Software Central New Agreement Guidelines
Software Central pursues new agreements when the collective participation of multiple campus departments can achieve additional value or benefit to the campus.
The types of campus-wide software license agreements negotiated, acquired, implemented, distributed, managed and supported by Software Central range from one-time volume purchases to ongoing multi-year site license agreements. For a complete list of the software license agreements available to UCLA departments, please visit our product list.
The standard guidelines that Software Central follows to determine whether or not implementation of a new agreement is warranted are as follows:
1) Solicit testing of the product and opinions on its effectiveness and usefulness from campus technology experts.
If the product is already widely-licensed or well-known across campus, this may not be necessary.
2) Determine campus demand for the product.
This can be accomplished in a number of ways, ranging from asking the initial proposer of the agreement to help identify other people across campus who they believe are interested purchasing the product, to conducting campus-wide polls of individual department Computing Support Coordinators, Help Desk Coordinators and other IT users, to seeking input from campus IT leadership groups such as the Common Systems Group and Information Technology Planning Board.
When it has been determined that the product is technologically sound and sufficiently in demand on campus, then we proceed to Step 3.
Note: While each situation is unique, since Software Central provides bulk/volume license discounts, "sufficient demand" often requires a committment to purchasing hundreds or thousands of licenses across the campus.
3) Initiate negotiations with the supplier
If sufficient campus demand is found, Software Central initiates negotiations with the supplier to determine if better terms and/or pricing can be achieved based upon the collective participation of the campus.
NOTE: For some products it is possible that departments can generate greater savings by negotiating terms and conditions locally. In such cases Software Central, if requested, can advise an individual department during their negotiation process.
4) Pursue an Agreement
If it is determined that better terms and/or pricing can be achieved by the campus participating collectively, then Software Central proceeds with the logistics of implementing and managing the agreement, including but not limited to: obtaining cost sharing payments from departments participating in the agreement, initiating Purchase Orders to vendors, distributing products, providing/coordinating product support, and providing ongoing vendor/agreement management.
Developing new campus-wide software agreements can be a lengthy process and often takes three months or more to complete. It is possible that, even after following the above steps, an end result could be that we are unable to achieve a viable agreement. There can be a number of reasons for this result, ranging from supplier inflexibility, to insufficient departmental orders, to uncertain funding commitments.
Departments voluntarily participate in the agreements managed by Software Central solely because these agreements provide the best available terms and pricing. If Software Central cannot achieve an agreement that provides better terms and pricing than an individual department can obtain on their own, then we do not implement an agreement for that product.
Please use this form to suggest a new software agreement.