Lisa Latour
Administrator
Administrator

Welcome to ServiceNow®

Software Asset Management 

Congratulations on purchasing ServiceNow® Software Asset Management (SAM)! With ServiceNow SAM, you’ll take control of your software assets, reducing compliance risk and lowering software costs. This guide gives you the critical information you need to get started, including proven guidance and links to valuable resources.

Let’s get started!

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Guide Overview

Here’s an overview of the topics we will cover in the guide:

  • Familiarize yourself with SAM
  • Decide on business outcomes
  • Chart your implementation path
  • Prepare for organization change
  • Bookmark resources

Start by familiarizing yourself with SAM

SAM comes with many capabilities that let you take charge of your software licenses. You’ll find a list of some of these capabilities in the box on the right, along with links to further information. However, before you start a deep dive, the links below will help you familiarize yourself with the basics of SAM and learn where to find more information:

  • The SAM product page and datasheet provide high-level product information and links to other resources.
  • This overview video walks through key SAM capabilities, including providing SAM screenshots.
  • For pragmatic advice on getting started with SAM, check out this Gorilla Guide.
  • Detailed SAM product documentation can be found here.

If you have purchased SAM Enterprise, you’ll also want to learn about Cloud Insights, which helps you to minimize cloud spend and reduce risk by managing you cloud resources. Here’s where to go for information:

  • For an overview, take a look at the Cloud Insights product page and datasheet.
  • You can find Cloud Insights product documentation here.

And don’t forget to visit the ServiceNow IT Asset Management community. You’ll find best practices and other useful resources, and it’s also a great place to talk to ServiceNow experts, get your questions answered, and connect with other community members.

 

Selected SAM Capabilities

 * Requires SAM Enterprise

 

 

Identify your desired business outcomes

Before you begin SAM implementation, it’s critical to clearly understand your business goals. By deciding which outcomes are most important for your organization, you set clear stakeholder expectations and focus your initial implementation to realize this goal.

The following journey documents describe two of the most frequent business outcomes that ServiceNow customers target with SAM and give you useful information on achieving these outcomes.

 

Software Compliance & Risk Mitigation Take inventory of your software estate to determine whether or not you are in compliance with your current license position.

 

Software Cost Optimization Lower your costs by identifying unused or misused software licenses and cloud resources.

Keep in mind that you can achieve both of these outcomes over time. However, by prioritizing one outcome first, you focus your efforts and avoid overextending your team. Also remember that your stakeholders need to part of your journey, and that you also need an executive sponsor to create alignment and ensure accountability.

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Chart a path to implementation success

Many ServiceNow customers work with a certified ServiceNow partner or ServiceNow Expert Services for their SAM implementation since SAM involves business processes and disciplines they are not familiar with. It also accelerates rollout and helps customers achieve their goals faster.

If you have chosen to work with a partner but haven’t selected a partner yet, this document will help you develop your ServiceNow partner strategy. Make sure that the partner uses Now Create, ServiceNow’s library of more than 700 leading implementation practices, since this accelerates your time to value and reduces risk. Check out our Partner Finder to find a SAM-certified partner or talk to your ServiceNow account representative about ServiceNow Expert Services.  We can also work with your chosen SAM-certified partner to infuse our expertise into your implementation through our ServiceNow Co-Delivery service offering.

If you are going to self-implement, this success pack, this process guide , and this best practices whitepaper provide detailed guidance for a successful implementation.

We also strongly recommend that you take a phased approach to SAM implementation, so you achieve your most important business outcomes first, accelerate time to value, and avoid overcomplicating your initial rollout. To help you plan for your implementation, refer to the SAM Pre-implementation Checklist and SAM Success Map

 

 

For those of you who have purchased ServiceNow Impact, you will have access to experts and resources to guide you through your  implementation of SAM, track and measure outcomes, and help you get to value quickly. If you do not have a paid ServiceNow Impact package, consider how dedicated ServiceNow experts, premium support, a personalized digital experience, and training for your team can help you accelerate your ROI.  Read more here.

 

 

 

Understand ServiceNow releases and upgrades

If you’re not already on the latest ServiceNow release, we strongly recommend that you upgrade before you begin development in SAM. By upgrading, you get new ServiceNow innovations into the hands of your users faster, get access to the latest performance and security enhancements, and ensure that support is there when you need it. To make your upgrade smooth and successful, take a look at these upgrade resources.

 

Prepare for organizational change

To successfully deploy and launch SAM, you need your team and business stakeholders to know how SAM works and understand its benefits. To do this, you need to communicate what’s changing and why and ensure that everyone has been appropriately trained for their role. This webpage provides detailed guidance on how to plan for organizational change. If you need help creating a winning communications plan, this communications plan template also provides useful advice.

The following courses are a great starting point for training:

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There is also a SAM simulator that you can access here.

For people who are new to ServiceNow, we also recommend this very short Get Started with the Now Platform course to learn the platform basics. For a deeper dive into the Now Platform, a longer ServiceNow Fundamentals course is also available. 
 
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Bookmark  
these resources!

ServiceNow Customer Success Center -- The CSC is a one-stop shop that gives you instant access to proven methodologies, leading practices, and expert insights and advice.

NowSupport -- You can get technical issues resolved quickly by contacting our team comprised of ServiceNow employees with deep product knowledge and real-world experience.  Read more here on how to use support.

 
Comments
chattyswhimsies
Tera Expert

Wondering if there are needed updates here since - 

Last update:
‎11-21-2023 08:11 PM
Version history
Last update:
‎11-21-2023 08:11 AM
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