Writing Sample #4

Setting up a product feature.

License Management Workflow

This article explains how to set up and use the License Management Workflow (LMW) application from the Administrator’s perspective.

Audience

These roles can run the application license provisioning workflows:

• Super Administrator

• Application Administrator

Overview

LMW provides a progressive, gradual way to test and scale the management of user licenses in your organization.

By initially rolling out actions associated with managing licenses for smaller, targeted groups, you can verify that LMW is working as expected and planned.

More importantly, LMW helps you ensure that your company’s licensing actions are a positive experience for your employees.

Prerequisites

LMW-recommended actions are typically based on applications connected via a Single Sign-On (SSO) connection or through engagement connectors. For more information, see Enable SSO and engagement connectors.

Automated execution of actions is enabled through the use of provisioning connectors. These connectors are ideal for testing an action on a subset of users. For more information, see Enable provisioning connectors.

NOTE: Even if you do not have all these connectors set up and available, you can still perform some licensing-associated actions through LMW.

Set up LMW

The first time you view the Apps > Recommendations page for managing user licenses, you are given a preview and some choices for creating a suggested workflow.

This design offers a “try it” approach to help you get started.

The basic steps are:

1. Discover recommended license activity based on employees and usage.

2. Set up an exempt list.

3. Set up employee notifications.

4. Test the action on subsets of employees before full-scale rollout.

5. Set up and save automated future license management actions with schedules.

As you’ll see, these steps include plenty of flexibility to help match LMW to your enterprise and the exact licensing needs of your employees.

You can pause to test the workflow before proceeding at any point along the way. We understand. The last thing you want is a flood of angry support tickets from employees because you unexpectedly took an app away from them. LMW alleviates that scenario altogether.

Step 1: Discover license activity based on employees and usage

Follow these steps to discover and get recommendations about employees and potential license management actions:

1. Create a rule for finding people and their associated licenses. You can customize the list by tagging names to ignore, adding new names, and tagging any names that are obviously exempt from this action (for example, the CIO).

2. Choose an action. For example:

   • Deprovision – remove a user’s license.

   • Downgrade – from one pricing tier to a lower tier.

   • Provision – grant seats to a specific group of users.

   • Upgrade – from basic features to premium features.

3. Preview and refine the list as needed.

4. Save the list for Step 2.

Result: A list of people and a suggested, one-time action.

At this point, you can manually complete the action for the users specified in the list. For example, this might be useful for a one-off, one-time action for a small subset of employees.

Step 2: Set up an exempt list

Now, you have the option to make exemptions in bulk. You have two methods:

• You can upload an existing list of names and apply it to the list you refined in Step 1.

or

• You can select a list of people.

Result: A refined list of people for the recommended action you created in Step 1.

At this point, again, you may decide to manually apply the action for the refined users now specified in the list.

Step 3: Set up employee notifications

As a best practice, LMW allows you to inform employees before applying any action that affects their licensed use of an application.

Setting up notifications is also a proven method for getting confirmation feedback and discovering hidden or process-breaking contingencies associated with a particular app’s usage.

1. Create a rule for a notification email.

   • You can create a “before” notification that further refines the list to remove any employees who might request exemption from the action.

2. Preview the rule.

Result: The list of people for this action will be notified before the action. You will be notified of any employees who request to be made exempt.

At this point, again, you can choose to proceed with manually provisioning this list of users and licenses, now based on feedback from those users who requested exemption.

Step 4: (Optional) Change licenses based on connectors

NOTE: Automated testing and rollout of actions are enabled through the use of provisioning connectors. For more information, see Enable provisioning connectors.

If you have set up provisioning connectors, you can test an action on a subset of your list rather than the entire list.

As a best practice, testing the action helps you ensure the outcome before applying it at a larger scale.

You can just test actions suggested by LMW, or you can just test the actions you have already decided to implement.

Step 5: Automate license management with schedules

Congratulations! You have completed the entire license management workflow for a refined list of employees.

You have selected an action, refined the list of people who will be affected, notified them, and tested it twice.

At this point, you are ready to schedule the rollout for the entire list of affected users.

You have the option of saving this workflow or setting it up to apply the action on a scheduled basis. You can set up schedules for LMW’s suggested actions.

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