SAM Pro: How license type and license metric affect Reconciliation calculations

[Michal Sadowski]

Hi SAM Pro Superstars,

No easy questions for you today, but let's give them a try.

We've started adding software entitlements for end user device software for a client implementing SAM Pro. Reconciliation results are completely unpredictable for anyone who works with this data 🙂

1. Is there any document that makes it clear how License type, License metric and Agreement type on Software entitlement interact with Reconciliation? Docs? NowCreate? NowLearning? Anything?

2. Is there a way to reverse engineer the rules that are in place in OOTB SAM Pro for reconciliation? Script includes and other technical artifacts seem to be Protected...

3. When I enter the entitlement as Perpetual or Perpetual + Maintenance, my installs seem to be licensed. When I enter the entitlement as Maintenance, even if today falls withing Start and End date, installs are unlicensed. Why?

4. How does License metric (Per Device vs Per User vs Per Named User) affect reconciliation? Which location is taken into account for grouping? Is it always the location of the CI? 

5. If I have 6829 installs for a location (DE) that matches the entitlement location (DE), why do I have over 13K licenses required in License Metric Results for this grouping?

See below shifting outcomes for different combinations of License type + License metric for Snagit 2018 by Techsmith, reconciled using OOTB Country group. 

We're trying to provide some guidance to business users who will be entering entitlements into SAM Pro to be able to map from their business records (invoices, contracts, agreements) to SAM Pro definitions.

[Stephen42]

Bump, as I too am looking for answers to this.

-Stephen

[Omeir Yusuf]

1. Check out the attached license entitlement import whitepaper which addresses the various license fields.
2. You can configure reconciliation results based on Software Model install conditions (attached image). It doesn't let you override the logic behind reconciliation at the publisher/metric level, like Microsoft SQL Server minimums for 16 cores per server, but you can exclude environments, CIs, or apply other conditions to alter the reconciliation. 
3. A software maintenance-only record on its own cannot be used to reconcile against installations. You need the underlying perpetual license in the alm_license table for the reconciliation engine to factor it in for calculations. SAM Pro won't treat a maintenance renewal purchase as a sound entitlement, because it isn't one. 
4. I'm not sure how or why a location would factor into these metrics. They should be user/device location agnostic.
   • Per device = Licenses a device for the number of installations of software, regardless of the user(s) accessing it.
   • Per user = Licenses a user for any number of installations of software.
   • Per named user = Licenses a specific user for the number of installations of software. 
5. You may need to use the installation conditions within the Software Model for the reconciliation to factor in the location specifics.

[Annie7]

Hi Omeir, I have one question regarding "SAM Pro won't treat a maintenance renewal purchase as a sound entitlement, because it isn't one." 

How about "Perpetual + Maintenance" license? If I created one "Perpetual + maintenance" license. Do I need split that to "perpetual" and "maintenance" ?

[Omeir Yusuf]

If you use the Perpetual + Maintenance option, you will not need to split them up. Going forward, as you renew the maintenance for the originating perpetual entitlement, you'll only need to create maintenance entitlement records and it will keep the perpetual rights current.