Managing product licenses

You can use the License Management page in the Settings area to manage the Absolute product licenses purchased by your organization.

There are two types of licenses:

  • Base license: A license associated with a core product offering, such as Absolute Resilience, Absolute Control, or Absolute Visibility. Base licenses include a suite of features that provide key capabilities in multiple areas.
  • Add-on license: The license associated with additional services and capabilities that can be added to a base license. Some add-on licenses may be included by default with a base license.

To view the status of your licenses in the License Management area, your user role needs to be granted the View permission for Licenses.

To manage your licenses, your user role needs to be granted the Manage permission for Licenses. All default Administrator user roles are granted this permission.

When devices are enrolled The process of adding a device to an account, which occurs automatically after the device's Secure Endpoint Agent makes its first connection to the Absolute Monitoring Center. in the Secure Endpoint Console, the system automatically assigns a license to each device using the default license assignment settings that are preconfigured for your account. These settings are based on either the feature capabilities of each product or the order in which they were purchased. You can view your default settings in License Assignment Settings. If desired, you can update these settings to better suit the needs of your organization.

If you purchased multiple Absolute products, you can update the licenses assigned to a device by adding, changing, or removing compatible licenses, at any time. Learn more

To view the Absolute products associated with your account, including their license expiration dates, go to the Products report in License Management.

To view information about the license (or licenses) assigned to each device, go to the Devices report in License Management.

The system automatically validates a device's licenses during the following processes:

This section does not apply to license types that do not limit enrollment, such as site licenses and Enterprise License Agreements.

You will be notified in the Secure Endpoint Console when one or more base licenses are due to expire.

Thirty (30) days prior to the next license expiration date, an orange banner is displayed at top of each console page. Click View devices in the banner to open a filtered version of the Devices report in the License Management area. The report shows the devices with base licenses that are due to expire in the next 30 days. Also, a status alert banner shows on the Device Details page of each device.

Once the banner shows in the console, we recommend that you contact Absolute Sales to renew your licenses or purchase additional ones, if you have not already done so. This proactive step will prevent devices from becoming unlicensed and ensure uninterrupted service.

Renewed licenses are automatically assigned to the applicable devices when their existing license expires. Learn more

This section does not apply to license types that do not limit enrollment, such as site licenses and Enterprise License Agreements.

If there are no base licenses available when a device is enrolled, the device is added to the console as an unlicensed device. Similarly if a device's base license expires, and a purchase order for an equivalent license does not exist, the device becomes unlicensed.

When unlicensed devices exist in your account:

  • An orange banner showing the count of unlicensed devices is presented at the top of each console page.

    To open a report showing all unlicensed Active devices, click View devices in the banner.

    Although devices with an agent status of Inactive or Disabled do not consumer a license, they are excluded from the count of unlicensed devices.

  • A status alert banner shows on the Device Details page of each unlicensed device.

The following conditions apply to unlicensed devices:

  • The device remains in its existing policy group.
  • The Hardware policy remains activated on the device, but only limited hardware information is collected. If other policies are activated in the policy group, they are not applied to the device.
  • If a device is frozen, missing, or stolen when its license expires, it retains its license to enable continued management of the device.
  • If you attempt to report an unlicensed device missing or stolen, you are notified that you must first upgrade the device's license.

  • Licensed features, such as Freeze and Wipe, are not supported on the device. If you attempt to submit an unsupported device action request on the device, the request will show in Action Requests with the following values:

    • Action > Status: Failed
    • Action > Status details: License upgrade required

    License validation occurs when a device action request is submitted. If a device becomes unlicensed while a device action is pending, the action will still be processed on the unlicensed device on its next agent connection.

Depending on the availability of licenses, you may be able to assign a license to an unlicensed device. If no licenses are available, contact Absolute Sales to purchase additional licenses.

When a new purchase order of licenses becomes available in the Secure Endpoint Console, licenses are automatically assigned to unlicensed devices based on the following criteria:

  • If a device is unlicensed due to overenrollment, a license is automatically assigned to the device using your account's default license assignment settings. Note that if the number of overenrolled devices exceeds the number of available licenses, the devices with the most recent enrollment date are assigned first.
  • If a device's license expired, a new license is automatically assigned if it is the same as, or equivalent to, the device's expired license. If an equivalent license doesn't exist, you can manually assign a license to an unlicensed device using the Change license option.
  • If a device's Lenovo Security Assurance license expired, the device becomes unlicensed, but you can manually assign a different license to the device using the Change license option.

The default Unlicensed Policy Group is no longer available. Your existing Unlicensed Policy Group has been converted to a custom policy group named Unlicensed Policy Group_Migrated. This policy group functions like any other custom policy group, and all unlicensed devices within it are subject to the conditions described above.

We recommend that you do one of the following:

  • Rename the policy group and assign a license to each unlicensed device, or
  • Move the devices to another policy group, assign a license to each unlicensed device, and then delete Unlicensed Policy Group_Migrated.

To purchase additional licenses or add a new product, contact Absolute Sales.

After new licenses have been successfully added to your account, you'll receive a New Products Added notification the next time you log in to the Secure Endpoint Console. The notification shows the number of licenses purchased of each product.

License counts are not shown for license types that do not limit enrollment, such as site licenses and Enterprise License Agreements.

To update your account's default license assignment settings based on the new licenses you purchased, click License Assignment Settings in the notification.

The License Assignment Settings link is only available if your user role is granted Manage permissions for Licenses.

If you purchased Lenovo devices through the Lenovo Security Assurance (LSA) program, your LSA licenses aren't activated in your account until the first LSA-eligible Lenovo device connects to the Absolute Monitoring Center, which enrolls it in your account. If you see the Lenovo Security Assurance announcement when you log in, at least one LSA license has been activated.

For devices to connect to the Absolute Monitoring Center, they must be powered on and have an active Internet connection.

Note the following:

  • LSA licenses are automatically assigned to LSA-eligible Lenovo devices.

  • In License Assignment Settings:

    • LSA licenses are listed first and can't be moved down in the priority list.
    • Custom license assignment settings are not available for this license type.
  • You can use the Change license option to assign a base or add-on license to an LSA device, assuming the license is compatible with the LSA license.
  • LSA licenses are non-transferable. That is, you can't use the Change license option to assign an LSA license to a different device.
  • When an LSA license expires, the device becomes unlicensed. Auto-assignment of an equivalent license is not applicable. Use the Change license option to assign a different license to the unlicensed device, or unenroll it.

For more information about managing your Absolute product licenses, visit the Learning Hub. To access the Learning Hub, click (Help and Support) on the quick access toolbar and then click Resources > The Learning Hub.