SAM Pro: How does grouping reconciliation results by Country work + ACL question

[Michal Sadowski]

Hi SAM Superheroes,

Two related questions:

1. 

I'm in the SAM Pro implementation where grouping reconciliation data by Country is likely to be important. I know there is a system property: com.snc.samp.recon.group that I can set to Country.

But what data point will it use for this grouping? 

There isn't a country field on cmdb_ci_computer, ssoftware installation or software entitlement. What exactly then is the basis for this grouping?

2. 

Can reconciliation grouping (by Country, Company, etc) become the basis for reconciliation results visibility in OOB software asset manager interfaces, e.g. if we apply custom ACLs? The initial expectation is for software asset managers on a country or company level to only see data (e.g. reconciliation results) for their Country...  

[Daniel Slocum · Accepted solution]

Hello Michal,

1. All grouping methods, department, country, etc are driven by two data elements. First, the SW Entitlement must have that value set. Second, the corresponding value on the CI must be present. In your use case, you've identified reconciliation grouping by Country.  You can run reconciliation ad hoc by country or you can set the system property com.snc.samp.recon.group to Country, which will group recon by country every time the scheduled reconciliation job executes.   For any Asset where there is an "Assigned to" value set within the UI, there is a Client Script that will automatically update the location to that of the Assigned to User provided the sys_user record for that user has a location.  Similarly, if an Asset's Assigned To is updated via Flow or other automation, the "Update location as needed" Business rule will update the location value.  Synchronization jobs between Asset and CI records will carry the update to the CI. Converse rules also apply to keep the Location value up to date if value changes originate on the CI record as does automation when the Asset is set to "In Stock" causing the location to change to the Stock Room location. 

Ultimately, it boils down to a match between the Country value tied to the chosen location on the SW Entitlement being matched to the Country value of the Location value of the "Installed on" device for the SW Installation record.

2. I've not seen a customer walk this path but it might be possible. The output of the reconciliation by Group writes values on the Product Results table into Group company, Group cost center, Group country, Group department, or Group region attributes depending on the group chosen at the time of recon execution. That value might be leveraged in an ACL to manage visibility. Drilling down into the SW Model result will likely require use of the group_table and group_id values in your ACL.

[Michal Sadowski]

Thank you @Daniel Slocum. Very useful! 

[Daniel Slocum]

You are welcome. It's an interesting use case. 

[dreinhardt]

@Michal Sadowski 

Have a look to the latest release notes about Utah, there is a feature may cover your use case

Combined Software Asset Management release notes for upgrades from Tokyo to Utah (servicenow.com)

Reconcile licenses across global entities
Use consumption rules to enable your organization to share entitlements across different entities such as cost centers or departments. Reconciliation grouping enables reporting on license position by ownership. You can also use allocations to override applied consumption rules. Allocations enable software asset managers with the additional flexibility and control over how rights are shared and used.

@Daniel Slocum

The described use case by Michal is one of the first questions that customer ask when showing the reconciliation results. Probably because customers switched from FNMS to SAMP and really appreciated this feature there 🙂