Evaluation and Licensing experience for System Center - Service Manager

Important

This version of Service Manager has reached the end of support. We recommend you to upgrade to Service Manager 2022.

System Center - Service Manager (SM) 1801 and later supports an enhanced experience for evaluating Service Manager and activating the product for retail use.

The evaluation version of Service Manager can be installed and used for 180 days. In SM 2016, after an evaluation version is installed, there was no option to view the remaining days for the evaluation period. In Service Manager 1801 and later, you can view the information about the evaluation period, and accordingly activate your SM.

The evaluation version of Service Manager can be installed and used for 180 days. You can view the information about the evaluation period, and accordingly activate your SM.

To view the evaluation period related information, from the Service Manager console, go to Help > About. The page displays the details as shown in the following example:

Screenshot of About SM page.

Evaluation expiry notices

You will receive notices for evaluation expiry once the evaluation period expires.

If you try to connect to Service Manager after the expiry of the evaluation period, the following notices appear on the Console and on PowerShell.

Notice for Service Manager Console

Screenshot showing Notice through console.

Notice for Service Manager PowerShell

Screenshot showing Notice through PowerShell.

Activate Service Manager

You can activate Service Manager 1801 and later using the product key from Console and PowerShell by using the following steps.

You can activate Service Manager using the product key from Console and PowerShell by using the following steps.

Activate Service Manager through console

Note

If the Evaluation Period has expired, you can activate SM only through PowerShell.

  1. From the SM console, go to Help > About and select Activate at the bottom left of the About page.

    Screenshot showing SM activate through console.

    Enter product key page appears.

    Screenshot showing SM product key.

  2. Enter the product key for Service Manager and select Continue.

    If you provide a valid product key, the License Agreement page appears, else an error message is displayed.

    Screenshot showing SM license agreement.

  3. Read through the License Agreement. Select the I have read understood and agree with the terms of the license agreement checkbox and select Accept to complete the process.

Activate Service Manager through PowerShell

To activate Service Manager through PowerShell, use the following procedure:

  1. Open a PowerShell window on the computer where the SM console is installed.

  2. Enter the following command and press enter.

    Set-SCSMLicense -ManagementServer <ManagementServer> -ProductId <Product Key>
    

    On executing the command, you get a prompt asking for the required credentials to execute the command. Provide the credentials as appropriate.

A confirmation message appears.

  1. Read and accept the confirmation message. Upon successful confirmation, licensing complete information appears as shown below:

    Screenshot showing the SM license completion.