How to manage seats for "software license" Assets (Insight)

[Fabrizio]

In my company, I am gathering interest in the Assets integrated feature. That looks really powerful, but I could not find an answer to these questions so far:

1. is it possible to manage multiple software licenses, with different seat counts?
2. is it possible to assign each license seat to a specific "user"?
3. can I assign licence seats to Jira Service Management customers, or I need to create "user assets" within the same object schema?
4. is a template/sample schema publicly available for such a use case?

Thank you.

[Mark Segall · Accepted solution]

Hi @Fabrizio - This one is always tricky, but possible.

You'd need something like this:

• Make sure your license count attribute is set to Integer
• Insight field that allows selection of software assets 
• Portal form that includes the ability to request software (typically part of onboarding process
• Automation rule to drive it all...

Automation Rule

This rule is simplified just to get things started, but could be made more complex if you want to say, require an approval before the software license is reserved:

• TRIGGER: Issue Created
• BRANCH (IQL)
  We branch into the appropriate object based upon the software selected
  
  • objectKey = {{issue.customfield_xxxxx}}
  • ACTION: Edit Object (your license attribute)
    • {{#=}}{{object.yourLicenseAttribute}}-1{{/}}

Again, this is pretty simplistic.  You'd likely need a separate mechanism to restore licenses as users are off-boarded.

[Fabrizio]

Hi @Mark Segall and thank you for your reply.
To be more clear, my aim is not to "count" available seats: I would like to "assign/checkout" seats to real users.

Example: I buy a 3-seats license for PhpStorm. I check out one seat to myself, another to my colleague. The last one remains spare.

Do you believe that is possible?
Creating "seats" items as children of the "license" asset could be an option?

[Mark Segall]

So - you're not looking for a mechanism to request a seat.  You just want to be able to have a place in insight where you capture who is using seats?  If this is the case, I would go with a layout like this:

• Object Type 1: List of software licenses
• Object Type 2: List of Users
• Object Type 3: License allocations
  • Attribute:  Reference to User
  • Attribute:  Reverence to Licenses

So getting back to your original questions:

1. is it possible to manage multiple software licenses, with different seat counts?
   1. Yes - See above proposed architecture
2. is it possible to assign each license seat to a specific "user"?
   1. Yes - See above proposed architecture
3. can I assign licence seats to Jira Service Management customers, or I need to create "user assets" within the same object schema?
   1. Yes - You'll want to create user assets
4. is a template/sample schema publicly available for such a use case?
   1. Not to my knowledge, but setting up what I've proposed is straightforward.