Allow users to view spm_service_portfolio records = licensing issue?

[Johnathan R]

I know these answers are always 'contact your account rep'. Well I did but I'm not 100% solid on the response.

We are only licensed for ITSM Pro, no ITBM Suite or any of that. 

We do however have our Portfolio records created in spm_service_portfolio, and tie our Business Apps to them. The thinking being if we use this table - and then buy the full SPM module in the future, our data is already in the right place. 

Normal business users will submit requests for a new business application via catalog item, and one of the fields we present is 'Portfolio' which references spm_service_portfolio. Users cannot see records in this table however itil users can (itil inherits portfolio_viewer role via the event_operator role -- a bit odd)

I want to open up spm_service_portfolio for records to be visible to all users via ACL. I'm told if I do this I will trigger the use of the SPM licenses. 

Does this sound right? Allowing business users to select a portfolio record in a list - means I will get charged for a full module? The only interaction with this table is read-only, and only the name of the portfolio. 

[Mark Manders]

It doesn't matter. Any access to a record that is licensed will mean the user is licensed. And no, that doesn't sound right, but it is what it is. And you started out your question correctly: contact your account rep. They will not change their answer by you showing a community post where people tell you it's not correct nor will such answers be a valid reason for just not pay the license if ServiceNow comes to your door with a bill.

Money is made through the license models, so if they can, they will collect. By the way, SPM has nothing to do with ITBM. It's part of the ITSM SKU's: 

https://docs.servicenow.com/bundle/washingtondc-it-service-management/page/product/service-portfolio...

https://docs.servicenow.com/bundle/washingtondc-it-service-management/page/product/service-portfolio...