15 STEPS TO SOFTWARE COMPLIANCE

1. Understand software copyright and the implications of the Copyright Law in respect to software ownership for your regional area AND be committed to stamping out software theft throughout your organisation.
2. Establish a software Code Of Ethics, inform the staff, display the code and get the staff to understand the code.
3. Create an employee compliance statement and get all staff to sign it. Make it an integral part of your enterprise/employee agreements.
4. Induct and train new staff in the issues of software compliance.
5. Conduct annual training sessions on software compliance and copyright issues.
6. Establish a software register for each machine, listing all licensed software BUT get rid of any unlicensed software first!
7. Make sure you  don’t lose any corporate data and files in the process!
8. Instruct the staff resident at each desktop PC to sign the software register, making them accountable for the software installed.
9. Store original software discs in secure, central locations, identified and matched to software registers.
10. Display warning and reminder notices on notice boards and on PC’s  & workstations. Electronic warning messages are available showing software compliance policy warning which display on start-up of Windows.
11. Appoint a software controller, to co-ordinate buying software, installing software and maintaining software registers. Make all your management team software auditors. This will keep the staff on their toes!
12. Conduct regular, unannounced audits of departments and selected PC’s and workstations. Vary the frequency of audits.
13. Conduct full software audits, re-establish the software registers, with staff signing again.
14. Contact your own regional anti-piracy office such as the Business Software Alliance for further information about Software Compliance.
15. Be careful if you share software or use computer rental services, as the licenses may not apply.

and for STEP 16 - which is designed to ELIMINATE a number of the steps listed above as it forces a complete change in attitude to compliance have a look at the   Software Compliance Toolbox listed below.   

PCProfile has developed a Software Compliance Toolbox (C) 2008 Rob Harmer Consulting Services Pty Ltd as a comprehensive and unique set of self-help procedures and papers and tools (NO SOFTWARE) on managing software and other files (images, fonts, sounds etc) across and within any  organization. The Software Compliance Toolbox offers a pragmatic approach to the task offering a sound management perspective that can be simply applied for all organizations to easily reduce risk!    The Software Compliance Toolbox provides detailed information and guidance on how you can manage software compliance affairs across the whole organization with a large set (over 70 articles) of self help articles that are based on audit experiences and knowledge gained over 17 years in this industry. To gain this level of detail most sites traditionally engage consultants at expensive hourly rates to gain the same level of awareness. The details in the Software Compliance Toolbox (templates, policy, declarations etc, resources and tools) are designed to enable sites to "do it themselves", saving costs all round by focusing on getting back to business basics.  Contact Rob Harmer at pcprofile@pcprofile.com for more information.

USING PIRATED OR ILLEGAL SOFTWARE IS FRAUGHT WITH DANGER! 

You already know this, however have you attained Software Compliance status yet?

Software audits can be a waste of time, money and effort,  UNLESS your initial tools licence cost is low; the task can be done with minimal staffing; without consuming bandwidth and causing server choke; and the results are ACCURATE! Do you really want to waste money on software audits that could be better spent on your core business?  Some notes on SOFTWARE LICENCES The licence conditions for each software application need to be read, understood and filed in  a secure place with proof of purchase as each and every software licence agreement is different even between the same apllication package. REPEAT!  Each software licence or End User Licence Agreement (EULA) varies from package to package and from vendor to vendor. The CDROM based Software Compliance Toolbox (C) 2005 Rob Harmer Consulting Services Pty Ltd will help you manage your compliance affairs a lot easier and with less pain when you bring this corporate knowledge in-house and manage your systems in a manner that allows you to get back to business basics.

USA	Australia	United Kingdom/Europe	Canada

Site Details   PC Audit Tools | Prices | Privacy and Statistics Policies | Site Map |  About Us | Contact Details |  Home