How to trigger remediation option and reclamation candidates for unlicensed installs?

Claire Ashdown2 · yesterday

I am testing with a product that has some test unlicensed installs in a non-Production lane. There are 9 cmdb_sam_sw_install records. I have made sure the discovery models are fully normalized. I created a software model for the appropriate publisher/product (no version/edition information, keeping it generic for now) and ran publisher-specific reconciliation, but the results in the Software Asset workspace are not displaying as I would expect. When I look at the backend samp_product_result record, I see the 9 records under the "Unlicensed Installs" tab. However, in the Software Asset workspace, when I click into the product result for that reconciliation, under "Unlicensed entities" I see 0 for "Unlicensed installs" and 9 for "Installs requiring action". In all 9 cases, the action is "No applicable software entitlement". However that is correct for this software model, I do not want an entitlement for it. I want the remediation option to show up for unlicensed installs so I can generate reclamation candidates for them. There are no available remediation options under the "Remediation options" tab. Does anyone know why this is happening, and how to have remediation options to generate reclamation show up for these 9 unlicensed installs that I do not want to create an entitlement for?

Matthew_13 · yesterday

Hi Buddy,

What you’re seeing is actually expected behavior in SAM Pro, even though it feels a bit counter-intuitive.

In SAM Pro, reclamation is entitlement-driven, not install driven. Since this software model has no entitlements at all, ServiceNow treats those installs as a coverage gap, not something that can be reclaimed. From SAM’s point of view, uninstalling them wouldn’t “return” any license capacity, so it doesn’t surface remediation or reclamation options.

That’s why you see:

The 9 installs listed as unlicensed in the backend product result
But in the workspace they show as Installs requiring action with “No applicable software entitlement”
And no remediation options available

You’re not missing a setting — this is just how the remediation logic works.

If your goal is to generate reclamation candidates, the usual workaround is to create a small placeholder entitlement for that software model (even just one). That gives SAM something to reconcile against, which then allows over-deployment and reclamation actions to appear.

If you don’t want to create any entitlement at all, then SAM isn’t really the right tool for uninstall explain remediation in this case — you’d need to handle cleanup through endpoint/UEM tooling instead.

Basically:
No entitlement = no reclamation, by design.

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Claire Ashdown2 · 13 hours ago

Yes, it did. Please don't double tag me on posts though, especially only 8 hours apart. My work day had ended by the time you posted, and this was the soonest I could look at your first reply.