Efficient use of Application Licenses

Note that Licensing is associated with ConfigMgr sites, so in a multi-site hierarchy license, pools can be defined globally or for individual ConfigMgr sites, (useful if the customer's software procurement model matches the ConfigMgr hierarchy).

This will associate the XML Notepad Application in Shopping with the XML Notepad 2007 inventoried program in ConfigMgr, allowing Shopping to determine how many instances of the Application are already installed.

Check the option Define Licensing for Site [All Sites]

Note that Shopping does not synchronize with ConfigMgr Inventory, and using the Prefill process simply sets the initial value based on what has been reported to ConfigMgr at the time you click the button.

The Threshold (%) value defines when the license manager should be notified that available licenses are running low. For example, if there are 100 licenses available for an Application and this threshold is set to 70%, the license manager will receive a notification once 70 installs have occurred and the Application is next requested.

Max Licenses represents the total number of purchased licenses for this Application. Therefore, available licenses = Max Licenses – License Count.

By default, license notification emails will go to the 'global' License Manager defined during the Shopping Central installation (LicenseManager@1etrn.local in this lab). An additional license manager (or Distribution List) can be defined in the Manager Email property for each Application.

If you don't see the application, check the user you are logged in with!

If you don't see the request for XML Notepad, refresh your browser.

DO NOT approve the Microsoft Project request! The email will be in the inbox.

This email has been sent because there is now 1 less license from the pool of licenses, and the threshold of 65% has been met. The License Manager will get a similar notification for each approved request for the application until either the Max Licenses is increased or all licenses are used up in which case the License Manager will get a License Count Exceeded notification, as observed in the next Task.

This simulates the scenario where all available licenses have been used.

As far as the requesting user is concerned, the request is simply pending approval. It will be auto rejected in 10 days. Hence it is very prudent to keep track of license counts on the applications you are license managing through Shopping. The threshold emails are meant to help with just that.

Note that the approver does not receive any notification from Shopping that licenses are now available. He will need to remember to go back to the Shopping portal and attempt to approve the order again at a later stage. Normal escalation to a deputy will occur if the approver forgets about the order.

Check Junk mail if the email is not in the inbox.

PowerGUI is defined in ConfigMgr as an Application (rather than a Package and Program). If legacy packages and programs are used you will need to define a separate Program for uninstall, and you will see different controls on the ConfigMgr tab in the Shopping Application Properties to enable you to select the uninstall Program.

Rental Period (days): 30
Extension Period (days): 60
Max Number of Rental Extensions: 3

The Rental Period is the initial duration for which the Application will be available to the user. At the end of the Rental Period, the user can opt to extend the rental for the Extension Period. The minimum and maximum values for rental extension are defined by the Rental Extension Minimum Days (Default = 60) and Rental Extension Maximum Days (Default = 120) settings in the Rental category in the Settings node of the Admin Console. Users can extend rental as often as defined by Max Number of Rental Extensions. Also make note of the Final Reminder Days, and Reminder Days values.

If you do not see the rent option, refresh the browser.

The PowerGUI application has no approval. If it did, the normal approval workflow would occur at this point.

Many license agreements will not allow a license to be re-issued to another computer within a defined period of first being installed (even if it has been removed from that first computer). In order to honour this license requirement, Shopping uses the License Hold Application property to define the minimum number of days that a license must remain unavailable after being installed. If the license agreement states that the license cannot be reissued within 90 days of installation and the License Hold property is set accordingly, but the Application is only rented for 30 days and then uninstalled, the license will not be returned to the pool (i.e. the License Count will not be decremented) until 60 days after the Application is removed – i.e. 90 days after it was first installed. If the application is rented again on that same computer before the full License Hold period has expired, an additional license will be counted (i.e. the computer will effectively have two licenses assigned to it until the License Hold period expires for the first license.

If you need to define License Hold values for some of your Applications, it makes sense that the Rental Period should be at least the same value as License Hold.

The Uninstall button indicates that the Application has an uninstall option available. The button will be disabled until the Application is installed. You may need to refresh the page until the Status reads Installed, at which point the button is enabled.

In normal production scenarios, the uninstall application would run hidden, but it is configured to run interactively in the lab so that you can see it execute.

Please remember that the email may be delayed as it is waiting for the ConfigMgr client to send an updated State message reflecting the successful uninstall. Carry on with the labs.