can we really exclude entitlements from reconciliation

[amitkishore]

Hi Team,

I have a requirement to exclude entitlements from reconciliation. I am wondering how can i manage it with OOB feature. 

Any pointer to this will really great help

Regards,

Amit

[amitkishore]

Hi Rohit, 

sorry for asking in vague way , but the "Second" is my question. as of now.

Is there an alternative - where you still want to track both entitlements (linked to the same software model) - but only want one of them to be included in the reconciliation statistics/dashboards?

kindly assist

Regards,

Amit

[Rohit Lobo]

ChrisK, Amit,

yes it will exclude the entire software model and all the entitlements associated with it from reconciliation. The flag essentially indicates your intent to manage or not manage licenses for that software.

Can you tell me more about your use case here and I can see if there is a way to get you there "where you still want to track both entitlements (linked to the same software model) - but only want one of them to be included in the reconciliation statistics/dashboards"?

- what is the business purpose of tracking both entitlement assets and excluding one of them from reconciliation?

- what do you mean by tracking - is it just visibility to the entitlement and the license metric results on the dashboard or some other report? if so, which one?

- what's the difference between these 2 entitlements?

[ChrisK3]

Hi Rohit,

Here's a typical Use case scenario for wanting to exclude an entitlement from a reconciliation.

Scenario:

1. Purchased 100 licences for product P1. These licences are for software that resides on a Network N1 .

2. Purchased 5 licences for product P1. These licences are for software that reside on Network N2.

Both licences (100+5) relate to the same Product, hence same Software Model.

I want to a single inventory of licences, hence both entitlements are loaded into ServiceNow.

Network N1 has its installs discovered, and I want to see reconciliation on the 100 licences.

Network N2 has no ServiceNow discovery,  this network N2 reconciliation is handled manually.

Hence, for example, if I have 101 installs on network N1, if the 5 licences for N2 are not excluded, ServiceNow will 'think' 101 installs for 105 licences - then all ok - but ServiceNow has no knowledge of the 5 licences used in a different network.

Hope this explains  - the situation is slightly more complex, but the above scenario is an example.

thanks, ChrisK

[Rohit Lobo · Accepted solution]

Option 1:Can you use the 'Install conditions' on the software model to separate installs on networks N1 and N2? Look for some install condition parameter that allows you to do this.

If yes, you can create 2 software models - one for N1 with install conditions that only pulls up the software installed on N1 and another software model for N2 with install conditions that only pulls up the software installed on N2. Associate your respective entitlements to each software model and uncheck the license under management for the N2 software model.

Ideally you want to manage all your software in SAM, as a single source of truth for your license position. If audited by your vendor you won't have to manually compile your license position for N2 and also you have visibility for over/under licensing and opportunities to save money. This brings me to option 2.

Option 2: for N2, even if you don't run discovery you can manually import the installs. with that you will have visibility to both the installs and the licenses and don't need to manually reconcile them. You can post in the discovery forum for best practices on creating these install records. 

I know I'm over simplifying this as your scenario is more complex than this, but the principles illustrated above should work.

[amitkishore]

Lot of thanks Rohit! This really helped.