How to Add Expiration Dates to Software Licenses and Send Email Alerts Before they Expire

Asset Management Solution

1. Create/configure a software product

Go to Manage>Software Catalog. The Newly discovered/undefined software pane shows individual versions and components of software discovered by software inventory. The Managed software products pane shows predefined common software products that act as organizational containers for the software components detected by software inventory.
Enable the Include pre-defined software products option below the Managed Software products box and search for an appropriate software product.
If no appropriate software product exists create it by clicking Add Product.
In the Software Product window that opens enter an appropriate name, company, and version.
In the Identify Inventory tab enter a few key words in the Software name field to gather all inventoried software components with names containing those key words. The key words often require some tweaking to gather all the appropriate software components while avoiding ones that do not belong.
Click OK to save the software product.

2. Add license information to a software product

Open the appropriate software product, either from Manage>Software Catalog or from Manage>Software>All Software>All Software Products, by double-clicking on the software product.
Go to the Licenses tab and click Add license purchase.
In the Add License Purchase window fill in any desired fields. The Quantity field affects the green and red chart for license compliance and is important for software audits.
Click Add to close the Add License Purchase window, and then click OK to close the Software Product window.

3. Set the expiration date for the software license

Go to Home>Service and Asset Management>Contracts, then browse to Contract Management>Contract Types>Contract.
Find the contract that was automatically created for the license purchase and double-click it to open it.
In the Edit configuration item window, temporarily set the End Date to a date within the next 30 days for testing in a later step.
In the Edit configuration item window fill in any remaining desired fields. The Contract’s Assigned User field can be used to send the e-mails to an e-mail address assigned to the user (discussed later).
Click OK to save the contract

4. Set up e-mail settings

Go to Settings>All Settings then browse to Settings>Notification Server>Notification Server Settings.
Go to the E-mail tab and then configure the SMTP Server Settings.
Under Default E-mail Addresses enter a To: e-mail address, click Send test e-mail, and confirm that an email was received at that e-mail address. By default this will be the e-mail address where alerts will be sent to when licenses are about to expire.

5. Set up an automation policy to alert when licenses are about to expire

Go to Manage>Automation Policies.
Choose and open one of the predefined automation policies named Contracts expiring in the next XX days.
Click Test Automation Policy. Confirm that an email listing the software licenses that will expire within the chosen time frame will be sent to the default e-mail address.
Click Turn on to enable the automation policy to run on a repeating schedule.
If it is desired to change the e-mail address that the alert is sent to click Edit input parameter, then specify the e-mail address in the Custom Value box across from To. Click OK, then click Save Changes.
If it is desired to configure the automation policy to send e-mails to the e-mail addresses of the users assigned as owners of the software licenses please see http://www.symantec.com/docs/HOWTO45860.