question Re: ServiceNow License Management Help in ITSM forum

ServiceNow License Management Help

Vance1 — Mon, 28 Nov 2016 19:58:55 GMT

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.

Re: ServiceNow License Management Help

snbrown — Mon, 28 Nov 2016 21:44:31 GMT

Vance,

I can address your question from a non-Subscription Management perspective, as it is significantly different than how licenses are managed today (without Sub Mgmt). In reverse order...

2. Licensing is monitored regularly on a monthly basis by ServiceNow (ad hoc, as needed). Invoicing is typically done annually, as is based on the purchased subscription, not directly on usage. The common usage models are described below.

Fulfiller (or Process) User Model

ServiceNow inspects the [sys_user_has_role] table and filters for all users that are Active = "true" and have logged in during the last 365 days.
From that filtered list, we look for all users with sentinel Fulfiller roles for the applications they have licensed, administrative roles, as well as applicable custom roles. Custom roles that are unknown to ServiceNow are categorized as Fulfillers until proven otherwise. Roles that are identified are logged in the role database, with their role type and instance.
Users with multiple User ID's utilize multiple licenses. Users of different suites are licensed separately, as are users of different instances (for customers with multiple instances).

Unrestricted User Model

ServiceNow inspects the [sys_user] table and filters for all users that are Active = "true" and have a User ID.

Other Notes

Role Categorization - All roles are categorized based on the functionality they provide the user, as defined in the Order Form, on the User Type matrix.
Custom Roles - Custom roles created by the customer are designated as Fulfiller role type, until they have been investigated by ServiceNow and shown to be otherwise. Once a custom role is investigated and known to be a certain role type, it is entered into the ServiceNow Role Dictionary. Once in the dictionary, it will be referenced correctly during future compliance reports. Role type designations follow the usage rights description on the Order Form.

1. Best way to monitor license usage is to generate a report from the [sys_user_has_role] table to report on users that are active .and. have logged-on in the previous 365 days .and. excluding all non-fulfiller roles (Role is not "non-fulfiller role name 1" .or. Role is not "non-fulfiller role name 2" .or. and so on). This report may already be in your instance under the name "Process User 365 Report" or similar.

Re: ServiceNow License Management Help

tabitha — Mon, 28 Nov 2016 21:47:34 GMT

Hi Vance, I am the product manager for Subscription Management. You are absolutely right, I do need to get a video posted. It's on my list but I will bump the priority. Yes, Subscription Management will greatly automate the process and provide you with a dashboard of all of your ServiceNow subscriptions and consumption. There is a few minutes of initial set up, but after that it's pretty hands off as long as you are under your purchased amount. Subscribed users will eventually replace the current 'users with a role' definition of a licensed user which will free up roles for customers to use more liberally.

I would be happy to give you a demo. I appreciate that you took the initiative to post on the topic so I feel like you may have some good feedback on the new product. Helsinki is the first version of this application and we have a few releases to get to where we'd like to be so all customer feedback now is timely and appreciated.

I have passed along your more pressing questions to one of my colleagues that is better suited to respond. I will request he respond asap.

Thank you,

Tabitha

Re: ServiceNow License Management Help

scotthal — Mon, 28 Nov 2016 21:53:13 GMT

Hi Stephen, could expand upon what roles are considered non-fulfiller roles? The one that comes up a lot is approver_user. The role is needed in UI16 in order for the left navigation menu item to display "My approvals". This same limitation is not imposed on the out-of-box approvals on the pre built enterprise service portal.

Re: ServiceNow License Management Help

Vance1 — Tue, 29 Nov 2016 14:30:09 GMT

Hi Tabitha, thank you for your response. I would love a demo and would be happy to provide you with feedback. Can we set this up soon?

Re: ServiceNow License Management Help

Vance1 — Wed, 30 Nov 2016 17:13:50 GMT

Hi Stephen,

Thank you for your detailed response. I have a few clarifying questions.

First, the usage model we have is a Process User Model as you described above.

The biggest issue I noticed with this report is that it is grouped by User ID. This is a problem for several reasons:
- The report is too large for export, I received the following message, "The export you requested contains 48709 rows which may take a long time to return. It is recommended that you let the system email you the results instead of waiting."
- I am unable to see user details such as department. This is needed for departmental usage analysis. Different departments contribute to the overall cost of ServiceNow based on usage.
- It would be nice if you could aggregate the results by distinct count of user like you can in the speedometer report. This would create a much shorter list that is easier to analyze while retaining all the functionality of the list report.

In your response you mentioned "ServiceNow inspects the [sys_user_has_role] table and filters for all users that are Active = "true" and have logged in during the last 365 days."

Just to clarify, users that have a fulfiller role but have not logged in within 365 days or ever are NOT utilizing a license, correct?

You also mentioned "From that filtered list, we look for all users with sentinel Fulfiller roles for the applications they have licensed, administrative roles, as well as applicable custom roles. Custom roles that are unknown to ServiceNow are categorized as Fulfillers until proven otherwise."

How do I know what roles to exclude? Could you expand on non-fulfiller roles?

Re: ServiceNow License Management Help

snbrown — Wed, 30 Nov 2016 17:38:06 GMT

Scott,

Non-Fulfiller roles would be any classified as an Approver (like the one you mentioned) or a Requester.

Fulfiller functionality is listed on the ServiceNow Order Form (User Type matrix) and includes items such as:

View a report published to them
Approve requests ROUTED to user via system
Create/Delete/Modify any record
Drill through any report
Create/Delete/Modify any report
Perform development or administrative activities

Re: ServiceNow License Management Help

snbrown — Wed, 30 Nov 2016 17:51:07 GMT

Vance,

From a detailed reporting standpoint, your request is likely able to be handled more elegantly by Performance Analytics. I have seen very nice looking and flexible reporting results, but I am not an expert in this area. I'll see if I can get a PA guru to respond to you on that.

You are correct, users that have a fulfiller role but have not logged in within 365 days or ever are NOT utilizing a license (in a Fulfiller model).

Non-Fulfiller roles would be any classified as an Approver or a Requester. A role granting the user Fulfiller functionality is listed on the ServiceNow Order Form (User Type matrix) and includes items such as:

View a report published to them
Approve requests ROUTED to user via system
Create/Delete/Modify any record
Drill through any report
Create/Delete/Modify any report
Perform development or administrative activities

Re: ServiceNow License Management Help

jonathanbledsoe — Wed, 30 Nov 2016 17:58:49 GMT

We had similar requirements to track fulfiller licenses and the ability to break them down by different criteria. We used Performance Analytics to help us accomplish this through a nightly data collection. This allows us to provide very similar visuals about how our fulfiller licenses are trending.

PA also allows us to add breakdowns based on the data, In our case the most important criteria was the user's company due to our outsourcing model but you can easily add breakdowns for department or manager if needed. You can also dive down into the data of the users who had licenses on the day in question. This has helped us out greatly to better predict our fulfiller usage.

Re: ServiceNow License Management Help

Vance1 — Wed, 30 Nov 2016 20:30:50 GMT

Hi Jonathon,

We don't currently have PA but this is very helpful. I am curious to know how I might replicate this if/when we do get it. Is the base report created on the [sys_user_has_role] table and filters for all users that are Active = "true" and have logged in during the last 365 days?

Re: ServiceNow License Management Help

Vance1 — Wed, 30 Nov 2016 21:10:44 GMT

Stephen,

Thank you for clarifying. In Jonathon's post below, PA seems to provide the appropriate amount of analysis needed to fully understand how licenses are being utilized within the organization. However, I believe PA is an additional cost; is it not? It would be a shame if the only tool within ServiceNow that is fully capable of accurately measuring license utilization within the organization is a paid add-on and not available by default to all ServiceNow customers.

So far, this thread has provided some much-needed clarity on this topic, for me and hopefully others as well. But I must say that I still feel like this is the kind of metric that ServiceNow should just provide for its customers, especially for those that the Process User Usage Model applies to. Determining Actual License Position (ALP) in an effort to maintain Effective License Position (ELP) is far too important of a task to just leave it up to the customer and their own devices. Especially when ServiceNow is already capturing this data.

I remain hopeful that the Subscription Management Application (tabitha) fills this gap and affords ServiceNow customers the means to efficiently and responsibly manage their license utilization with minimal effort.

Re: ServiceNow License Management Help

Vance1 — Tue, 06 Dec 2016 19:37:28 GMT

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.

Re: ServiceNow License Management Help

Vance1 — Tue, 06 Dec 2016 19:40:19 GMT

Hi Tabitha,

I'd really love to get in touch with you about the Subscription Management Application Demo. Please let me know when we can do this. Thanks

Re: ServiceNow License Management Help

lmt — Tue, 06 Dec 2016 22:11:15 GMT

Hi Tabitha,

We are also struggling with trying to get an accurate count of all our licensed users. We are moving to another instance with Helsinki. If you have some demo or videos on the topic, it would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks!

Re: ServiceNow License Management Help

Paul Ciarfella — Wed, 07 Dec 2016 01:47:42 GMT

Hi Tabitha,

Does the Subscription Management application in Helsinki provide any function other than reporting, such as limiting or controlling user access to subscribed applications? I'm trying to understand the value of subscription management in Helsinki other than improved reporting (but with additional overhead of user administration that includes both role allocation and subscription allocation). Or am I missing something?

You may not remember me but we worked together when you were the CSM for EMC Managed Services back in 2011/2012.

Paul

Re: ServiceNow License Management Help

lmt — Wed, 07 Dec 2016 15:03:06 GMT

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!

Re: ServiceNow License Management Help

tabitha — Fri, 13 Jan 2017 01:41:39 GMT

I apologize for not seeing this sooner Vance. I'm always happy to provide demos. Please shoot me an email to tabitha.hunter@servicenow.com with some date/time suggestions and I will send out an invite. This offer is open to anyone, I love hearing feedback on this new functionality so we can grow it to best suit customer needs.

Re: ServiceNow License Management Help

Vance1 — Fri, 15 Sep 2017 13:31:20 GMT

So glad I was able to help.

Re: ServiceNow License Management Help

Vance1 — Wed, 28 Feb 2018 14:30:26 GMT

If you find this solution helpful, please mark it as "helpful" with the thumbs up button.

Re: ServiceNow License Management Help

saiteja_474 — Sun, 15 Jul 2018 13:08:26 GMT

Hi @tabitha / smithva,

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