Agent Client Collector - SAM Basic Metering - Microsoft 365 Apps

[Richo1]

Hello,

Looking at software usage via the Agent Client Collector for visibility it appears that MS Visio & MS Project usage cannot be captured when using Microsoft 365 Apps.

This is due to the fact that the usage as recorded under the UserAssist registry key on the target machine is captured as 'Microsoft 365 Apps for enterprise - en - us' with the path value pointing to Visio or Project. This was discovered when inspecting the XML input payload from an on-demand host data collection.

As the Agent Client Collector is merely reading the UserAssist registry data it appears that there is no way around this.

Can someone confirm if this is indeed an issue? See example below showing snippets from the payload file, which I captured after opening Visio for a couple of minutes and then closing:

Microsoft 365 Apps for enterprise usage - Visio? showing last_used date

Microsoft Visio - no last_used date recorded:

Thanks,

[Nayan Mahato]

Hi Richo,

In ROME there is a new job been introduced in SAM called "SAM - Collect Office 365 Usage". You can use that by using "Software Asset Management - SaaS License Management Integrations" without an agent-client collector. Thanks.

Regards,

Nayan

[Richo1 · Accepted solution]

Thanks, found this under the Rome release documentation:

"After the Microsoft Office 365 integration connects, you can evaluate the information in the Software Usages (samp_sw_usage) table to determine the usage data for individual software products provided within the subscription. The SAM - Collect Office 365 Usage job collects the usage data and generates removal candidates daily.

The Software Usages table provides information on the date the software was last used and the usage type of the activities performed by users: Desktop, Web, Mobile, or cumulative across platforms. This information can help you decide on the optimized plan for products within your Microsoft Office 365 subscription."

[Nayan Mahato]

Thanks, Richo. Please mark my answer as helpful if that solves your concern. Thanks in advance!

[Richo1]

Hello,

It appears that Visio & Project usage cannot be tracked using the M365 integration as it doesn't look like this usage activity is tracked by Microsoft. 

Are you able to confirm?

Thanks,

Richard.