The Software module can email you before your licenses renew, and tell people when a license has been assigned to them. This article covers both, and the settings that decide whether they are actually sent.
Before you start
Expiration notifications report on versions, not on software, and a version can only be reported if Hector knows when it comes due. Make sure your versions carry either an expiration date or a renewal period. A perpetual license with neither will never appear in a reminder, which is correct — there is nothing to renew.
If you intend to notify departments rather than a central group, also make sure the Department field is filled in on your software records. See Process for adding software and versions.
Step 1 — Open the software notification settings
Navigate to Settings, then Notifications, and select the Software tab.
Step 2 — Set the timing
- Reminder frequency : How often Hector sends the summary, from daily up to yearly. This field turns the whole notification on. While it is set to None, no expiration email is sent, no matter how the delays and recipients are configured.
- Expiration reminder delay : How far ahead of a renewal a version starts appearing in the summary. Choosing Expired instead of a number of days reports renewals that are already behind you — the setting to use the first time you turn this on, when you want to find what has already lapsed.
- Early expiration reminder delay (optional) : A second, earlier warning, so you get one notice with time to negotiate and another as the date approaches. It must be a longer lead time than the first reminder — three months early against one month standard, for example. Hector refuses the save otherwise, with the message The first expiration reminder has to be before the second one.
At least one of the two delays has to be set for anything to send. The frequency alone is not enough.
Hector uses the version’s expiration date when it has one, and otherwise the next date its renewal calendar falls on, so a subscription with a renewal period but no fixed end date is covered too.
Step 3 — Choose the recipients
There are two routes, and they do not cover the same ground.
- Groups : Everyone in the selected groups receives the summary for every expiring version. This is the route for the people who own renewals across the organization — IT asset management, procurement, whoever signs the contracts.
- Department : Tick this and Hector also emails the members of the department assigned to each software, but only about that software. This is the route for letting teams see their own renewals coming.
The two combine, and a person who qualifies through both receives one email covering everything relevant to them rather than two. A version whose software has no department assigned reaches the groups only.
Step 4 — Assignment emails
The same tab carries Send an email to new users assigned to a software. Set it to Yes and anyone who receives a license is told what they have been given. Useful when licenses are handed out centrally and people would otherwise not know what is installed for them, or what it costs the organization.
This setting is independent of the expiration reminders — it applies at the moment a license is assigned and does not depend on the reminder frequency.
Click Save when you are done.
The matching dashboard tiles
The two delays you set here also drive the two software alert tiles on the dashboard, which read Licenses are expiring in X days and open the list of versions expiring soon. Add them to your dashboard if you would rather see renewals when you sign in than wait for an email — most teams use both, the tile for the daily view and the email for the people who do not open Hector every day.
No emails arriving?
Work down this list in order. The first two account for most cases.
- Reminder frequency is set to None. Nothing sends. This is the most common cause, because the rest of the tab can be fully configured and look correct.
- Neither delay is set. A frequency with no lead time has nothing to report on. Set the expiration reminder delay, the early one, or both.
- The next send is not due yet. The frequency counts from the last send, not from a fixed calendar date, so changing it does not trigger an email immediately. A weekly frequency sends a week after the last one went out.
- No version qualifies. Check that the versions you expect to see carry an expiration date or a renewal period, and that one of them actually falls inside the delay you chose.
- No recipient resolves. If no group is selected and the Department box is unticked, there is nobody to send to. The same is true if you rely on departments and the software records have none assigned.
- The recipient list is over the spam protection limit. In Settings > General > Spam Protection, Max Recipients caps how many people one notification may reach — the default is 25. Above that, the notification is blocked in full rather than trimmed, and a warning goes to the Email Alert address instead. Selecting a large group is the usual way to hit this.
If all six check out and emails are still missing, confirm that email delivery works at all by sending a test message from Settings > General.
Related articles
- Introduction to the Software module
- Process for adding software and versions — where expiration dates and renewal periods are set
- Management of Software module permissions