecycle phases. This helps in avoiding duplicate software installation count for each lifecycle phase. You can export lifecycles from the Software Installation [cmdb-sam-sw-install] table. The software installation records are linked to lifecycles via the Installs associated to lifecycle column in the Software Installation [cmdb-sam-sw-install] table.

    Five new columns have been added to Software Lifecycle Report [sam_sw_product_lifecycle_report] table:
    Table 1. New columns in the Software Lifecycle Report table
    New column label and name Description
    Current phase [current_lifecycle_phase] The lifecycle phase that is currently underway.
    Current lifecycle phase start date [current_lifecycle_phase_start_date] The start date of the current lifecycle phase.
    Upcoming lifecycle phase [upcoming_lifecycle_phase] The lifecyle phase that is soon coming up.
    Upcoming lifecycle phase start date [upcoming_lifecycle_phase_start_date] The start date of the upcoming lifecycle phase.
    Owners [owners] The person responsible for the software model.
    Note:
    The lifecycle phase column is removed from the Software Lifecycle Report [sam_sw_product_lifecycle_report] table.

    Software entitlements

    To track the software rights for your software, create a software entitlement that can be linked back to the publisher information.

    A software entitlement records the terms of your software license. By using software entitlements, you can:

    • Rapidly address if license allotment has been exceeded and return to compliant status by removing unauthorized software or ordering more licenses.
    • If the license allotment is not being used completely, lower the number of future licenses purchased.

    For example, a company purchases a software entitlement for 100 rights. From the software entitlement, 100 employee or machine allocations are created that are rightfully assigned a license. If Discovery finds the software installed on 200 machines, the software asset manager must identify the employees or machines that have the software installed without a license, and remediate the situation.

    For details on creating software entitlements, see Create entitlements in workspace.

    Import software entitlements

    You can import bulk software entitlements at one go.

    If a Publisher Part Number (PPN) is specified for the entitlements that you import, the PPN is matched to PPN in the Content Service Library and the data is used to create a software model automatically.

    Note:
    If a Publisher Part Number not found error occurs during import of the software entitlement (product, publisher, version, edition, platform, and language) but a discovery map is found, then a custom publisher part number is automatically created. If a discovery map is not found, you can create a discovery map to be associated with the publisher part number.

    If the import spreadsheet contains a conflicting (or missing) PPN, the PPN value is set to the value in the existing product definition, when available.

    Note:
    If you import a batch of Microsoft entitlements and the License Duration field is set to Contractual, you must specify both a start and end date.

    The step-up license type is only available if the publisher is Microsoft. If you try to specify another publisher, an error message is displayed.