I have a customer with an entitlement (with a count of 1) activated on a PC. We use a permanent model which may be activated as many times as needed on each HOSTID because our devices are all PCs. The count of each entitlement specifies the number of PCs on which they may activate.
The PC on which the activation occurred was subsequently been disposed of. The customer no longer has access to it. But they want to use the activation on a new computer and we trust that they do not have the old one anymore.
So I went to FNO and Device Management (for the old device/PC and chose "Remove Licenses". I entered 1 in the quantity of activations to be removed for the entitlement and then clicked "Save".
Now the status of the item shows "Copies Decreasing". But it does not seem to be changing. The available pool of licenses has not increased in number.
I've waited for a while but the status has not changed.
Is this something that just takes a long time to update? When will the activation be available for another PC to use?
Before I answer your question I'll first let you know about another option, which is to "Obsolete" a Device. When you Obsolete a device, any licenses currently on the Device will automatically be returned to the Entitlement and the Device ID will be renamed to it's current Device ID followed by -OBSOLETE- and a Date Stamp. Since the Device ID is changed, the original Device ID can be used for licensing again in the future. Based on your use case this may be the preferred option.
When you Return a device, the UI will state that the action is irrevocable and the device ID cannot be used again to obtain a license. However (and I'll state I'm not sure if this was intended) the Returned device can then be Obsoleted, which renames the Device ID, therefore allowing the original Device ID to be used again.
Note that devices that are in a Returned or Obsoleted state are classified as Inactive and are not displayed by default when viewing devices. You need to select the filter and enable the display of inactive devices to see them.
FNO doesn't know the device has been disposed of and is waiting to update the license rights on the device (which in this case is the removal of a license) via the online or offline activation process. To remedy this, simply click the "Generate capability response" button. FNO will then assume the newly generated capability response will be downloaded and then loaded on the target device.
Since the PC/device has been taken out of commission, the better option would be to use the "Return Device" option. This will not allow the Device to obtain a license from FNO in the future and will automatically return the license back to the entitlement.
Ok so "Return Device" also marks the device so that it can not be used with FNO again. Is this also permanently unchangeable. Is there any way to undo it so that the device can be used with FNO again?
I'm asking this follow up with an eye towards this in the future. Due to the way our resellers distribute licenses, Sometimes they or our customers simply do not know which device has a license or even where a given device might be. If we ever do this in such a case and the customer later locates the device that I have "returned" this way, will it be possible for the customer to ever activate anything on that device again?
Before I answer your question I'll first let you know about another option, which is to "Obsolete" a Device. When you Obsolete a device, any licenses currently on the Device will automatically be returned to the Entitlement and the Device ID will be renamed to it's current Device ID followed by -OBSOLETE- and a Date Stamp. Since the Device ID is changed, the original Device ID can be used for licensing again in the future. Based on your use case this may be the preferred option.
When you Return a device, the UI will state that the action is irrevocable and the device ID cannot be used again to obtain a license. However (and I'll state I'm not sure if this was intended) the Returned device can then be Obsoleted, which renames the Device ID, therefore allowing the original Device ID to be used again.
Note that devices that are in a Returned or Obsoleted state are classified as Inactive and are not displayed by default when viewing devices. You need to select the filter and enable the display of inactive devices to see them.
Thank you so much. This is great info. I apologize for not being able to decipher this from the manuals. But I sometimes feel they are better at telling me how to do something than why I might want to do it.
