What is a software product
Overview
A software product represents a single version of a specific application and contains all relevant settings that define how compliance accounting is automated.
The Software Compliance report includes all software products that you have added to reporting and provides the license balance for these products.
With the help of licenses, a company can prove its compliance (adherence to laws and guidelines). This is important, for example, when an audit is carried out. During an audit, the licensor can require the customer to perform an internal, or if necessary, external audit of all license products used throughout the customer's organization, comparing the number of products used with the number of valid licenses issued. Matrix42 License Management offers features that help you manage the compliance.
Matrix42 License Management provides the following pre-defined structure for software products:
- All: All software products that have been created in Matrix42 License Management.
- Reported: Software products that are included in compliance reporting.
- Relevant: Software products that are either licensed or installed.
- Templates: Software products that are neither included in compliance reporting nor licensed/installed.
Company codes
Software products are organized by company codes. Company codes are distinct containers for separate compliance accounting with a complete, self-contained set of software products to be managed, controlled and reported. This includes all technical data about deployed software and records about purchased licenses. Although company codes are meant for compliance accounting only, they share all other information within the system, e.g., computers, persons, cost centers, etc.
Company codes are specified for organizational units. By default, Global is the only predefined company code that cannot be removed. If required, it is possible to define additional company codes for other organizational units. You usually create a company code for each legally independent department in the company. You can create or remove company codes in the Master Data application under Organization Structure > Organizational Units.
For more information on using company codes, please refer to:
License models
The license model specified on the General tab of a software product dialog is used when the system creates license requirements automatically, e.g., from installed applications and AD groups. Later the license model of the created license requirements can be changed at any time via the Set License Model action.
When you create a new software product manually, you can select a default license model from all available license models. The selected license model will be added to the list of relevant license models automatically. However, when you change the license model of an existing software product by using the Set License Model action, selection is filtered to include only relevant license models. If the required license model is not available, you need to add it to the list of relevant license models prior to making changes.
Relevant license models are set on the License Models tab. These are the license models that are eligible for entitlements of the software product. When you select a license model for a license requirement or license in the context of a software product, the system displays this filtered list of relevant models. This helps you choose the right license model from the growing number of supported ones.
The list of relevant license models is filled automatically from following sources:
- License models that are currently used for the selected software product according to License Intelligence Service.
- The default license model that is specified in the LIS software template.
If required, any other license model can be added manually.
How to create software products
You have three ways of adding software products to the system.
- Use predefined software products provided by License Intelligence Service (LIS)
- Import from a flat file
- Create manually
Recommended way is the first option. It is possible to mix these options as needed.
For additional information about software products, please refer to: