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Data Quality Checks

Software Asset Management Guide
Operations

Data Quality Checks

The License Dashboard → Licensing Calculation Steps tab is the SAM data-quality dashboard. It runs ~14 named diagnostic queries and surfaces problems that would otherwise produce silently-wrong compliance numbers. This page covers what each check means and what to do when one is non-zero.

Data quality checks

The Checks

The Software Licensing Data Check section lists each diagnostic with a count and a sample asset. A non-zero count is an issue to investigate.

Check Non-Zero Means
All Software Licenses (Informational) Total license records — sanity-check vs your expected count
Products in Deficit (Computers without allocation) Number of installs without grants. Some deficit is normal; sudden growth is a signal.
Software License Agreements (Informational) Total agreement records
Software Licenses missing Classification Data Licenses that lack required classification — affinity scoring may be wrong
Software Licenses missing LicenseType License records with no License Type — excluded from the position. Fix immediately.
Software Licenses Not Allocated to any Computers or Users Licenses with zero Allocated. Either over-supply (close to renewal) or unable-to-allocate (missing eligible consumptions, wrong location, etc.)
Software Licenses not recognised to a Software Product License records whose SoftwareCatalogEntry does not link to a valid catalog entry. Fix immediately.
Software Licenses not recognised to a Software Product - Non CAL Same, excluding CAL licenses (separate diagnostic for the Microsoft CAL family)
Software Licenses with no Entitlement record (Type 12) Licenses that exist but have not been processed by the engine — usually a recalculation is needed
Software Licenses with zero seats Licenses with Seats = 0; contribute no capacity. Fix or set Status to Out of Service.
Software Products missing LicenseType Catalog entries with no License Type — consumptions cannot be metered. Fix immediately.
Software Products with Consumptions but no Licenses Products that are installed but have no licenses entered at all. May be unlicensed compliance risk.
SoftwareConsumptionCache records (Informational) Engine-internal sizing — sanity-check that the count is reasonable for your asset estate
SoftwareEntitlementCache records (Informational) Engine-internal sizing — sanity-check that the count is reasonable for your license estate

The Fix-Immediately Items

Three checks should always be zero in a production SAM operation:

Software Licenses missing LicenseType

A license with no LicenseType is excluded from the position entirely. The license you spent money on is not contributing capacity.

Fix: Open each affected license, set the License Type per Concepts: License Metrics, save, recalculate.

Software Products missing LicenseType

A catalog entry with no LicenseType cannot meter its consumptions. The engine does not know whether each install is per-user, per-device, or per-core.

Fix: Open each affected catalog entry, set the License Type, save, recalculate.

Software Licenses not recognised to a Software Product

A license whose SoftwareCatalogEntry does not link to a valid catalog entry is orphaned — it does not show up under any product on the position.

Fix: Open each affected license, set the Software Product field to a valid catalog entry, save, recalculate.

The Investigate-When-Growing Items

Some checks have legitimate non-zero values. Watch the trend:

Products in Deficit

A non-zero value is just "we have under-licensed products" — see Daily Tasks: Identify Under-Licensed Products. Concerning when:

  • The number grows over time
  • A specific product moves from compliant to deficit unexpectedly
  • The number is large enough to indicate systemic mis-licensing

Software Products with Consumptions but no Licenses

This is the extreme case of under-licensing — products you have installed but for which you own no licenses at all. May be:

  • Software you forgot to license (compliance risk)
  • Software being trialed or tested (no license needed yet, but track expiry)
  • Free software classified as paid (set License Type to FREE on the catalog entry)

Walk the list. For each product, decide which case it is and act.

Software Licenses Not Allocated to any Computers or Users

A license with zero allocations is either over-supply (you bought more than you need — common close to renewal) or unable-to-allocate (eligible consumptions exist but the license is excluded by location/department/license type mismatch).

To distinguish: check the product's per-machine list. If consumptions exist and other licenses are covering them, your license is the lower-affinity option. If no consumptions exist, the product is not actually installed yet.

The Informational Items

The engine-internal sizing rows and total license counts are informational. Use them as sanity checks:

  • "We should have around 200 licenses; the count says 18 — something is wrong with the imports"
  • "Consumption sizing jumped from 2000 to 30000 records — unexpected discovery surge, investigate"

For routine operations, glance at them without acting.

Cadence

Check the diagnostic tab:

  • After every bulk license import — confirm the import did not introduce orphan or no-type licenses
  • Monthly as part of the compliance review
  • Before any vendor audit — see Daily Tasks: Audit Preparation
  • After any catalog or rule change — confirm the change did not introduce new diagnostics