Software Asset Analytics dashboard

  • Release version: Xanadu
  • Updated August 1, 2024
  • 5 minutes to read
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    Summary of Software Asset Analytics dashboard

    The Software Asset Analytics dashboard provides ServiceNow customers with integrated Performance Analytics charts to monitor true-up costs, license compliance, and software removal summaries. It is accessible viaSoftware Asset > Overviewand offers interactive reports with drill-down capabilities and customizable widgets. The dashboard updates compliance-related tabs when new reconciliation results are available and updates removal summaries daily. Charts can be exported as PNG or JPG files. Filtering options by publisher and product are available in the Overview and Optimization sections.

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    Important access notes for Xanadu release:

    • New Xanadu users with the Software Asset Management Professional plugin activated cannot access this dashboard via the Software Asset navigation menu but can access it through the Dashboards menu.
    • Users who activated the Software Asset Management Professional plugin before Xanadu and have not activated the Workspace plugin retain dashboard access via Software Asset navigation.
    • Ensure the system property glide.cms.enable.responsivegridlayout is set to true if data is not visible.

    Key Features

    Overview Tab

    • True-up Cost: Calculates cost to achieve compliance based on entitlement prices.
    • Publishers/Products Out of Compliance: Counts publishers or products with compliance issues, with links to detailed license usage reports.
    • Potential Savings: Estimates cost savings from reclaiming removal candidates.
    • True-up Cost Breakdown: Shows compliance cost by publisher.
    • Software Spend Breakdown: Displays total software cost of active entitlements by publisher.
    • End of Life Products: Heat map highlighting software approaching end-of-life, with drill-down to installations.

    License Summary Tab

    • Overall Product Compliance: Percentage of compliant products.
    • Percent Spend Not in Use: Software spend that is over-licensed or potentially recoverable.
    • Expiring Maintenance Entitlements: Sum and details of entitlements expiring within six months.
    • Software Spend: Total cost of active entitlements.
    • Week-over-Week Cost Summary: Trends of true-up costs, potential savings, and over-licensing across weeks.
    • Month-over-Month Software Spend: Monthly software expenditure trends.
    • Potential Savings by Optimizing Licenses: License optimization recommendations and cost savings for specific platforms (Microsoft Windows Server and on-premise RHEL).
    • Overall Publisher Compliance: Compliance percentage by publisher.
    • Spend In Use by Publisher: Calculated spend actively in use versus total spend.
    • Software Spend by Publisher: Total spend details by publisher.

    Compliance Summary Tab

    • Shows time-series compliance trends including true-up costs, publishers/products out of compliance, and potential savings.
    • Includes detailed breakdowns by publisher, product, and scorecard, plus detailed product results.
    • Over-licensed amount trends and breakdowns track software licenses owned but not in use.

    Removal Summary Tab

    • Displays active removal candidates categorized by justification types such as low usage, restricted software, unlicensed, and unallocated installs.
    • Highlights candidates requiring attention and those not updated in over 30 days.
    • Tracks year-to-date actual savings from completed removals.
    • Breakdowns are available by state, publisher, product, justification, and last updated date.

    Practical Benefits for ServiceNow Customers

    • Enables clear visibility into software license compliance and financial impact through comprehensive, interactive analytics.
    • Supports proactive software asset management by identifying non-compliant software, over-licensed assets, and removal candidates.
    • Helps justify and optimize software spend via true-up cost analysis and potential savings estimation.
    • Facilitates timely maintenance renewal management by tracking expiring entitlements.
    • Improves decision-making with detailed, drill-down data and historical compliance trends.

    View true-up costs and license, compliance, and removal summaries trend charts on the Software Asset Analytics dashboard integrated with Performance Analytics.

    Note:
    The Software Asset Analytics dashboard is no longer available for new Xanadu users who have activated the Software Asset Management Professional (com.snc.samp) plugin or upgraded to Xanadu without activating the Software Asset Management Professional (com.snc.samp) plugin prior to Xanadu. If you activated the Software Asset Management Professional (com.snc.samp) plugin prior to Xanadu but didn't activate the Workspace plugin (com.sn_sam_workspace), you have access to this dashboard. If you activated the workspace plugin (before or after upgrading to Xanadu, you won’t be able to access this dashboard from the Software Asset navigation menu in your instance. You can however access this dashboard from the Dashboards navigation menu.

    The Software Asset Analytics dashboard tab is accessed by navigating to Software Asset > Overview. Select an element within a report to see more information, or add and move widgets as needed.

    The Overview, License Summary, and Compliance Summary tabs are updated whenever a new reconciliation result is available. Results are updated daily for the Removal Summary tab. You can save charts in PNG or JPG formats.

    The graphs show important statistics about the software that is being tracked. In the Overview and Optimization, you can filter by publisher and product to narrow the results.
    Note:
    If you are not seeing data in the Overview dashboard, verify the glide.cms.enable.responsive_grid_layout system property is set to true.

    Overview

    Figure 1. Software Asset Analytics dashboard
    Software Asset Analytics dashboard
    Table 1. Overview tab
    Report Source list Description
    True-up Cost Product Results Cost to be compliant based on the average prices in entitlements for the rights.
    Publishers out of Compliance Product Results Number of publishers that have at least one software model out of compliance.

    Select the report to view the results in the Software license usage.
    Products out of Compliance Product Results Number of products that have at least one software model out of compliance.

    Select the report to view the results in the Software license usage.
    Potential Savings Product Results Cost saved if removal candidates are reclaimed.
    True-up Cost Breakdown Product Results Cost to be compliant based on the average prices in entitlements for the rights by publisher.
    Software Spend Breakdown License Metric Results Total software cost of all entitlements not retired by publisher.
    End of Life Products Product Lifecycle [sam_sw_product_lifecycle] Heat map of software product lifecycles that are reaching their end of life cycle. Select to drill-down to the software installations.

    License Summary

    Figure 2. License Summary tab
    License Summary tab shows information pertaining to licenses
    Table 2. License Summary tab
    Report Source table Description
    Overall Product Compliance Product Result

    [samp_product_result]

    		 Total percent of compliant products.
    Percent Spend Not in Use Product Result and License Metric Results

    [samp_product_result] and [samp_license_metric_result]

    		 Percent of software spend that is not in use (over-licensed amount and potential savings).
    Expiring Maintenance Entitlements Software Entitlement

    [alm_license]

    End date of the total sum of all entitlements that are going to expire within 6 months.

    The total sum of entitlements includes:
    • Perpetual
    • Maintenance
    • Perpetual + Maintenance
    • Upgrade
    • SA
    • Perpetual +SA
    • Step-up
    Select the report to view details about the specific entitlements that are going to expire.
    Note:
    Maintenance and SA entitlements are not displayed as the Perpetual entitlements associated with them are displayed.
    Software Spend License Metric Results

    [samp_license_metric_result]

    		 Total software cost of all entitlements that are not retired.
    Week over Week Cost Summary Product Result and License Metric Results

    [samp_product_result] and [samp_license_metric_result]

    		 True-up cost, potential savings, and over-licensed amount for a series of weeks.
    Month Over Month Software Spend License Metric Results

    [samp_license_metric_result]

    		 Total software spend in a series of months.
    Potential Savings by Optimizing Licenses Potential Savings by Optimizing Licenses

    [samp_license_optimization_summary]

    Potential cost savings for licenses on your physical hosts and clusters that are based on recommended license optimizations.

    Note:
    This report is available only for Microsoft Windows Server and on-premise Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) licenses.

    Select the report to view details about the recommended license optimizations and associated cost savings for each host or cluster. License optimizations include the recommended license, recommended rights, and recommended spend.
    Overall Publisher Compliance Product Result

    [samp_product_result]

    		 Percentage of products that are compliant by publisher.
    Spend In Use by Publisher Product Result and License Metric Results

    [samp_product_result] and [samp_license_metric_result]

    		 Spend in use by publisher = [[Total spend] — [Over-licensed amount] — [Potential savings]] / Total spend.
    Software Spend by Publisher License Metric Results

    [samp_license_metric_result]

    		 Total software spend by publisher.

    Compliance Summary

    Compliance summary consists of time-series data using Performance Analytics to show the compliance trends over time. The source for compliance analysis data is the Product Result [samp_product_result] table.

    Figure 3. Compliance Summary tab
    Compliance Summary tab
    Table 3. Compliance trend: True-up Cost
    Report Description
    True-up Cost Cost to be compliant based on the average prices for entitlements for the rights.
    Publishers out of compliance Number of publishers that have at least one software model out of compliance.
    Products out of compliance Number of products that have at least one software model out of compliance.
    Potential savings Cost saved if removal candidates are reclaimed.
    Breakdowns Shows the detailed list of results based on the widget selected. Breakdowns include Publisher, Product, and Scorecard.
    Records Shows the detailed list of product results based on the widget selected.
    Table 4. Compliance trend: Over-licensed amount
    Report Description
    Over-licensed amount Cost of licenses owned but not being used.
    Publishers over-licensed Number of publishers that have at least one software right not being used.
    Products over-licensed Number of products that have at least one software right not being used.
    Breakdowns Shows the detailed list of results based on the widget selected. Breakdowns include Publisher, Product, and Scorecard.
    Records Shows the detailed list of product results based on the widget selected.

    Removal Summary

    The source for removal summary data is the Reclamation Candidate [samp_sw_reclamation_candidate] table.

    Removal Summary tab
    Table 5. Removal Summary tab
    Report Description
    Reclamation Candidates Total number of active removal candidates with a low usage justification.

    Select the report to show the filtered list of records.
    Restricted Installs Being Removed Total number of active removal candidates with a restricted software justification.

    Select the report to show the filtered list of records.
    Unlicensed Installs Being Removed Total number of active removal candidates with an unlicensed justification.

    Select the report to show the filtered list of records.
    Unallocated Installs Being Removed Total number of active removal candidates with an unallocated justification.

    Select the report to show the filtered list of records.
    Candidates Requiring Attention Number of removal candidates in the attention required state.

    Select the report to show the filtered list of records.
    Candidates Not Updated in 30 Days Number of removal candidates that have an updated date value older than 30 days.

    Select the report to show the filtered list of records.
    Actual Savings Year-to-date Sum of potential savings in a given month of closed complete removal candidates.
    Removal Candidates Breakdown Active removal candidates in various breakdowns (State, Publisher, Product, Justification, and Last Updated).