Managing software licenses with JSM assets (formerly Insight)

[Laura Bennett]

I'm attempting to set up a JSM Assets Object Schema and matching JSM Project to manage our company software portfolio.

I have an Object Schema: Software Portfolio and within the schema I have two object types with the following attributes:

1. Software
   1. Software Name (Text type)
   2. Assignees (Object type. Referencing User)
   3. Total License Count (Integer type)
   4. Available License Count (Integer type)
   5. Owner (User type)
2. User
   
   1. Name (Text type)
   2. User (User type)
   3. Software Licenses (Object type. Referencing Software)

On the project side I have a Insight Custom field called Software pulling all Software objects. Employees can use this dropdown field in the JSM portal request screen to select the software they want.

I also have a Insight Custom field called Assignee pulling all User objects where the employee can select the intended assignee of the license.

Once the license has been assigned and the request set to Done I would like some Jira automation magic to be triggered.

1. Add the value chosen in the Assignee Insight Custom field to the chosen Software's Assignees attribute (this needs to append to the existing attribute value so we can list all Users with a license for Software X)
2. Calculate the number of used and available licenses by Total License Count - Assignees size.

When an employee leave the company a ticket should be created to unassign the Software licenses associated with that User. So I would need some Jira automation here too:

1. On ticket creation lookup all Software objects referenced by the User object or  Software Licenses 
2. When ticket moved to Done clear the specified User from the Software Objects Assignees attribute without removing other User values associated to that attribute.
3. Calculate the number of used and available licenses by Total License Count - amended Assignees size.
4. Delete the User object associated to the leaver.

Has anyone configured something similar or written/know of any tutorials that can direct me through how to set something like this up?

From all the training and marketing material I've read up on it seems this is quite a typical use case, but I've been really struggling to get it working.

Particular does anyone know how to append rather than overwritten the attribute values? Even though my Assignees attribute has it's cardinality set to Unlimited it overwrites no matter what I try.

[JoselynFinae]

Regarding appending attribute values, we stumbled upon a workaround. You can try using a script or an automation rule to fetch the existing Assignees' value, add the new Assignee to the list, and then update the Software object with the updated list. That way, it won't overwrite the existing values.