Welcome to the Cisco Smart Software Manager, also known as CSSM!
This video provides an overview of CSSM including an introduction to the user interface and
its functionality.
Cisco Smart Software Manager is a time-saving tool for customer or partner software license
asset management.
Accessing your account using your Cisco.com ID provides full visibility and access to
all your Cisco Smart Software licenses.
Virtual accounts are sub-accounts under Smart Accounts that you can create to organize the
products and licenses for your company into logical entities, such as by business unit,
product type, geographic region, and so on.
For example, you can create virtual accounts for each of your departments.
Think of it this way, a Smart Account is like a parent folder and Virtual Accounts are like
the child folders.
To access CSSM, go to Cisco Software Central at software-dot-cisco-dot-com and log in with
your Cisco.com ID.
After logging in, choose Smart Software Licensing from either the top navigation bar, or from
the License quadrant on the page.
The Smart Software Manager is set up with tabs across the top, which makes it easy to
navigate the interface, and the Alerts tab is the default.
The alerts are helpful for you to understand what's going on with your licenses.
Minor alerts do not require immediate action; whereby Major alerts will require a specific
action.
The Inventory tab is helpful for visualizing the licenses that you currently own and how
you're using them within each of your Virtual Accounts, depending on your role.
Smart Account Administrator and Users will have access to the entire Smart Account, including
the virtual accounts associated with them.
Virtual Account Administrator and Users will only have access to the specific virtual accounts
assigned to them.
You can toggle between virtual accounts by choosing them from the drop-down menu.
Within the Inventory tab are four subtabs: General, Licenses, Product Instances, and
Event Log.
The General tab displays your Virtual Account description and whether or not it is the default
Virtual Account.
One of the important functionalities under the General tab is the ability to generate
tokens.
Tokens are used to register products.
To generate a token, simply click the New Token button.
You then have the option to enter a description and provide the number of days before the
token expires.
The default is set to 30 days, but you can enter anywhere between 1 and 365 days.
When tokens are generated, they are displayed in the table below.
The Licenses tab is helpful to understand which licenses are provisioned and being utilized
in your Virtual Account within your Smart Account.
You can also transfer licenses between Virtual Accounts within your Smart Account.
For example, here you can see a 50-MB AX license for a CSR that we're currently not using
with an available balance of 20 licenses.
To transfer a number of licenses, simply click on the Actions drop-down menu and choose Transfer.
In the Transfer Licenses window, choose a different virtual account, enter a quantity,
then click Preview to see a summary of the pending transfer.
Click Complete Transfer to finalize the transaction.
When a product or device has been registered, it will be listed under the Product Instances
tab.
Clicking on a Product Instance Name brings up an Overview and Event Log window where
you can view detailed information related to the device, including different licenses
that are being consumed.
Under Actions, you can transfer or remove the device.
You can transfer a device between Virtual Accounts within your Smart Account.
When you do that, the device will return the licenses it was consuming back to the pool
as unused licenses in the source Virtual Account and it will start consuming the licenses in
your destination Virtual Account.
The Event Log displays information for all activity within your virtual account, such
as product registration, adding and removing licenses on products, transferring licenses
or products between virtual accounts, and so on.
For example, here you can see that 20 new licenses were added to this Virtual Account
and a new token was created.
Under the License Conversion tab, you can convert Classic licenses to Smart licenses.
You will see 4 to 5 subtabs, depending on your role.
Under the Convert PAKs tab, you can manually convert Classic Licenses on a Product Authorization
Key to Smart Licenses.
Under the Convert Licenses tab, you can manually convert Classic Licenses on a device to Smart
Licenses.
Under the Conversion History tab, you will see the conversion status of the device-led
conversion capability.
This capability will convert Classic Licenses on a device to Smart Licenses once they are
registered on CSSM.
The Conversion Settings tab is available to Smart Account Administrators only.
Here you can enable or disable the device-led conversion capability on all or selected Virtual
Accounts.
The Event Log tab displays all the license conversion activity for all your Virtual Accounts.
The Reporting feature within CSSM is very robust.
You can see within a few seconds a quick snapshot of all your Smart Licenses throughout your
Smart Account.
You can give the report a custom name and you can choose which Virtual Accounts to be
included in the report.
An additional benefit is the ability to export these reports out in CSV or XLS file formats.
At the very top, you'll get a summary of your license usage as well as a detailed breakdown
by Virtual Account.
This is helpful, because now you can actually see all of your licenses within a single report.
If you scroll down to the bottom, you can see the licenses that are getting ready to
expire.
This means you'll be able to make more educated decisions based on when licenses are expiring
without any more of the guesswork.
Some of the other reports you can run are License Subscriptions and Product Instances.
Under the Preferences tab, you can choose to receive daily notifications on the activity
of your Smart Account, by checking the respective checkboxes under Alert and Informational Events.
It's a convenient way to understand what's going on with your licenses for the past 24
hours via an email summary.
If you're using the Smart Software Manager Satellite, the Satellites tab will show you
any of the satellites that are currently connected to your Smart Account.
For more information on Smart Software Manager Satellite, you can view additional videos
on our Cisco Smart Software Licensing YouTube channel.
The Activity tab keeps track of things that have happened along the way in your Smart
Account and you're able to view the various license transactions listed chronologically
with the most recent on top.
In the upper right corner of the Smart Software Licensing page, there are hyperlinks that
allow you to: • Provide feedback,
• Request support, and • Get Help.
The Virtual Assistant allows you to interact with the expert system and get answers to
your questions in real time.
In addition, you can access Related Links, Documentation and Videos, Open a Case, and
Contact Us.
Clicking on one of the video links in the Related Links pane takes you to the Cisco
Video Portal where you can find Video Tutorials related to Smart Software Licensing.
In summary, Cisco Smart Software Manager eliminates the need to manage PAKs and license files
by introducing license pooling.
Licenses are no longer node-locked to devices and can be used on any compatible device owned
by your company.
Begin managing your licenses using CSSM today!
For more information on licensing, go to cisco.com slash "go," slash "license."
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