Software Asset Management release notes

Release version: Yokohama

Updated January 30, 2025

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Summary of Software Asset Management release notes Yokohama

The ServiceNow® Software Asset Management (SAM) application in the Yokohama release enhances the ability to systematically track, evaluate, and manage software and SaaS application costs, utilization, compliance, and optimization. This release introduces generative AI capabilities, expanded license management for popular software platforms, and improved accessibility features. It also provides streamlined onboarding and integration options to help organizations maintain software compliance and optimize costs effectively.

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Key Features

Generative AI with Now Assist: Enables creation of detailed publisher license compliance summaries for better insight into software deployment and optimization.
Expanded License Management: Support for Oracle Database and WebLogic on Nutanix virtualization and Solaris LDOM, Microsoft 365 and Dynamics 365, SAP Ariba and SAP S/4HANA Cloud, CrowdStrike products, and IBM Cloud Paks.
Guided Setup and Activation Enhancements: Step-by-step onboarding for SAM and Microsoft 365 with prescriptive task guidance. Simplified SaaS License Management activation and minimum permission requirements for SaaS security.
Optimization and Compliance Tools: Automated license removal for low usage and overlapping subscriptions, cost-saving recommendations for Microsoft Dynamics 365, and subscription reclamation via SAP Ariba integration.
Accessibility Improvements: Configurable workspace supporting WCAG 2.1 Level AA conformance with reflow capability for zooming content up to 400% without loss of functionality, improving usability for users with vision impairments.
Enhanced Reporting and Lifecycle Management: Parent-child relationships for software product lifecycle dates, Export Classification Control Numbers (ECCNs) visibility for export compliance, and expanded product lifecycle coverage including custom availability and end-of-support dates.
Compliance and License Calculation Insights: Tools to evaluate installation to license consumption percentages and understand licensing calculations to improve compliance and optimize license usage.
Plugin and Upgrade Considerations: Migration of reconciliation scripts to a new store application requires moving customizations when upgrading to Yokohama. CrowdStrike integration profiles require entitlements updates in Yokohama Patch 1.

Activation and Integration

Activation requires enabling the Software Asset Management Professional plugins and the Software Asset Workspace plugin, which transitions users to the new workspace user interface. Additional SAM-related applications, such as SaaS License Management, Oracle Global Licensing Data Collection, IBM License Compliance, ITAM Health Check, and Guided Experiences, are available from the ServiceNow Store to extend functionality.

Accessibility

The configurable workspace supports reflow, allowing users to zoom in extensively without loss of content or usability, accommodating users with low vision or other accessibility needs. This complies with WCAG 2.1 Level AA standards and can be toggled via system properties.

Related Applications

Hardware Asset Management: Tracks and manages physical asset environments with automation and mobile capabilities.
Enterprise Asset Management: Manages the full lifecycle of enterprise assets to reduce downtime and maximize usability.
Cloud Cost Management: Analyzes cloud asset costs to optimize operations and reduce spend.
Contract Management: Tracks and manages contracts related to IT and software assets.
Procurement: Facilitates creation of purchase orders and fulfillment of service catalog requests.

The ServiceNow® Software Asset Management application systematically tracks, evaluates, and manages the cost, utilization, compliance, and optimization for software and SaaS applications. The Software Asset Management application was enhanced and updated in the Yokohama release.

Software Asset Management highlights for the Yokohama release

Leverage generative AI by using the Now Assist for Software Asset Management (SAM) application to create publisher summaries on software deployment, license compliance, configuration health, and optimization.
Manage the licenses for your Oracle Databases and WebLogic deployments on the Nutanix virtualization technology.
Integrate SAP Ariba and SAP S/4HANA Cloud with the Software Asset Management application to monitor and track software usage and subscriptions effectively.
Simplify the onboarding of your Software Asset Management (SAM) application by following the prescriptive guidance provided in the SAM Guided Setup and Microsoft 365 Guided Setup.
Track and optimize your IBM Cloud Pak licenses by using the Software Asset Management application.
Benefit from accessibility improvements to create a configurable workspace that supports Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.1 Level AA conformance.

See Software Asset Management for more information.

Important:

SaaS License Management, Data Collection for Oracle Global Licensing and Advisory Services, IBM License Compliance for Software Asset Management, ITAM Health Check, and Software Asset Management Guided Experiences are available in ServiceNow Store. For details, see the "Activation information" section of these release notes.

Important information for upgrading Software Asset Management to Yokohama

Starting from the Yokohama release, all the reconciliation script includes are being moved from the family release to the Software Asset Management store application (com.sn_itam_samp). When upgrading to Yokohama, if you have made customizations to reconciliation script includes, you must move your customizations to the new script includes. The old script includes will be deprecated.

When upgrading to Yokohama Patch 1 with the Software Asset Management (sn_itam_samp) 2.1.0 store application installed, you must delete the entitlements for the existing CrowdStrike integration profiles. Then, create new entitlements for various CrowdStrike products, such as CrowdStrike Falcon Endpoint Protection and CrowdStrike Falcon Discover, based on their license metrics. These metrics include the Reserved Hourly Average Sensor and Sensor Subscription, which are found under the CrowdStrike License Metric Group.

If any existing CrowdStrike profiles are in the Draft state, create new integration profiles and delete the existing ones.
If any existing CrowdStrike profiles are in the Published state, their state changes to Draft.

New in the Yokohama release

Gain insights into your publisher license compliance by using Now Assist for Software Asset Management

Use generative AI to gain a comprehensive summary of publisher license compliance. The detailed publisher summaries enable you to understand the publisher license compliance details.

Manage Microsoft 365 license compliance and optimization through Microsoft 365 Guided Setup

Get a prescriptive guidance for the tasks that you must perform in the Software Asset Management application, Microsoft 365 admin center, and other applications to configure Microsoft 365. This Guided Setup organizes the configuration activities into various categories so that you can see the list of tasks that need to be performed.

Optimize Microsoft 365 subscriptions

Optimize how to manage Microsoft 365 licensing with these enhancements:

Auto removal of licenses from the Microsoft 365 admin center by detecting low usage and overlapping subscriptions.
Expanded support for usage-based optimization such as Microsoft 365 E3 Teams and Microsoft 365 government plans.

Optimize Microsoft Dynamics 365 subscriptions

Receive recommendations to save costs by removing low-usage subscriptions for MRS applications.
Receive guidance on cost-saving strategies while purchasing multiple base subscription licenses for various Microsoft Dynamics 365 applications. Using a combination of base and attach licenses can provide a more cost-effective solution.

Simplify the activation process for SaaS License Management

Simplify your activation process by optimizing your SaaS subscriptions. You can activate just the SaaS applications that you want to manage.

SaaS security permissions

While integrating your SaaS applications, you can now grant the minimum permissions required to enable key use cases, such as downloading subscriptions, calculating activity, and reclaiming subscriptions.

Optimize subscriptions for SAP Ariba

Gain visibility to the subscriptions and reclaim stale licenses by integrating your ServiceNow instance with the SAP Ariba application.

Configure and map users from SaaS portals to ServiceNow AI Platform with ease

Determine your licensed users by mapping user subscriptions from SaaS applications to users in ServiceNow AI Platform.

Optimize CrowdStrike subscriptions

Software Asset Management now includes support for CrowdStrike products with license metrics such as Sensor Subscription and Reserved Hourly Average Sensor. The introduction of a new license metric group, CrowdStrike, improves data coverage and reconciliation. By managing the entitlements for various CrowdStrike products, including CrowdStrike Falcon Endpoint Protection, CrowdStrike Falcon Discover, and others, you can get better tracking and compliance.

Manage onboarding of products to support the Software Asset Management (SAM) application through SAM Guided setup

Get step-by-step guidance on the activities that you must perform to onboard SaaS and on-premises products. The guided setup helps you to create or associate success goals, configure product integrations, create software entitlements, or run reconciliation to get the most out of the Software Asset Management application.

Manage license compliance for Oracle Database and WebLogic Server deployed on Solaris Logical Domain (LDOM)

Support Oracle Database and WebLogic Server licensing for Per Processor and Named User Plus (NUP) license metrics that are deployed on the hard-partitioned Solaris LDOM infrastructure, also known as Oracle VM Server for SPARC.

Manage compliance for SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition

Gain visibility to software usage information and subscriptions by integrating your Software Asset Management application with the SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition. This integration supports the Full User Equivalent (FUE) license metric that is used to grant licenses for SAP cloud applications.

Determine license compliance for Oracle products deployed on Nutanix virtualization technology

License Oracle Database Server, Options, and WebLogic Server with deployments on the Nutanix virtualization technology.

Support for revenue-based license metrics for SAP engines

Gain the ability to maintain licenses for higher value, revenue-based SAP engine products.

Leverage machine learning normalization for software recognition in protected government environments

Extend machine learning normalization capabilities to Government Community Cloud (GCC) and National Security Cloud (NSC) environments.

Leverage machine learning spend detection in protected government environments

Extend Software Spend Detection capabilities to Government Community Cloud (GCC) and National Security Cloud (NSC) environments.

Optimize licensing for IBM Cloud Paks

Use the IBM License Compliance for Software Asset Management application to track and manage licenses for your IBM Cloud Paks.

Expand end of life (EOL) reporting by creating parent-child relationships between software products

View, define, or update the parent-child relationships between your software products. Use these relationships to enable your child products to inherit life-cycle dates from their associated parent products.

View the Export Classification Control Numbers (ECCNs) for your software products

View the ECCNs that are mapped to your software products. Use this information to identify the products that are subject to U.S. export control regulations so that you can maintain export compliance across your products.

Create and manage entitlements for your Microsoft 365 From SA and Add-on user subscription licenses (USLs)

Create entitlements to track and manage the From SA and Add-on licensing terms for your Microsoft 365 subscriptions. Specify the details of each license, including the license type, license cost, and number of purchased rights. Use this information to determine your license compliance so that you can optimize your licensing costs.

Improve your compliance position with insights on how your software installations get licensed

Evaluate the installation to license consumption percentages and devise strategies for improving your license usage. Track your installation to license journey by connecting software installations to the licenses consumed and identifying the statuses such as licensed or unlicensed.

Gain an understanding of how licenses get calculated for your software assets

Learn how the Software Asset Management application calculates the number of licenses that are required for your software assets with the factors that impact this process.

Increase the coverage of product life cycles

Expand the life-cycle date calculations to include the custom general availability (GA) dates. Additionally, support is also available for the End of Extended Support phase and the End of Support and End of Life phases.

Changed in this release

Reflow for Configurable Workspace: The Software Asset configurable workspace supports reflow, which enables pages and content to be zoomed up to 400% through your browser settings without loss of content or functionality.
Publisher optimizations dashboard for Microsoft: The Publisher Optimizations dashboard for Microsoft has been updated to support additional subscriptions.

Activation information

Software Asset Management is available with activation of the Activate all Software Asset Management Professional plugins including the Software Asset Workspace plugin (com.sn_samp_master_ws). Activating this plugin automatically activates the Activate all Software Asset Management Professional plugin (com.sn_samp_master) and the Software Asset Workspace plugin (com.sn_sam_workspace). After the new plugin is activated, you can't access the classic user interface.

In the ServiceNow AI Platform® Yokohama release, there's limited support for the Software Asset Management classic user interface. While it remains active in your instance, including when you upgrade to a new ServiceNow AI Platform® release, you can move to the new workspace for an intuitive and personalized experience.

For releases prior to Utah, if you activated the older Software Asset Management Professional plugin (com.sn_samp_master), the Software Asset Workspace is available with activation of the Software Asset Workspace plugin (com.sn_sam_workspace). After the Workspace plugin is activated, you can't revert to the classic user interface. For details about the plugins and how to request them, see Request Software Asset Management.

To activate Next Experience, make sure that the glide.ui.polaris.experience system property in your instance is set to true.

Install the following Software Asset Management applications by requesting them from ServiceNow Store. Visit the ServiceNow Store website to view all the available apps and for information about submitting requests to the store. For cumulative release notes information for all released apps, see the ServiceNow Store version history release notes.

Software Asset Management - SaaS License Management
Data Collection for Oracle Global Licensing and Advisory Services
IBM License Compliance for Software Asset Management
ITAM Health Check
Software Asset Management Guided Experiences

Accessibility information

Accessibility improvements: Accessibility improvements were completed to create a configurable workspace that supports WCAG 2.1 Level AA conformance.
Reflow: The configurable workspace supports reflow, which enables pages and content to be zoomed up to 400% through your browser settings without loss of content or functionality. Additionally, content can be enlarged without scrolling in two dimensions at a width equivalent to 320 CSS pixels or a height equivalent to 256 CSS pixels. Page layouts are transformed into a vertical, stacked view automatically when users increase browser zoom to 400%. This enhancement helps users with low vision or who have trouble seeing web content in a browser due to monitor size, device type, poor lighting, or other situations. Reflow can be turned off with a system property for instances, experiences, and pages. See Reflow for Configurable Workspace for details.