SAM Office Hours Q&A December 2025 | EMEA/APAC Session

[Kieron Dean]

About This Document

This document contains 24 questions and answers from the SAM Office Hours session held on December 2, 2025. SAM Office Hours is a monthly live Q&A session where ServiceNow customers can ask questions about Software Asset Management directly to product experts.

Of the 24 questions, 20 were answered in writing during the session via the Zoom Q&A panel. An additional 4 answers were extracted from the session recording transcript.

Note: Answers marked as "Extracted from Recording" were processed using AI transcription and extraction. While we have made every effort to ensure accuracy, these answers may contain inaccuracies or miss nuances from the original spoken response.

Answer Source Legend

Written (Q&A Panel) — Answer typed directly in the Zoom Q&A during the session

Extracted from Recording — Answer spoken verbally, extracted from transcript (AI-processed)

Questions & Answers

#	Question	Answer	Source
1	Hi, is there any doc on best practice about the recurrent health check to be perform on SAM Pro?	Documentation: https://www.servicenow.com/docs/csh?topicname=sam-health-check.html&version=latest	Written
2	No SN Discovery, only third-party sources. What is the go-to fastest ROI activity for SAM Pro.	Hi Nicholas, the low hanging fruit is more on the End User Computing (EUC) area in that case. Discovery is strongly recommended when it comes to Data Center licensing. For EUC I recommend using Service Graph Connectors.	Written
3	With regards to the downgrade rights table 1. What does Active is ‘false’ mean? Implications to compliance/reconciliation 2. What action is required to resolve if Active is ‘false’?	Hi Sarah, I believe you are referring to this table. The Active flag is maintained by the ServiceNow Content team. If a rule is valid, it will appear with Active = true; otherwise, it will show as false. If you have any specific requests or need updates to the content, you can submit a Content Request using the link below: https://www.servicenow.com/docs/bundle/zurich-it-asset-management/page/product/software-asset-manage...	Written
4	Is there a best practice around frequency of running the reconcilliation?	Typically, stagger the publishers for recon. But depending on your publishers, start with the top ones.	Written
5	Is there a best practice around frequency of running the reconcilliation?	The recommended frequency depends on how often your inventory sources (SCCM, Intune, Discovery, etc.) are updated, as well as the configuration steps you need to run, such as normalization. Also, make sure to schedule the reconciliation during periods of low activity, as several tables will be refreshed during the process.	Written
6	Nick please - only Mum calls me Nicholas when I'm in trouble 😉	You are not in trouble 😉	Written
7	If we are over 70% SaaS is SAM pro still the ideal solution? How do we account for usage, especially if SSO doesnt capture everything?	Usage is typically retrieved via the direct integrations we have wit the SaaS vendors.	Written
8	Could there be a way to simplify the UI - i.e. step new users through a growth journey. I'm ok with it, but clients have commented on the UI being overwhelming on Day 1.	Hi Nicholas, We use a crawl–walk–run framework for SAM onboarding, which helps simplify the experience for new users. They begin with foundational activities, progress to operational workflows, and eventually adopt full SAM maturity at their own pace. If you have specific asks or areas you’d like us to focus on, please elaborate and we’ll be happy to address them	Written
9	Windows and SQL Server Infrastructure report shows only inventoried/scanned instances of WIndows Servers, which is misleading as it doesn't show the unscanned devices e.g. coming from Azure or virtualisation platforms. Is there a plan to upgrade the report to consider discovered Windows Servers, but unscanned? Also what's the best practise for SAM Manager to ensure / validate completeness of the data in SAM Pro? Healthcheck helps only partially.	You can configure credential-less Discovery, which indicates that a Windows Server was found within a certain IP range. It will show very basic details, but should be a trigger for the Discovery admin to configure the credentials accordingly. More info: https://www.servicenow.com/docs/bundle/zurich-it-operations-management/page/product/discovery/refere... Note that his is more a Discovery issue and therefor indeed not listed in SAM. It is recommended to implement CMDB processes to validate (lackning) data like this.	Written
10	Regarding adding the Software Entitlements for SAAS product such as Workday, ServiceNow, do we have to create one software entitlement for ServiceNow or do we have to create each entitlement for separate modules? For example: Workday has, Workday Financials, Strategic Solution...Do we have to create one entitlements as Workday or create one for financials module and separate one for Strategic Solution	It depends if a module equals one subscription odr a subscription covers multiple modules. If there is a one to one alignment module to subscription, you will have to create an entitlement per module.	Written
11	Any tips for checking data quality of Kubernetes discovery from the SAM perspective? How are Kubernetes pods linked to SAM?	If it's Cloud based K8s we would need to have ITOM Discovery and also ITOM agents to discover the pods. Cloud cost management can also help if it's cost management in the cloud Finops.	Written
12	Do you have any personal best practices that you use when implementing/enabling Content Service to make sure no foundational gotchas are hit?	It's pretty straight forward if you decide to turn the Content service on, but you can also reach the content team through a support case for new content requests.	Written
13	Do you have any personal best practices that you use when implementing/enabling Content Service to make sure no foundational gotchas are hit?	You can also keep an eye on the “Normalization and content” tab under Software asset analytics page to see the level of normalisation and status.	Written
14	Hello, regarding software metering, is the ACC-V agent mandatory if we don't have any other 3rd party tool like SCCM?	Yes, in this case ACC-V is required in order to measure software usage data.	Written
15	Is SAM Pro fully certified by Oracle like Snow or Flexera?	so I'm sure there are more questions out there. As I say, if you'd prefer to come off mute and ask your question live, feel free to do so. Otherwise keep them coming in Q& A and we will get to them. Vincent So I'll take this one live. So question from Vincent, which is is Sam Pro fully certified by Oracle like Snow or Flexera? So Vincent, yes. So let's put a bit of colour on this question for those who may not be familiar. So Oracle as a vendor have a what what they call a third party vendor verification program where they will verify certain technologies. So Sam tools to be approved as sources of information for Oracle products. They are four different verification areas, Oracle Database, Middleware, Java and E-business. And if you have this verification stamp from Oracle, then what it means is Oracle will accept the data about your Oracle deployments of those products areas in lieu of an audit. So what that means is they will accept that information when it comes to having conversati...	Recording
16	Is SAM Pro fully certified by Oracle like Snow or Flexera?	https://www.oracle.com/au/corporate/license-management-services/tooling/	Written
17	Kenney Remmerswaal - true that server inventory is Discovery topic, however data quality is a key to SAM Pro and there's no mechanism out of the box for SAM Manager to tell if they can rely on the data and help / drive quality improvement from SAM side. It's turns out ot be a significant challenge, while solution is simple as 99% of the data is already in CMDB, but not presented in meaningful way (e.g. virtual machines data coming from Spokes)	e answered that you'd be comfortable to come off mute and provide your answer? That would be super helpful if there are any. Yeah. So Kieran, I would like to follow up on Bartos, his question. So Bartos has a valid point. His first initial question was related to gaps in discovery. So where Windows servers cannot be fully discovered etcetera, where where you cannot really find those clear reports in ServiceNow SEM. So in the end it's it's mainly discovery challenge of course. But the concern now is of course that data quality is a key to send pro. The data should be sufficient of course to come with good compliancy reports etcetera to say something meaningful about the data you see. And I absolutely agree on that statement. But the challenge is of course with with ServiceNow, it's a platform that seem to be is used across a lot of components modules within the platform. So we need to make sure at least on the on the in the, the platform team needs to make sure that the CNDB quality is ...	Recording
18	Kenney Remmerswaal - true that server inventory is Discovery topic, however data quality is a key to SAM Pro and there's no mechanism out of the box for SAM Manager to tell if they can rely on the data and help / drive quality improvement from SAM side. It's turns out ot be a significant challenge, while solution is simple as 99% of the data is already in CMDB, but not presented in meaningful way (e.g. virtual machines data coming from Spokes)	Thanks Kenney, bartosz we are also working on CMDB advisor for SAM that will help recommend with discoveru solution to use for a product, and then show you the imp KPI/issues and provide a way to remediate…let us know if you would want a design partnership with us on this we can show u initial design	Written
19	When creating/editing a Software Model do you have any personal tips to make sure that we dont end up overcomplicating the model which can make later management and some background automation challenging to sustain? i.e. do you suggest completing all fields or is there a sweet spot??	Hi Nick, Ideally, you shouldn’t need to manually create software models — they are typically generated automatically during entitlement onboarding through PPNs. For SaaS integrations, software models are also created as part of the identifier normalization process. However, if you do need to create software models manually, please refer to the guidance available in our documentation: 🔗 Create software models in the Software Asset Workspace (Zurich)	Written
20	When creating/editing a Software Model do you have any personal tips to make sure that we dont end up overcomplicating the model which can make later management and some background automation challenging to sustain? i.e. do you suggest completing all fields or is there a sweet spot??	Nicholas some more inputs: https://www.servicenow.com/community/sam-blog/review-software-models/ba-p/3304620	Written
21	Regarding SAM and Kubernetes, what is the recommended discovery method for Kubernetes: pattern, KVA, etc.?	ITOM Discovery is the preferred method for Kubernetes Discovery. You can also find some guidance in this community article https://www.servicenow.com/community/itom-articles/kubernetes-discovery-with-servicenow-complete-set....	Written
22	In the Health Check, will there be an option to acknowledge findings but no actions to be taken, or just to put them into buckets - those that we can address, those that we have already reviewed but we can't address / don't plan on addressing, etc.	f mute. Oh, I see the hands gone down. OK, that was that was for the design partnership. Great. Thank you, Bartos. OK, we have another question. Looks like a follow up on the health check. So in the health check, will there be an option to acknowledge findings but no actions to be taken or just put them into buckets, those that we can address, those that we have already reviewed but we can't address, don't plan on addressing, etcetera. And so one, I'll make an observation on this. I've heard similar comments on the health check. I think the health check is, is super useful. It gives you a lot of information on, on areas that you you perhaps need to address in order to make sure that Sam is functioning healthily. On the flip side of that, it gives you a lot of information. And one of the pieces of feedback I get from a lot of customers is we kind of, you know, we have thousands of of alerts from the health check and we just don't have the bandwidth or time to get to all of those or prio...	Recording
23	In the Health Check, will there be an option to acknowledge findings but no actions to be taken, or just to put them into buckets - those that we can address, those that we have already reviewed but we can't address / don't plan on addressing, etc.	Just to add — if corrective actions are taken, the items will get cleared in the next scan. However, as Srinivas acknowledged, we can continue to work on those additional asks.	Written
24	RE: my downgrade rights question. If the record is false, does that mean a new one may be available and needs to be added?	e questions. I'm just having a quick read as we go through. So I've got a question here from Sarah. Sorry if if there is nothing else and, and one comes in, I'm just going to call it out. Sarah, so I don't feel like I'm picking on you, but your questions come in regarding downgrade rights. So RE my downgrade rights question, if the record is false, does that mean a new one may be available and needs to be added? So Sarah, I'm guessing this is a follow up to an, an original question. I can, I can, that's it. I think that was yours, right? Yeah, yeah, I can go with that, Karen. Yeah. So so on this one, right that that active false and and are are true is that depends upon how the content is shipping the rule. So once they get an understanding right that this is a particular downgrade, right, may not be valid. So they have an option to make it false. And if there is a new rule is available, they wouldn't ship those new rules. But if you have an specific ask, right, and if you believe that...	Recording

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