Create licenses and counters for distributed software
Licenses and software counters are associated with the software model and must be created if you want to track the license for software deployed by client software distribution (CSD).
Before you begin
You can create software licenses and counters in Software Asset Management for software items deployed from the service catalog by CSD. CSD depends on the software counter result to determine if the license is available for the requested software. If the license Valuation is greater than 0, and the license type is Not allocated, CSD assumes that the license is available for the software.
Procedure
- Navigate to .
- Add a new software license for the software model you used in CSD.
- Navigate to .
- Create a software counter for the software model you created.
- Run the counter to retrieve the software license information.
Client software distribution ordering process
Software deployed by Client Software Distribution (CSD) can be ordered from the service catalog by individual users or by approved users on behalf of others.
Client Software Distribution catalog items have different options, depending on how ordering is configured.
Lease start and end dates
All software deployed by CSD requires users to specify the beginning date for the lease. This is enforced by the Orchestration - Asset Lease Management plugin that is activated automatically with CSD. The system prepopulates the Lease start field with the current date and time.
If the catalog item is configured for revocation (uninstall), the form displays the Lease end field, which allows the requester to define an end date and time for the lease. The system validates user input in these fields to ensure that the dates selected define a future window. The Lease end field is not mandatory and can be left blank to order software with no end date.
Software offered only to the logged in user
If the software catalog item is configured with the Order on behalf of check box cleared, the User field does not appear on the order form. The logged in user selects the device on which to deploy the software from the Device to install this software on field. Only those devices assigned to the logged in user appear in the list.
In this example, a user has logged into the service catalog to order Firefox for a computer that is assigned to the user. User selects the machine from a list of owned devices and selects the date and time the lease should begin. This software is deployed through Microsoft System Center Configuration Management (SCCM), but does not have an uninstall collection configured and cannot be revoked automatically by the system. As a result, the Lease end field is not available.
Software ordered on behalf of another user
If the software catalog item is configured with the Order on behalf of check box selected, the User field appears on the form. The logged in user can select any user from this field. The Device to install this software on field only lists the devices assigned to the user selected in the User field. If an approval is required for software ordered on behalf of another user, the system automatically sends an approval request to the manager of the user receiving the software. The approval is skipped if the requester is the named user's manager.