Entitlements for support - best practice

[G4P3]

We have some vendors from which we purchase only support. These entitlements have no metric (it's just support for 1 year, for example). As for now, if the support is tied to a perpetual license we create an entitlement with License Type: Perpetual + Maintenance. However, sometimes we need to create a support agreement separated from entitlements (which we will then be tied to related entitlement), but even when we choose Maintenance, it still requires us to pick a metric.

For example: a support agreement that covers a platform that was built for us (so, not installed on any machine and thus a non-measurable. Also, not SaaS). Another example: we have perpetual licenses for different versions of the same software, and to these we have a separate support agreement with the vendor renewed yearly.

Should this be set up with a custom metric, or as a contract, or as an unlimited license, or something else? What's the leading practice recommended by ServiceNow for tracking these recurrent costs?

I have checked the White Papers, Gorilla Guide, YouTube, this forum, anywhere, without a clear answer.

[MercBuilding · Accepted solution]

Hi @G4P3 ,

   It entirely depends on how you want to manage those licenses.

1. If you want to see them appear on a workbench then create a perpetual+support entitlement and in the asset tag mention it as 'Support' and give unlimited  license, license metric as per user. With this approach it will be shown as compliant always as they are not getting discovered.

2. If you just want to track it in the system and if you are already maintaining the contracts in Servicenow then create a contract entry and attach all the required documents.

Generally Servicenow doesnt suggests anything at this level in any docs,  its upto us on how we want to manage those licenses.

Hope this helps!