Product Code vs Description

A Software Catalog entry has two name fields — Description and Product Code — and they do different jobs. Confusing them is the most common cause of failed bulk imports.

The Two Fields

In most installations the two fields hold the same value — the description and the product code are both, say, "Microsoft Office Professional Plus 2019". This is fine. The system uses the Product Code as the authoritative identifier, falling back to the Description when Product Code is empty.

Why It Matters

The Standard License Import matches each row's SoftwareProduct column against the Product Code field, not the Description. If you have a catalog entry where:

• Description = "Microsoft Office Professional Plus 2019"
• Product Code = "MSOFFPROPLUS2019"

then your import file's SoftwareProduct column must say "MSOFFPROPLUS2019", not "Microsoft Office Professional Plus 2019".

The match is exact (casing differences are tolerated). There is no fuzzy matching at import time.

When You Might Use Different Values

Most teams keep the two fields the same. Reasons to use different values:

• You have an existing product code system (SKU codes from procurement, vendor part numbers) and want to use those for import lookups while keeping a friendly description for users.
• The vendor's official product name is verbose and you want a shorter code for daily reference.
• You import from multiple sources that use different identifiers, and you want one canonical Product Code that all your import templates target.

When You Should Keep Them the Same

Most installations should leave the two fields identical:

• Less to remember when authoring import templates
• Less to go wrong when the catalog grows
• New users do not have to learn the distinction

If you do not have a specific reason to differentiate them, leave Product Code blank — the system will use Description as the lookup key and you cannot get them out of sync.

How to Check Which Is Which

When troubleshooting an import:

1. Open the suspect catalog entry from Licensing → Licensing Position.
2. Note both Description and Product Code values.
3. Compare to the SoftwareProduct column value in your import file.
4. If they do not match exactly, that is the failure cause.

Bulk Standardization

If you have a catalog with inconsistent Product Codes (some matching Description, some short codes, some empty), normalize them before relying on bulk import.

The standard approach is a transformation that copies the Description into the Product Code field on every catalog entry where Product Code is blank. xAssets administrators can build this as a one-time cleanup transform under Admin → Transformations. Test in a non-production environment first.

After normalizing, your import templates can reliably target either field interchangeably.

Related Reading

• Importing Licenses: Standard License Import
• Importing Licenses: Preparing the Catalog
• Creating a Catalog Entry