Recording & Tracking Software Licenses In Fracttal

Recording & Tracking Software Licenses In Fracttal

Recording & Tracking Software Licenses In Fracttal

Introduction

We know it's often very cumbersome to keep track of all the software packages & licenses within your organisation, which IT asset has which solution installed, when the license will expire on an annual subscription and so on. There is a very easy way that you can set this up and track software packages using Fracttal. That being said, we do not propose you use this trick to keep track of and manage monthly monthly subscriptions.

So let's see how we can manage and track software subscriptions/ licenses using Fracttal

Upload Software License/ Annual Subscription & Other Documents

Depending on the type of software package you want to keep track of and the available documentation you have for your subscription/ once-off purchase including any SLA's supplied to you by your vendor, you might want to upload these documents/ agreements into Fracttal so that you have everything in one place.

To do this you can make use of Fracttal's Cloud Disk. Depending on your service package, you will have anything between 1-10 Terabytes (TB) of storage space in your Fracttal instance. Please contact us if you need more storage space.

1. In the main menu bar on the left of the screen, navigate to the Cloud Disk module


2. In the Cloud Disk window, click on the drop-down menu icon on the top right corner of the screen and select New File from the options provided


You will note some other options, such as New Folder. So just as you would set up a document management system/ instance you can also create grouping folders to store files in and keep your cloud disk organised.

3. When you select the New File option, an upload window will pop up. Click on the upload button to open up your machine's files browser, find the file you want to upload and hit open and Fracttal will start uploading the document/ file to the disk


4. When done, hit the Save button and you should get an Upload Successful message

Hit OK to close the upload process


Use Document Management to Track Software Packages/ Licenses

Now that you have uploaded any associated documents, agreements, files etc for your software package, the next step is to create a record of the solution. For this we will use the document management module in Fracttal.

1. On the main menu bar on the left, select the System Settings menu and then the Document Management sub-menu


2. With the Document Management page open, click on the +Add button top right corner of the page




3. A pop-up window will come up that you can use to capture the general info of the software package
3.1 Specify the name
3.2 Give it a description
3.3 Specify a grouping: You can use this to group your software packages under for example "Software" in order to differentiate software packages from other documents stored in the Cloud Disk
3.4 Specify the version of the software package you are adding
3.5 Valid from and to dates: This is very important in order to track when a package expires so that you can get notified before it does


4. Next, lets attach the files/ documents/ agreements we added in the previous section. With the window still open, click on the Attachments tab


5. In the Attachments tab, click on the drop-down menu top right and select File from the options top open up your Cloud Disk


You'll note that you can also attach an external link/ URL to the software package or even notes if you want to. Attaching a link, is typically used when you have your documents/ files stored outside of Fracttal on your organisation's own document management system such as Sharepoint, Dropbox etc.

6. Clicking on the File option as shown above will open up your Cloud Disk. In the disk window, you can search for the file associated with the software that you want to attach. When you find the file/ document you want to associate/ attach, click on the tick box next to it and hit the Select button top right to add it. You can attach/ associate multiple files from the cloud disk to the created package by selecting multiple items and then hitting the Select button


6.1 If you've skipped the previous section where we covered adding files/ documents to the cloud disk, no problem, you can add files/ documents to your cloud disk from this window as well by selecting the Add menu and selecting New File from the drop-down menu. Now simply follow the same steps as explained in the previous section for adding files/ documents to cloud disk


7. With your files/ documents/ content added to the software package, hit the Save button top right


8. Your software package is now created in Fracttal and the associated information and attachments recorded as well as the valid from and valid to dates which can be used to set up expiration notifications for the software to remind you when your package will expire.

Setting up expiration notifications for your software

So now that you have added your software package to Fracttal with all the associated information and attachments. We want to create a notification that will remind you when the software package/ subscription is nearing the end of the agreement/ license. To do this, we will make use of the Dispatcher to build out the notification and tell the system where to send it and when.

1. From the main menu bar on the left of your screen, select the Dispatcher menu top open it up


With the Dispatcher window open, you have a choice of adding a single notification dispatch rule or linking a dispatching rule to a group of people. Let's first look at adding a notification group.

Setting up a notification group

2.1.1 In the Dispatcher window, click on the Notification Groups button top right of screen


2.1.2 This will bring up your notification groups window. Noe click on the Add button top right corner of window
 

2.1.3 Give your group a name/ description


2.1.4 Now click on the +Add Member button to start adding people to this group. Fill in a member's email address and hit the save button to add this person as a member to the notification group


2.1.5 You can add multiple members to your notification group by repeating the step for each as shown in 2.1.4. When you're done adding all your members, hit the Save button to save this member grouping


You will now see your notification group in the list of notification groups. Hit the Back button to go back to the dispatcher window

Creating a Dispatcher Rule for Notifications

Now we need to set up the notification we want to send out to someone or a notification group.

2.2.1 To add a rule, with the Dispatcher window open, click on the +Add button top right



2.2.2 A new rule window will come from where you need to specify the rule details


a) Select the System Settings Module from the drop-down options
b) Select the Document Management sub-module from the drop-down options
c) Select the notification trigger event from the provided options in the drop-down
d) Give your rule a name/ description

2.2.3 Now you need to add actions based on certain parameters being met for the notification to trigger


2.2.4 For this, we will cover a single condition. Select the "At least one is true" condition option, then hit the +Add Action button


2.2.5 A condition specifications menu will come up, select one of the Expiry Date conditions based on your needs and hit the Save button when done. You can add multiple conditions to trigger the notification multiple times at various intervals by adding another condition after the first one.


2.2.6 Now we need to specify what Action must be performed when your specified condition(s) has been met. In the Actions bar, click on the +Add Action button


2.2.7 The Actions window will open up allowing you to pick to send a notification to an individual or one of the notification groups you have set up from the previous section


2.2.8 a) Selecting the "Send email to:" option you will be asked to specify the recipient's email address. Specify the address and hit the Save button when done


2.2.8 b) Selecting the "Send mail to notification group" option will allow you to select the notification group you have set up from the drop-down menu. Pick the group you want to send this notification to from the drop-down options and hit the Save button when done to add this action to your rule


2.2.9 With your rule now set up, hit the Save button top right of the window to save your rule and add it to the dispatcher and your done. 


Fracttal will now automatically dispatch notifications to the specified people whenever a condition is met.

Adding your software package to an asset

If you want to specify the asset that is associated with the software package you have just set up, you can easily do this by adding the software package as an attachment to an asset for example adding the software package to a desktop pc in the office.

Attaching the software to an asset

1. From the main menu bar on the left, open up the Assets module and then select the Equipment register from the sub-menu items. Obviously this is assuming you've added IT equipment to the equipment register and not under Tools or Digital assets in which case you would need to select those sub-menu items to bring up the list of records. The steps explained for attaching the software package you created to an asset/ equipment item is exactly the same for Tools/ Digital Assets.


2. Find the asset you want to attach the software package to in your register and click on the Edit button top right of the window


3. With the asset open, navigate to the Document Management tab


4. In the Document Management window, click the +Add button and select "From Catalog" from the options provided


5. This will call up the Catalog of items you have added as per the previous sections. Highlight the software package you want to associate with this asset and hit the +Add button top right corner of the window to add the software package to the asset


6. The software package is not associated with this asset and you will see it in the associated documents tab. When done, Save the asset and your done




We truly hope this helps you keep better track of your software subscriptions/ licenses using Fraccttal. We are always open to new feature requests, improvements we can make to the system and in general any feedback you as a valued user can provide us.

Please reach out to us on the support portal by logging a ticket with our support team or contacting us through our website.
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