License Reclamation

[dbeckner]

I am trying to understand how to setup license reclamation. We have App Portal integrated with FNM. Is it required to setup reclamation settings in the FlexNet Manager Suite > License Reclamation tab AND the Compliance Management > My Apps tab for it to work properly?

[CharlesW · Accepted solution]

You definitely do NOT want to touch anything under the Flexnet Manager Suite->license reclamation tab of your catalog item. These are for legacy license reclamation, which I would strongly suggest that you avoid.. I'll summarize the steps you should need to take to enable catalog item for reclamation via my Apps:

1. Be sure that "Enable My Apps feature?" is selected under settings->Flexera Integration

2. For the catalog item that you wish to reclaim, be sure that you have both an install deployment and uninstall deployment defined. Also, please be sure that these are device based deployments and not user based deployments, as the latter will not work with My Apps.

3.  Under Deployment->Global for the catalog item, be sure that you have "Enable Uninstallation (Remove from collection)?" selected

4. Under the FlexNet Manager Suite tab, search for the FlexeraID that you wish to tie to your catalog item. Once you have found the appropriate FlexeraID for the product, please copy the ARL for the next step..

5. Go to compliance Management->My Apps, and select "Search Flexera ID".. Paste in the FlexeraID from the previous step into the Flexera ID "filter" and search.. Once the item is found, select "add". 

6. Go back to My Apps License Reclamation Policies. You should see the item you just added. Under the Policy column, select "configure", which will open up the policy settings.  At a minimum, select "Enable License Reclamation Policy".. The other settings should be fairly self-explanatory. 

7. this should be all that is necessary.. At this point, you can kick off the App Portal - Process Computers for My Apps Alerts scheduled task.

You should see that alerts are created, provided that there are devices where the software is underutilized.  I like to monitor the WD_MyAppsAlert table as you can see alerts as they are created.  Also, if you are simply testing My Apps, I like to delete the contents of this table, which allows new alerts to be created if you change settings on your reclamation campaigns..

Let me know if you have any questions.

[CharlesW · Accepted solution]

You definitely do NOT want to touch anything under the Flexnet Manager Suite->license reclamation tab of your catalog item. These are for legacy license reclamation, which I would strongly suggest that you avoid.. I'll summarize the steps you should need to take to enable catalog item for reclamation via my Apps:

1. Be sure that "Enable My Apps feature?" is selected under settings->Flexera Integration

2. For the catalog item that you wish to reclaim, be sure that you have both an install deployment and uninstall deployment defined. Also, please be sure that these are device based deployments and not user based deployments, as the latter will not work with My Apps.

3.  Under Deployment->Global for the catalog item, be sure that you have "Enable Uninstallation (Remove from collection)?" selected

4. Under the FlexNet Manager Suite tab, search for the FlexeraID that you wish to tie to your catalog item. Once you have found the appropriate FlexeraID for the product, please copy the ARL for the next step..

5. Go to compliance Management->My Apps, and select "Search Flexera ID".. Paste in the FlexeraID from the previous step into the Flexera ID "filter" and search.. Once the item is found, select "add". 

6. Go back to My Apps License Reclamation Policies. You should see the item you just added. Under the Policy column, select "configure", which will open up the policy settings.  At a minimum, select "Enable License Reclamation Policy".. The other settings should be fairly self-explanatory. 

7. this should be all that is necessary.. At this point, you can kick off the App Portal - Process Computers for My Apps Alerts scheduled task.

You should see that alerts are created, provided that there are devices where the software is underutilized.  I like to monitor the WD_MyAppsAlert table as you can see alerts as they are created.  Also, if you are simply testing My Apps, I like to delete the contents of this table, which allows new alerts to be created if you change settings on your reclamation campaigns..

Let me know if you have any questions.

[dbeckner]

Charles,

Thanks for the quick and detailed response. This is very helpful. I have two follow on questions --

1. I have 12 devices with app "XYZ" installed on them. Only 2 are showing usage in FNMS. On 10 devices the app was never opened. App Portal is only targeting the 2 devices that have a "last used date" for reclamation. Is this an absolute requirement for license reclamation to work? Wouldn't apps that were installed and never used within the threshold be prime candidates for a reclamation?

2. Looking on my App Portal server under scheduled tasks I do not see the two scheduled tasks that should be there. If that is the case then I need to manually create them for this to work correctly via your instructions in this article right? - https://community.flexera.com/t5/App-Broker-Forum/My-Apps-scheduled-tasks-missing/td-p/138744

[dbeckner]

@CharlesW Looks like for question 1 that was only the case when using the legacy option. Under My Apps all of the devices are targeted as expected.

[CharlesW · Accepted solution]

Yes, legacy license reclamation was limited to reclaiming software which had been used.. My Apps has no such limitation.. If a software is unused, then App Broker will use the discovered date, rather than the last used date..

With regards to the missing scheduled task, yes, the link to the other community post would be applicable to recreating the task..

[dbeckner]

Thanks @CharlesW this thread was really helpful.