Whether it’s preparing for an IBM license audit, IBM ELA renewal, or just checking how many licenses you have for a particular IBM product, you’ll need an Order History. This post will explain what an IBM Order History is, why it’s so important, where and how to get it, how to understand its content, and identify common mistakes to avoid.
What is an IBM Order History report?
An IBM order history report is a comprehensive record of all purchases made from IBM. It’s a list of historical transactions made by the client with IBM. Transactions might include new purchases, S&S renewals, reinstatement, product changes (evolutions), and corrections.
There is an order history for each Passport Advantage (PA) site your organization has. A PA site can be compared to a bank account for licenses. With an order history report comparable to a bank statement for that account. There will be order histories for each PA site, just like statements for each bank account.
The Order History report format is either a CSV or XML file. There’s a line for each product and the transaction associated with it. The primary columns in an Order History report are:
- Sales order date
- Part number
- Part description
- Appliance information
- Coverage dates
- PID
- Quantity
- Points Renewal
- Price level
- Sales order number
- Agreement number
- Site number
- Order type
- Customer PO number
- Submitted by Reseller
- Site
Order history has various uses, but the most important one is to help an organization manage its compliance. It’s a record of entitlement against which compliance is judged in an audit.
What does an Order History report look like?
Below is a screenshot of a typical order history report. It’s in a CSV format, which makes it easy to read.
Where do I get an IBM Order History Report?
The order history report can be found through the IBM Passport Advantage Online (POA).
The Steps to generating an IBM Order History report
Here are the steps to generate an Order History Report:
- Go to Passport Advantage Online page. https://www.ibm.com/software/passportadvantage/pao_customer.html
- If it’s your first time, I recommend you watch the videos provided by IBM.
- After you have watched the videos, click the blue button labeled Sign in to your PAO Site
- Once you are signed in, select Software and Services Online
- From the left-hand side, select the report Order History
- Select
- contract(s) to report on
- Entitlement period – start date and end date.
- sort by criteria – agreement number, product, start date, Entitlement type
- Submit a detailed report or save it as a draft
A file with the name OrdHistCSVRpt.csv will be downloaded. Open it and check whether the contents match what you expect for the date range you selected.
Why is an IBM Order History report so important?
There are several reasons the IBM Order History is important to an organization.
- Your entitlement is the official record from IBM.
- The part number in this report allows you to look up more details on your entitlement on the IBM License Information documents site.
- It confirms which products are covered by IBM Support.
- The license metric for the product is provided.
- It provides a record of past entitlement that you may wish to reinstate.
- It keeps a record of any changes to entitlement over the years.
- It is the basis for measuring your compliance in an IBM license audit.
How do I find all the sites I need to get order history from?
It is common for organizations to have more than one PA Site, which might have IBM entitlement. If you want an accurate list of your IBM license entitlement, you must get the order history for every site. In the same way, you need to have a list of all the bank accounts to understand how much money you have.
How do I find out all the Passport Advantage sites?
To find all the PA Sites that might be linked to your organization, you will need the help of IBM. They can search their database, but you must provide them with search criteria.
You must compile a list of possible legal entity names your organization might be called. Include entities acquired over the years or names you might have traded under.
Ask your IBM account manager to search for entities that match your criteria. The list returned will have some false positives that can be removed. Once you have a more accurate list, your IBM account manager will provide the Site IDs and primary contact for each site so you can arrange access to generate the order history report.
This usually only needs to be done once, but it is worth the effort. You may find highly valuable entitlement you didn’t know your organization had, just like finding an old bank account that still has money in it.
Note: The auditor will have already done this in an audit situation. Ask for their list of sites and make sure you have access.
Common uses for the IBM Order History Report
There are many uses the order history report can be use for. These include:
- Starting point for building your IBM license position in excel
- Import into a SAM tool to show entitlement
- The part numbers are used for automated bundling in BigFix and ILMT
- The part number and quantities can be used to search for price which in turn can be used for budgeting
- The name or part number can be used to check the IBM lifecycle for the product. Very useful for planning upgrades
Common mistakes in IBM Order History Report
It is not unusual for IBM to make mistakes when updating Order History. It is strongly advised that you compare your Proof of Entitlement (POE) with the actual entries in your order history at least once a year.
If there has been a change in a product’s license metrics, you need to be extra careful that the changes have been made correctly to your order history.
Also, further investigation should be conducted to look for transactions with unusual quantities, for example, 1 PVU.
Useful links
- Link to the Passport Advantage Online portal
- Link to the IBM License Information documents where you can look up more details on your IBM entitlement
- Link to the post on Responding to an IBM audit, which is a common reason to get Order History.
FAQ
Go to the ” Step-by-step instructions” section on the POA Customer page and follow the instructions to get an IBM ID for your site.
You may not have sufficient privilege. You will need to find the Primary User for the site in your organization to grant you access.
Yes. They have special permission and access from IBM to access any client sites that are in scope for a software license review, SLR.
Yes, the order history is updated when you buy software and renew your IBM S&S yearly.
Open a service ticket on your side. Contact your IBM Account Manager with details of the error and ask them to get it checked and corrected immediately. It may take 30 days for IBM to update the PA Site, but it will keep chasing until it is corrected.
