Defining software contracts

1. From the Cost Management console, click Cost Management Tools.

2. From the Cost Management Tools list, click Manage Software Contracts.The Manage Software Contracts dialog box is displayed listing all the available Software Contracts. From the dialog box, you can add, modify, or remove Software Contracts.

   

To add a software contract

1. To add a new Software Contract, click Add.
   The Add Software Contract dialog box is displayed.
   
   Complete the fields as follows:

   Field	Action
   Contract Name	Enter a name for the software contract.
   Description	(Optional) Enter a description for the software contract.
   Starting Month	Select the start month and year for the software contract.
   Duration	From the list, select the length of the software contract in years.
   Budget	Enter the total budget for the software contract. Refer to your IBM contract.
   Months in first period	From the list, select the number of months in the first period of the contract. Typically, IBM contracts are divided into yearly periods. Depending on your contract with IBM, enter the number of months in the first period of the contract. Important In most contracts, the number of months in the first period is 12. However, business circumstances might require that the first period of the contract be less than one year. In order to account for this situation, the proper value can be selected from the list. All subsequent periods are generated automatically based on this value and the duration of the contract.
   Edit Period Details	Edit the contract period details. For more information see To modify a software contract.
   Cost Table change event	Add a Cost Table change event. For more information, see Adding-a-change-event-to-the-software-contract. If the cost table changes over the course of a contract, you need to add a Cost Table change event to account for the changes. For more information, see Cost-table-change-event-overview.

2. In the Add Software Contract dialog box, click Add Contract.
   The new software contract is saved to Cost Management.

To modify a software contract

1. From the Cost Management console, click Cost Management Tools.
2. From the Cost Management Tools list, click Manage Software Contracts.

3. In the Manage Software Contract dialog box, select the contract you want to modify and click Modify.

   The Modify Software Contract dialog box is displayed.

   Important

   When modifying an existing contract, you have to first unlock the contract by using the lock toggle. When prompted, confirm that you want to enable modifications by clicking Yes.

   

4. Modify the values in the contract.

5. To configure the budget allocations for each period, click Edit Period Details.
   The Contract Period Details dialog box is displayed.

   

   By default, Cost Management divides the contract budget value by the duration (number of years) and uses this value as the budget for each period.

   1. For the period you want to edit, click to display the allocated monthly values.The following figure shows the monthly values for Period 1:

      

   2. Adjust the monthly values based on the actual monthly budget of your contract.
      

      Important

      If the monthly budget values change the budget value for that period, Cost Management updates the budget value for that period and the entire contract.

   3. (Optional) Adjust the period budget value to change the monthly budget allocations.When adjusting the budget value for a period, Cost Management automatically distributes the new budget values across the months in the period, maintaining the existing proportion for each month. For an example, see Contract-Period-Details-example.
   4. After editing the values, click Accept.
6. Modify the fields in Cost table change event. For more information, see Adding-a-change-event-to-the-software-contract.
7. In the Modify Software Contract dialog box, click Modify Contract.
8. In the Manage Software Contracts dialog box, click Save Changes.