Renewal rules and alternatives¶
For your first renewal, follow the sourcing-to-renewal walkthrough. This page explains existing purchases, overlapping coverage states, and less common cases.
Link an existing successor¶
If the next entitlement period was already purchased and exists as an Active or Upcoming license from the same publisher, choose Link Existing Successor instead. This secures the renewal and adopts the selected record as its normal successor without creating another sourcing request or pending order. The current record remains Active or Expiring through its own end date, while the renewal actions and workbench alert disappear immediately. The selected record inherits the renewal-chain LT reference; its former reference remains reserved and searchable in history. Date gaps and overlaps are shown for confirmation before linking. If there is a gap, the predecessor remains Expired until the successor starts; it is shown as Renewed only after successor coverage begins. While the linked successor is Upcoming, the expiring predecessor shows Renews in X days (or Renews today) from the successor's start date. A coverage gap remains visible, and pending procurement by itself does not show this countdown.
Publisher is the required matching identity: comparison ignores case and surrounding whitespace. The PO number and description may differ. Both licenses must be eligible renewable types; the successor must extend coverage and have no incoming renewal link. Linking uses the same renewal-action window as initiation, but does not require a budget owner. Open procurement work and existing renewal links must be resolved first.
For maintenance renewals, the successor must also be a maintenance license. Linking activates successor coverage for every parent covered by the predecessor. Unlinking restores the previous parent coverage, relationships, and history. If coverage has changed since linking or the previous maintenance is no longer available, LicenseTrack stops the unlink so those relationships can be reviewed. Ordinary edits and CSV updates must preserve valid terms across established renewal links.
An existing-purchase renewal has no new sourcing or pending-order stages to show. Its procurement trail records the predecessor and successor record IDs, PO number, former successor reference, actor, and link time, while preserving the successor's original purchase trail.
Renewal work and coverage dates¶
Pending Renewal describes the procurement workflow; it does not replace the current term's date status. In License Overview, a pending row keeps its purple shade and Pending Renewal badge while an orange or red edge and a second badge show whether the term is Expiring or Expired. The row appears under Pending and also under its applicable Expiring or Expired filter.
Renewal-action window and annual value¶
Administrators can configure the renewal-action window independently from the expiry-alert window. Until configured, it inherits the expiry-alert value. Changing the action window does not change when a term is Expiring or Expired.
The workbench's estimated annual value annualizes multi-year term cost, so a two- or three-year purchase is not presented as though the complete term value were one year's spend.
Information carried into the next term¶
Admins can also choose, per custom-field definition, whether its value is copied into a renewal. Copied values are a snapshot taken when renewal starts; fields configured to start blank can be completed for the new term during sourcing or pending-order review.
The predecessor's explicit maintenance/support classification travels with the renewal. Older recurring records without a stored classification use the type-appropriate default, including through coterm merging and final conversion.
Legacy-unlinked maintenance¶
Legacy-unlinked maintenance follows the same renewal chain. If it is still parentless when the pending order is converted, the successor remains active maintenance with no parent and retains the legacy-unlinked marker; LicenseTrack does not invent a parent link, mirror, or coverage relationship. The current predecessor is reread during conversion, so linking it while renewal sourcing is in progress makes the successor an ordinary linked maintenance record.
Coterm renewals¶
Repeated merges retain all earlier predecessor relationships. Quote evidence follows the merged lines; shared quotes also remain with unmerged sibling lines.
Coterm work combines eligible renewal lines into a shared successor term. Review the selected predecessors, quantity, dates, and commercial terms together before merging. Follow the procurement guide for the sourcing merge workflow and its eligibility rules.
Purchase history and LT references¶
After conversion, the sourcing request leaves the active Sourcing Overview table and remains available through the History button. Sourcing history opens as a second read-only table below active sourcing work. It keeps the old request id, line id, quote evidence, supplier, pricing, and notes, and it can link forward to the related pending order.
After conversion to licenses, the pending order leaves the active Pending Orders table and remains available through the History button. Pending-order history is also read-only for record fields. It keeps the PO id, line ids, PO document, carried-forward quote context, invoice evidence, and links to the license records created from each line; permitted users can still download or remove evidence from the row action menu.
The renewed license's History section also shows the procurement trail when the renewal passed through LicenseTrack sourcing and pending orders. From there you can jump back to the historical sourcing item, then through to the historical PO, and finally back to the created license. This is useful when an old renewal is restarted months later and you need the previous quote, notes, or PO evidence for reference.
About the LT-Reference number
A renewal successor inherits the predecessor's complete LT reference, including its year. The reference identifies the entitlement chain, so several terms can share it. Use the immutable License Record ID to identify one exact record, and its dates and history to distinguish terms.