Building a Renewal Calendar Your Whole Team Will Use
What a software renewal calendar should contain, how to set alerts, who owns what, and how to spot renewal peaks before they become budget surprises.
By the MI Solutions SAM team9 min read3 exhibits
A renewal calendar is the simplest tool in software asset management and one of the most valuable. It answers one question for everyone involved: what is renewing, when, and who is deciding? Most organizations have something like it, usually a spreadsheet one person maintains. The difference between that and a calendar the whole team uses is structure, ownership and alerts.
Why spreadsheets stop working
01One person maintains it
When they are on leave, or leave, the calendar stops.
02Dates without deadlines
The renewal date is there; the notice deadline is not.
03No alerts
Someone has to remember to look.
04No status
Nobody can tell which renewals are being worked on and which are drifting.
What each entry needs
Field
Why
Vendor and agreement
What is renewing
Annual value
How much is at stake
Renewal date
When the new term starts
Notice period and deadline
When your options close
Auto-renewal
Whether it renews without action
Owner
Who decides
Status
Not started, gathering evidence, negotiating, decided
Decision
Renew, reduce, renegotiate or retire
See the peaks before they arrive
Renewals often cluster, around the fiscal year-end or because several agreements were signed together. Looking at the calendar by month shows where the workload and the budget pressure will land.
Exhibit 1
Because preparation starts months before the notice deadline, a December renewal peak is really a summer workload peak. Plotting the preparation start by month shows when the SAM team will be busiest:
Exhibit 2
Alerts that people act on
Exhibit 3
Send alerts to the owner, not to a shared mailbox nobody reads.
Make it a team habit
A calendar the whole team uses
How MI One helps
Frequently asked questions
Should small subscriptions be on the calendar?
Yes, with a lighter process. Small subscriptions add up, and they often auto-renew.
Who should maintain the calendar?
Procurement or the SAM manager, with each owner responsible for their own renewals' status.
How far ahead should the calendar look?
At least 12 months, and 18 for the largest agreements, so term strategy and co-terming can be planned.
See where your software budget goes
Bring your five largest vendors to a 30-minute call. Our SAM experts will show you where the savings usually hide, and how fast MI One can surface them.
