In Part 1 of our blog series “Automating SPLA Reporting With SPL Tracker,” we discussed the challenges inherent in SPLA monthly reporting requirements faced by MSPs and how to define classes of license usage in SPL Tracker.
Now we’re going to show how you can pair these license types with the Active Directory or local machine groups which serve as the gatekeepers for accessing these types of licensed applications or services.
Associating Groups in SPL Tracker
Once you have defined the license types for which the Service Provider Licensing Tracker (SPL Tracker) will track usage in Step 1 of the program, click on Step 2 – Associate Groups. Here you will be able to associate the license types you specified in Step 1 with one or more Active Directory groups in a particular client domain.
If you are an MSP or SaaS provider using workgroups instead of domains for your client networks, you can just as easily specify local machine groups in this program area. Just select “Computer” instead of “Domain”, and enter the name of the Remote Desktop or Citrix XenApp server that hosts the groups which control access to your license types.
Once you enter a computer name or domain name, you can click “Fetch Groups” to retrieve a list of all groups on a computer or in an Active Directory.
SPL Tracker Configuration Files Across Client Domains or Workgroups
It’s very easy to create template configuration files which you can reuse across all of your many client domains or workgroups. If each of your clients has their own domain, enter %MACHINEDOMAIN% for the name of the domain, or if each client has their own single server workgroup, enter LOCALHOST for the name of the computer.
Then, provided your group names are standardized across all client domains and/or client servers, you can use the same configuration file for all instances of SPL Tracker – greatly simplifying deployment. We’ll have more on this subject in an upcoming post in this blog series.
You can create as many group/license type associations as needed – just click the “Add New Association” button to create each additional one required in Step 2.
In the upcoming Part 3 blog post in this series, we will review how SPL Tracker assesses the variance between actual license usage and allowed license usage. This can have a huge positive effect on your bottom line over time – so please stay tuned!
SPL Tracker is downloaded with RDPSoft’s Remote Desktop Reporter. You can download a free 30 day trial today.
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