Cloud Applications and Renewals - edmozley/freeitsm GitHub Wiki
โ๏ธ Cloud applications and licence renewals
The inventory agent finds what is installed on your machines. That is no help at all for Xero, Canva, Figma or anything else that lives in a browser โ so applications can now be added by hand, and their renewals surface where you will actually see them.
Shipped as #1549โ#1553 in 1.5.0. Asked for by a prospective user by email:
Within software module; it would be useful if we could manually add an application, as we use a number of cloud platforms. Plus manage renewal reminders for items such as domains and digital certificates.
The developer guide is Cloud applications and renewals โ Developer Guide.
1. โ Adding an application by hand
Software โ Add application. Four fields:
| Field | Notes |
|---|---|
| Name | What you call it |
| Publisher or vendor | Optional |
| Web address | Where you go to administer it. Optional, and https:// is added if you leave it off |
| Notes | Optional |
It appears in the list marked Added by hand.
Why this matters more than it looks
A licence in FreeITSM has to belong to an application. Until now there was nowhere to record what a cloud subscription costs, how many seats it has, or when it renews โ the licence fields existed, but nothing you could hang them on.
Adding the application is what unlocks all of it. Add the app, then record a licence against it with the seat count, cost, renewal date and notice period, exactly as you would for anything else.
2. ๐ Manual and discovered entries don't fight
Only manual entries can be edited. An agent-discovered application is a report of what is on somebody's machine โ editing its name here would make the record disagree with the thing it describes, and the next inventory run would overwrite the edit anyway.
If the agent later finds one of your manual entries genuinely installed somewhere, it attaches the machines without touching a word you wrote. Your name, publisher, URL and notes survive; the install count goes up. That is the right outcome โ the installs should attach to the entry somebody already curated rather than starting a duplicate.
Deleting a manual entry is refused while a licence points at it, or once the agent has found it installed somewhere. The message says which.
3. ๐ช Seats and installs are different numbers
The list shows both, side by side, and neither is a substitute for the other.
- Installed on โ how many machines have it. A cloud platform is installed on none, and that is correct.
- Seats โ how many you are paying for, taken from the licences.
A nought under Installed on reads like "nobody uses this", which is the opposite of true for the SaaS you have just bought forty seats of. Two columns keeps "not installed anywhere" distinguishable from "not licensed to anyone".
4. ๐ Where renewals show up
Software โ Settings โ Renewals decides: nowhere, the Watchtower dashboard, the calendar, or both.
On Watchtower
A Software card counting licences renewing in the next 30 and 90 days, plus notice periods running out. Deliberately the same three windows the Contracts card uses, so the two can be read against each other without translating between different meanings of "soon".
The card says so plainly when no renewal dates are recorded at all, rather than reporting all-clear on an empty list.
In the calendar
All-day entries generated from your licences, and two per licence, not one:
- the renewal date โ when the money goes out
- the notice deadline โ worked out from the notice period, and the last day you can still walk away
The second is the one that actually costs you if you miss it. A calendar showing only the renewal tells you about the deadline on the day it is already too late. A licence with no notice period recorded gets no notice entry โ an invented deadline is worse than none.
Only active licences appear. A cancelled one still has a renewal date on the record, but that is history rather than a commitment.
Entries are rebuilt whenever a licence changes, so they cannot drift โ and nothing you typed into the calendar yourself is ever touched.
5. ๐ What about domains and certificates?
The same email asked about renewal reminders for domains and digital certificates. Those are not software, so they do not belong in this module โ but they fit the Contracts module almost exactly:
| Contracts field | For a domain |
|---|---|
| Supplier | the registrar |
| Contract end | the expiry date |
| Notice period | how long before you must decide |
| Contract value | the renewal cost |
| Owner | who is responsible |
Filed as a contract, a domain inherits the Watchtower Contracts card, the notice-period counting and the calendar link with nothing built at all. That is what most ITSM tools do with them.
6. ๐งฉ Where to start
If you record nothing else on a licence, record the renewal date and the notice period. Those two are what turn a list of software into a warning that arrives in time to act on.