A component is the smallest installable piece of software. A single component can be a part of many products. When License Metric Tool discovers a component, it does not know for sure as part of which product the component was installed. It assigns the component to a product and license metric based on a set of internal rules. The rules weigh the probability with which a given component was installed as part of a given product and choose the best fit. The process is called automated bundling.
Automated bundling is intended to make classification of IBM software easier by proposing initial assignments. However, the assignments might not always be accurate. They require your review and adjustment. Reviewing dozens of entries might seem overwhelming, but there are two simple tricks to increase the accuracy of automated bundling and thus reduce the amount of your work: importing part numbers and marking software as entitled.
Importing part numbers
Part numbers represent IBM software offerings and license metrics that they use. The list of part numbers that you own is available on your Passport Advantage account. You can export this list from Passport Advantage and import it to License Metric Tool.
After the part numbers are available in License Metric Tool, automated bundling gives priority to the products for which you imported part numbers. This way, results of automated bundling are more accurate.
Marking software as entitled
Software entitlements are products that you own and thus are allowed to install and use. These can be products for which you purchased licenses or ones that you obtained free-of-charge.
Marking software as entitled is an alternative to importing part numbers. You can use this approach if you do not have access to the Passport Advantage account, in case of software for which part numbers are not available, or simply if you prefer this approach. There is also a correlation between part numbers and software entitlements: products for which you import part numbers are automatically marked as your entitlements.
Similarly to when part numbers are imported, when components of a product for which you are entitled are discovered, they are automatically assigned to this product. Accuracy of automated bundling is higher.
Takeaway
Importing part numbers or manually declaring software entitlements improves the accuracy of automated bundling by giving priority to software products that you own rather than choosing the best fit from all IBM products.
Join our live session!
If you want to learn more about these two tasks, sign up for a live session that will take place on Jan 19th, 2023, at 4:00 PM (CET). More info here.
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