The Challenge
When this client came to GlideFast Consulting in January 2019, they were looking for a comprehensive solution to streamline their IT software asset management process. At the time, the organization was manually managing its software portfolio with an Excel spreadsheet, a process that was proving very inefficient and inadequate for the enterprise. The customer was also concerned that this manual process posed a risk to their software compliance.
In addition to the out-of-the-box ServiceNow Software Asset Management solution, this client was looking for specific customizations that would improve and automate their workflows. At the time, ServiceNow had recently released the Software Asset Management Professional (SAM Pro) solution. Considering the client’s unique needs and desire for automation, GlideFast determined that implementing this new application would be the optimal solution for the client.
-2.webp?width=430&height=484&name=petrochemical-industrial-plant%20(1)-2.webp)
The Solution
To work towards a solution, GlideFast first held a series of workshops with the client to deeply understand their challenges. Through scrum-like meetings offered three times per week, GlideFast refined its understanding of the client’s needs and continuously demonstrated features and solutions as they were developed.
GlideFast Consulting ultimately deployed a fairly unique solution for the client that covered the whole lifecycle of software asset management, automating processes end-to-end.
GlideFast conducted a baseline implementation that included:
-
Configuring the SAM Pro plugin
-
Enabling and configuring publisher packs
-
Setting up SAM Pro integration with Microsoft SCCM system to pull in software installation and usage data
-
Configuring Client Software Delivery (CSD) to enable SCCM integration
-
Configuring Contracts module to allow the client to track contracts as they’re associated with software
-
Reusable catalog workflows that were easy for the software asset manager to configure and gave standardized process for people requesting software
-
Integration with Active Directory (AD) because the client uses AD to control and list some of the software accesses that were already in their environment
-
Integration with Purchase Order (PO) systems so that licenses can be procured automatically as users request those items and licenses may not be available
-
License renewal workflow that automates many of the SAM team’s tasks during the renewal process, saving the client steps in multiple records across the system.
GlideFast addressed the entitlements and allocations by:
-
Performing Bulk Load Entitlements
-
Building custom functionality for bulk loading allocations
-
Creating subscriptions for non-API subscriptions to better track subscription software that doesn’t have the API.
-
Note: This is no longer a necessary step, as ServiceNow updated this functionality in their Orlando Release (March 2020).
-
Results
GlideFast completed the implementation project for the client within six months. Though software asset management is a continuous process, the client quickly realized the following results as a result of GlideFast’s initial configuration:
