ServiceNow License Management Help

Vance1 · ‎11-28-2016

Hello,

I have been looking through the Wiki and ServiceNow Community for the best way to view and manage ServiceNow License utilization but have not come across a "Best Practice" for how to do so.

I found some very helpful threads that explain how to configure some report settings (Thread-1, Thread-2) but essentially they direct you to paste "javascript:gs.getRoledUsers()" into the sys id filter on the sys_user table tweak from there. Thread-1 had a nice speedometer built from the "sys_user_has_role" table, but neither of these options provide details about where the licenses are used internally like by department without additional data analysis.
I found a thread that suggested the use of "System Usage" but the number of licensed users displayed here was different that what I get using the report method above.
Finally, I came across something called "Subscription Management Application" that seems to be the most promising, except... Subscription data arrives on production instances only and the application will not be made available until Helsinki. How am I supposed to test this as a solution in my development instance if I am only able to access data in my production instance? It would be nice to know exactly how this application will be generating an accurate license count. A dedicated video about the intended usage of this application and demonstration would also be helpful. Will automation be built in? Can I have the system reclaim licenses based on specified criteria like no login within 6 months?

What I am looking for:

The best, most accurate way to monitor ServiceNow License usage with visibility down to department and user at this point in time.
I would like to know how license reporting works between ServiceNow and Us (company). It seems that ServiceNow must be monitoring our instance and bills us periodically based on this reporting mechanism. I would like to know how often ServiceNow counts our licenses used and what criteria is being used to generate that report so we can duplicate it for accurate planning.

Thanks to anyone who is able to help. I feel like something as important as License Management shouldn't be this difficult.

Vance1 · ‎12-06-2016

Configuring the report as shown here seems to be the best answer to my question.

Four Primary Components:

Data > Table > sys_user
Sys ID > is > javascript:getRoledUsers()
Active > is > True
Last Login Time > Relative > On or after > 365 > Days > Ago

One Secondary Component if Applicable (Not Shown):

Filter Out Non-Fulfiller Roles

In our case, we currently don't have any users that utilize a non-fulfiller role ONLY. However, If you do, and you subscribe to a Fulfiller user model, it might be a good idea to filter these out as they don't utilize a license according to ServiceNow. Please consult your order agreement and ServiceNow representative for confirmation.

Using this report configuration will eliminate duplicates as it is pulling individual users from the "sys_user" table instead of users and their individual roles from the "sys_user_has_role" table. You can then add related columns like department to gain more insight into who is using licenses.

If you have Performance Analytics (PA), I suggest using it. It will allow you to practically eliminate the need to export this report to Excel for post-processing and analysis.

Thanks to all who contributed to this thread and other like it as this solution would not likely be possible without you.

View solution in original post

lmt · ‎12-07-2016

Vance, you have no idea how much time you have saved me from doing manual excel analysis with this report. Thank you so much. I was able to make this into a graph in SN to show the fulfillers, admin, requesters and have it stacked by the department / org. Again, thank you!

Vance1 · ‎09-15-2017

So glad I was able to help.

saiteja_474 · ‎07-15-2018

Hi @tabitha / smithva,

if i add itil role to users directly,does it count as allocated in subscription management

Vance1 · ‎03-12-2019

Hi @saiteja.474,

Sorry I didn't see this sooner. Tabitha is no longer the Product Manager for Subscription Management. The answer to your question is both Yes and No depending on your configuration of Subscription Management

NO, if you don't use User Sets

YES, if you use User Sets (Link to product docs) and Auto-sync (Link to product docs😞

You can create a user set using either or both of two methods: Configure a filter (for example, filter by role) that selects particular users from the User [sys_user] table or specify a particular set of user groups from the Group [sys_user_group] table.

Then you can configure any subscription to check user sets regularly to find users who were added or removed with Auto-Sync. The system regularly subscribes or unsubscribes users based on updates to user sets.

I hope this helps.

Diego A_ · ‎12-16-2019

Hi dear Community, is there any OOB report that can show the number of licenses in use for the Sec Ops modules? Thanks.