Software models and Software entitlements
Summarize
Summary of Software models and Software entitlements
Software models in ServiceNow represent profiles of purchased software, including publisher details, version, and discovery maps. Software entitlements link these models to the purchased license rights, enabling effective license management. This helps ServiceNow customers track software usage, compliance, and lifecycle phases for better asset management.
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Software Models
Software models store publisher information and allow linking multiple entitlements to a single model. Deleting a software model also removes related downgrade rights records. Models can be created manually or automatically based on software installations. They integrate with Software Product Lifecycle data to track software phases such as General Availability or End of Support, which can be visualized in Technology Portfolio Management timelines.
Software Product Lifecycle and Reporting
The Software Product Lifecycle table tracks lifecycle phases, types, dates, and risk levels for software products. Active lifecycle phases are shown on TPM timelines, while inactive phases are hidden to tailor visibility. The Software Product Lifecycle report informs customers about software nearing end-of-life or support phases, supporting proactive management.
The Software Lifecycle Report consolidates lifecycle phase data to avoid duplication and links software installations with lifecycle stages. It includes key columns such as current and upcoming lifecycle phases, their start dates, and software model owners, helping customers monitor software status and plan accordingly.
Software Entitlements
Software entitlements record license terms and track software rights linked to publisher data. They enable ServiceNow customers to:
- Identify and remediate license overuse by removing unauthorized installations or purchasing more licenses.
- Optimize license purchases by reducing unnecessary future licenses if usage is below entitlement.
Entitlements can be created in workspace or imported in bulk. Importing uses Publisher Part Numbers (PPNs) to match entitlements with existing software models. If PPNs or discovery maps are missing or conflicting, the system can create custom values to maintain data integrity.
Special considerations include:
- Microsoft entitlements with contractual license durations require start and end dates.
- The step-up license type is exclusive to Microsoft products.
Automatic Creation and Maintenance
Software models are automatically generated for software installations when no existing model is found. Customers can replace custom PPNs and discovery maps with official Software Asset Management Content Service values to ensure consistent propagation of updates to entitlements and 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 . 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.
| 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. |
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 the PPN in the Content Service Library and the system finds the existing software model linked to it.
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.
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.