Software License Management Education Authority

16 October 2020

Problem 

An education authority which manages multiple schools across a large physical footprint need a way to quickly see their license position on a number of software titles / manufacturers. If possible they want a way to reclaim software licenses if not in use so they can stay compliant and keep the IT resource needed for audits to a minimum. 

Challenges 

• Identifying and Discovering all devices across the authority 

o It is important to have all devices reporting back to a central point so that changes 

to software installations (and therefore license usage) is tracked correctly. 

• How to normalise the data across multiple versions and languages 

o Ensure ‘Microsoft Office 2013’, ‘MS Office 2013’ and ‘MS-Office 2013’ are all 

recorded as one product 

• Find a way for students to check in software as needed without IT having to perform the installation 

o IT resources have been cut across the authority so any way to automate day to day 

tasks like software installation is the preferred option (without having to allow Administrative rights or software installation packages to students) 

• How to uninstall the software and return the license after a set period of inactivity 

Approach 

• Appraise the existing infrastructure and decide where to place servers and the best way to configure them 

• Confirm the plan with the project stakeholders 

• Configure the Ivanti EPM server 

o Utilise Data Analytics within the Ivanti Endpoint Manager software o Work with the IT teams to ensure agents are configured correctly to report software 

usage and inventory across all devices o Decide which software to monitor and configure licenses that have been 

purchased o Use Ivanti Workspaces to allow users to install software on demand (if licenses are 

available) o Use Ivanti Software Reclamation to uninstall software and check-in licenses once 

software is no longer used o Configure Reporting and Alerts to IT staff and Management 

Solution 

Ivanti’s SLM (Software License Monitoring) is the perfect tool to achieve the authority’s goal of allowing students to check-in software as needed. The benefit of using thei technology is that when the software is no longer needed, the application is uninstalled and the license is returned to the pool ready for the next student. 

The SLM product allows us to configure groups for the different schools so licenses that have been purchased by one school can’t be used by another. 

Another feature of the Ivanti solution is that we can configure access policies so only students that are taking a specific course or who belong to a particular school can see relevant software. E.g. Graphic Design A-Level students can see and install Adobe Cloud applications but Year 7 students can’t. 

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