Trustworthy data is a critical piece for the configuration of a solid ServiceNow Software Asset Management (SAM) application/process, making up its first tier. For a brief reminder, there are 4 tiers:
- 1 – Trustworthy Data (know, manage, and trust your data),
- 2 – Practical Management (streamline management controls and run quick wins/benefits),
- 3 – Operational Integration (Integrate with other processes, such as request to make the software asset management process more efficient and effective),
- 4 – Strategic Conformance (strive for being best-in-class).
To manage the data well, you need to measure these. When your data are consistent and accurate, reliable, credible, useful, and complete, you and your organization are able to reach the full potential and benefit of the SAM program. Thus, the most important in this tier is the definition of the right data that will:
- Support your SAM,
- Localize the sources of the data,
- Upload these into your ServiceNow instance.
How to efficiently implement SAM
Effective Software Asset Management relies on solid foundational data and the ability to determine/report what software rights are owned/purchased versus used/consumed. Still keep in mind the phased approach “start walking and then run”:
- Choose Software Asset Management Certified Partner (we’re here to help),
- Ask yourself and your organization what really matters for you, meaning:
- What information and details associated with it do we need to track as the organization?
- How and who will use it?
- Who needs it?
- How and who will control it?
- Is it really needed for the compliance position?
- Who is interested in the cost and whether the tracking is really required?
The answers to those questions will support you in making the conscious decision on what collection and maintenance information you really need as an organization. Later on, there are 3 areas that require attention, therefore consider the following tactics to incrementally implement SAM product includes.
Environment:
- Use phased approach by department or site,
- Subset the data (e.g. desktops versus SaaS),
- ServiceNow Discovery or 3rd Party Discovery tools are critical to automatically upload the software installation data.
Products:
- Classify your software: from the least to the most complex,
- Start from one type of license metric, suite, or cost of the specific product.
Entitlements:
- Select most important Publishers from the organization perspective (by software spend for instance),
- Get clean and up to date entitlements from your vendor(s),
- Verify the completeness and accuracy using import function within SAM Pro.
Thereafter, you can report results to the leadership team using KPIs that are operationally important to your organization, and can fast and easily emphasize the countable benefits.
We prepared this material for you using the following resources:
- Software Asset Management Professional Fundamentals book (2020 version),
- Software Asset Management Implementation Practices Overview Deck.
