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

[Kieron Dean]

About This Document

This document contains 30 questions and answers from the SAM Office Hours session held on November 4, 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 30 questions, 15 were answered in writing during the session via the Zoom Q&A panel. An additional 14 answers were extracted from the session recording transcript. 1 questions were answered live but no recording transcript is available.

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)

No transcript available — Answer was given live but no recording transcript is available

Questions & Answers

#	Question	Answer	Source
1	How does ServiceNow manage the entitlement currency and more especially the conversion rate? The context is the following, ServiceNow default currency = USD, local currency = CHF, and the request is to get reports in EUR (standard currency for the financial team). Thank you.	Mutli currency support is part of the platform. It needs to be configured for the whole platform and then the currency can be switched by the user. The default currency is displayed based on the users regional settings. When creating an entitlement the currency can be chosen. The platform uses built in conversation rates that are updated on a regular basis. More details regarding multi currency are also available here https://support.servicenow.com/kb?id=kb_article_view&sysparm_article=KB0596448 and here https://www.servicenow.com/docs/bundle/zurich-platform-administration/page/administer/currency/conce....	Written
2	How we can start in SAM and become a pro, are there any pre-requisites?	o put them into the Q& A function and we will be able to respond in Q& A or we will be able to type you some answers in the Q& A or we can answer live. So, Lavina, I see you have a, a great question to start us off. Thank you for being being quick to ask the question. So how can we start in Sam and become a pro? Are there any prerequisites? So if we're talking about the discipline itself, software asset management, Lavina, then you know, it's, it's, it's an industry that does require a lot of experience. It's a very broad discipline. If you're talking about the products, which I, I'm hoping you are. So maybe you can give me a hands up or a yes in, in chat. If you are in the products, there are some technical prerequisites and also some, some training prerequisites. And I can see your, your thumb up there. So thank you for validating that. So I would recommend you you look at ServiceNow University when it comes to training. We offer fundamentals courses which which are three day courses...	Recording
3	Can you explain how SAMP calculate the Adobe True Up which seems misaligned with the Adobe rule?	Hi Lionel, the true-up costs are calculated based on the average price of rights in your Adobe software entitlements. Of course there can be various use cases and I would like to understand where you see the misalignment. Can you please elaborate?	Written
4	Currently, we hold raw entitlements information in an Excel without normalization (Product/Publisher) What is the best approach to normalize it as per ServiceNow standards of data import (ex: how to segregate data from a random excel to entitlement import template. I'm aware of Import Sets, Software Asset Workspace drag and drop, but my question is on how to standardize/normalise the raw data into import ready data for ServiceNow	The recommendation is to use publisher part numbers (SKUs) whenever possible because they are assigned to the relevant publishers and products in the SAM content library. If that is not an option, the recommendation is to use standardized publsiher, products and versions ate least. The values for the can be retrieved from the SAM content in the samp_sw_product table. Also, I recommend creating the rleevant software models before importing the entitlements without publisher part numbers.	Written
5	Good Moring, do you know of any issues with M365 and Adobe Integrations after Updrgading to Yokohoma/Zurich, as we are currently experiencing this with several customers and the integrations are no longer functioning. KB Article is not fully working: https://support.servicenow.com/kb?id=kb_article_view&sysparm_article=KB2037538	Hi Johannes, for Adobe the (preferred) integration method changed from JWT (which needs a certificate) to OAuth server-to-server credentials a few releases ago. Still using the JWT method, may result in an error since it will also not be supported by Adobe anymore. Therefor I recommend to recreate the integration using the OAuth method. For M365 there should not be any issues when upgrading to one of the latest version, but please raise a support case of you encounter any issues.	Written
6	Currently, we categorize product type based on the product itself. However, in some cases, specific editions are licensable while others are not. Is there any existing functionality or plan to enable product type categorization at the edition level?	Thanks Aditya for the question, presently we have maintained the categorization at the product level. Since the edition does not get captured always, it has not been implemented that way	Written
7	Currently, we categorize product type based on the product itself. However, in some cases, specific editions are licensable while others are not. Is there any existing functionality or plan to enable product type categorization at the edition level?	Also Aditya, we have Product exception rules to look at edition licensability which content ships. Addiitonally, we also allow customers to create their own product exception rules to ignore product of a specific edition	Written
8	Are there are any plans to allow update of existing Software Entitlement records by bulk (including update of license metric) using the Entitlement Import feature?	ly good one. Are, are there any plans to allow update of existing entitlement records by bulk including update of license metric using the entitlement import feature? So Cheryl, if, if I'm understanding the question well, I think what we're talking about here is the potential to do a mass update of existing software entitlement records rather than having to, you know, go through 1 by 1 to if you want to make a change to exact for example to the to the license metric. I think the example you get the example you gave, so I'm not aware. So I'm in the in the outbound product management team. So I have visibility into our road map. I'm not aware. I've not seen that as a feature certainly, you know on a near term road map. So as at the moment, no, it's the short answer, Cheryl, but with anything, it's if you guys have ideas that will make your lives easier, then we do recommend you, you drop those into the ideas portal. So if you have access to the, to your support site, the support. service...	Recording
9	In the entitlement import, it has been reported that the Owner name field is matched with the ServiceNow User record through the sys_user Name field and doesn't accept email address. Are there any updates with the latest releases so that we have the option to provide email address in the OOB Entitlement import template instead of name and so that it will be mapped to the correct User record using the unique ID, i.e., email address?	have that as part of a road map. Yeah. Kieran, back to you. Brilliant. Thank you, Ryan. Yeah, great, great answer. OK, Ryan, Ryan, if you can go ahead and and mark that one as done. Thank you. You did. And I can see Cheryl, we have a question from you on the again on the entitlement import. So it's been reported that the owner name field is matched with the service now user record through the sys username field and doesn't accept e-mail address. So I think when you're, when you're importing your entitlement records, one of the, the default common columns is is name for the owner. And I think what you're saying, Cheryl, is if you put an e-mail address in there. So if you put in, you know, cheryl. ann@company.com it, it won't find your sys user record. So your question is, are there any updates in the latest relief release that will have the option to provide an e-mail address in the out-of-the-box entitlement in template? So again, not that I'm aware or Cheryl, if if you want to know wh...	Recording
10	can we access SAM in PDI?	Yes, you can request the plugins through your developer portal.	Written
11	Why in Product License Exception Rule SQL Server edition Developer rule is marked as inactive? The product itself is Not licensable. On the other hand in Software Asset Workspace one of the scan finding is to set the software model for SQL Server Edition Developer as License not under management. The rule could do the same if it was active.	en for them if they want to weigh in. But otherwise shall I would say no. I think that's something we could you, you could you could certainly raise as an enhancement request via the Ideas portal. OK, so I can see lots of panelists of furiously typing questions. So a question here from Agata why in product license exception rules Sequel Server Edition developer rule is marked as inactive. The product itself is not licensable. On the other hand, in Software Asset Worksplace, one of the scan finding is to set the software model for SQL Server Edition Developer as licensed under management. The rule could do the same if it was active. I'm, I'm not, I'm I'm trying to just play that through in my head. I got it as to, as to kind of what we're looking at here. So you're saying there's an exception rule for SQL Server Developer Edition marked as inactive? The provinces off is not licensable. OK, the Gaza is something I'm not. Maybe we need a little bit more detail on that particular question....	Recording
12	Currently, entitlement consumption rules can be defined at department, company, cost center and region. Can we extend it to allocate license pools per business unit linked to department?	tions coming in. Thank you, Kenny and Volker. You are answering these questions pretty much quicker than I'm able to go through and read them, which is always helpful. So that's great. We have a few questions still showing. I'm just making, I'm just cleaning up now ones we've addressed. So Krishna, currently entitlement consumption rules can be defined at department, company, cost centre and region. Can we extend it to allocate license pools per business unit linked to department? So again, that's a good question, Krishna. My understanding is no, I don't believe you can do that at the moment. My colleague can correct me if I'm wrong on that. So that's another suggestion. I would say, Krishna, if you can drop that request into our ideas portal. And then again, that helps us to prioritise these kind of requests that we're seeing from customers and that kind of drives the future of of what we work on from a development perspective. So please do go ahead and use the ideas portal. If you do...	Recording
13	From one of our SGC integrations, we have active software installation records that are still created even though the CI is already tagged as retired, upon checking they are created after the CI record is created/updated. Have you encountered the same in other installations? What would be your recommended approaches so that these software installation records are not included in reconciliation?	hat then in the properties from the SEM software Asset management administration page. So, so it's a little bit technical, but but in that sense, you can at least control license consumption. Thank you, Kenny. Yeah, great answer. We we get a lot of questions on on, on in that area, you know, around software installation records which are active being tied to non active devices. So I think it's useful to, to kind of share, share that knowledge. So thank you very much for doing that. We we also often get asked questions about the the active flag on software installations, you know, so I'll, I'll pre empt that one a little bit. We have a, we have automation within Sam which will look at the software installation records. If your inventory is coming in from multiple sources. So for example, let's say you had SCCM in your environment and also ACC which is ServiceNow Discovery Agents. So you were getting 2 lots of inventory for each device, you know, from a software perspective. And when tha...	Recording
14	What are the important tables in SAM ?, like we have In HAM -Asset, Hardware, Servers etc	Here is a community article that lists the majority of the SAM tables https://www.servicenow.com/community/sam-blog/list-of-servicenow-sam-tables/ba-p/2283573. Anyway this might not be a 100% complete list, because there are tables added as part of new releases.	Written
15	How we can best manage the internal software categories defined for procured/used softwares? We have a product classification but this is coming from UNSPSC but we wanted to have a category as per our internal categories. We have a string field called software category at software model but we wnated to have a reference field so that there is no chance of duplication	That's the one I just answered. OK, Sorry. Yeah, you're right. If you go ahead and and click done on that, it will I'll stop asking you to answer it twice. Wonderful. All right, so we've got a we're working fast here. This is great. So, Krishna, another question from you. How can we best manage the internal software categories defined for procured use software? We have a product classification, but this is coming from UNSPSC. But we wanted to have a category as per our internal categories. So we have a string field called software category at the software model, but we wanted to have a reference field. So there's no chance of duplication. This is a good question. I I so just to kind of elaborate a little bit when, when we have our software products in in Sam on the product table service now as part of content will apply a UNSPSC classification field. So UNSPSCI think stands for the United Nations standard products and services catalog, basically a big long catalog of product classifica...	Recording
16	What is the best approach to manage Oracle products and licenses (On-Prem, Cloud) going by its complexity. Also by when can we expect to have an out-of-box integration in ServiceNow for Oracle products with regards to user/device allocations.	er. You're you're, you're, you're he's very quick on the on, on the typing of the answers here. So I'm going to leave that one for you to type. Kieran, I, I, I can come in for the query on Oracle from Sameer. Please do yes, please do. Go ahead. You can better to answer on a life. So the best way to manage Oracle products. I know we all are aware of its complexity. What we put what we should initially do is, you know, look at discovery to see ensure that all the products that you're looking for is is something that is there. It's getting captured, it's getting discovered and it's available in our software installed table as well for for on Prem and cloud. You can just ensure you know the ones that we are supporting if all the details are there, if the patterns are running from a discovery standpoint of the required relationships are built. Because most of the times we see that, you know, the patterns do not run or the credentials are not, are not set up properly. So these are some of th...	Recording
17	I have Software Entitlements in an excel since 2023, should I first try to import current 2025 active Entitlements and then move on to add 2024 and before? Would adding older entitlements later does effect in reporting or management operations?	Best practice is starting with a proper baseline, meaning you need to indentify your perpetual licenses and then finding the logical path of maintenance/Software Assurance entitlements. There is no need to register historical data if it is not relevant anymore, but it is recommended to ensure that there are no gaps in the maintenance/SA period. So to answer your question, I would start with the relevant entitlements of the 2023 sheet and move forward from there.	Written
18	In some cases, a software model is marked as licensable, but when checking the Software Model result, the product type shows as not licensable. For example, Microsoft Copilot Studio Viral Trial. Why aren’t we marking the software model itself as not licensable in such cases?	Currently, the ‘Product’ indeed determines whether a Software Model should be licensable or not. A different outcome from the reconciliation process (Software Model result) can be related to Suite configurations or another configuration setting. On the Software Model level, License Under Management should be selected. This requires some more investigation to find the root cause, but I would start with investigating the above.	Written
19	yes primarily for NUP	We have that as part of our roadmap to make it more convenient. In the meantime, you can allocate individually	Written
20	Is there any consolidated list of publisher-product-version-edition and the license metrics against which ServiceNow SAM Pro/Enterprise <version> can provide compliance by using the recommended integrations like ServiceNow Discovery, SGC for SCCM/Jamf to derive compliance?	onto the entitlement update for that to work. So, yeah, I think that would be what we'd have to suggest. You, you, you, you go and raise an idea for on the ideas portal, Cheryl. So Satish, I'm just reading your question now. Is there a consolidated list of publisher product version edition and the license metrics against which ServiceNow Sam Pro can provide compliance using recommended integrations like ServiceNow Discovery Service graph connectors to drive compliance? Satish, that's a that's a really great question. It's a really broad question. We can, I can take a swing at it a few different ways. Obviously in in our content library, we have all of the the publishers, the products and they go into the Sam instance versions and additions are abstract at the software model level, OK. And metrics are on the entitlements. So you can kind of generate any permutation if you like of publisher product version edition using those table structures. But obviously the idea behind things like pr...	Recording
21	Is it suggestable to use the default Entitlements import from ServiceNow or can we create a custom template based on our desired attributes of Model Table and then use the Import Set?	We recommend to use the default entitlement import template and routine since it will also show wrnings and errors for items that could not be imported due to incomplete / inconsitent data in the template. When you create your own import template and import set, the mapping of the relevant attributes, checking existance of entitlements already in place and also creation of software models will be pretty complex and needs to be checked, maintained and updated with every new SAM release.	Written
22	Its primarily from the customer perspective, when they ask a x software, we need to know if SAM Pro is capable to provide compliance by having the right source to provide it.	h the same challenges, we'll make sure we address those in product as well. So that's a great example there of where that happens. OK, so we're doing pretty well here. We've got a few open questions still. I'm just taking a look at those. Oh, OK. I see Satisha, you're saying this primarily from the customer perspective when they ask X software, we need to know if Sam Pro is capable to provide compliance. So, OK, thanks for the additional context. Satish, What I would say is, is you can in your in the same workspace, you can use the the content look up feature. So if you, if you have a particular, you know, software title, go into the content look up feature and and type that in and, and that will show you at least you know, do we have product record for this, for this piece of software? Do we have part numbers like PPNS? Do we have discovery maps? And it will, it will kind of list for you all of the associated content that we have for that product. And that will give you some indicatio...	Recording
23	We wanted to create a reclamation rule for a subscription software (SaaS) which is not having a SaaS connector or custom integration. Looks like, we can only create reclamation rules manually for installed software. The rationale to create reclamamtion rule for SaaS softwrae is to enable a self-cancellation flow so that user can initiate a cancellation subscription and for this we wanted to leverage reclamation rules to drive the assignment of which group (Vendor specific admins or Software teams) is going to take care of it once a softwrae removal candidate is created	At the moment you indeed cannot create a SaaS type of reclamation rules. In your case I would suggest to create a (custom) flow for this specific integration, but in the end you need a (custom) integration to import the subscription and activity data. Besides that I suggest submitting an enhancement request.	Written
24	Can you explain what happens next after the discovery process is completed, the software installations are migrated to the Software Model table, and the software models are normalized?	lassification to understand, you know, is this data centre? Is it end user? Is it SAS or Sava? So hopefully a little bit more context there. Erin, There's one more question from Prem Kumar, which I would like to answer live. Go ahead. Please do count me. Thank you. Yeah. So the question is, can you explain what happens the next? After the discovery process is completed, the software installation are migrated to the software model table and the software models are normalised. So the software installations are not migrated to the software model table. So what happens for every software installation? There are some exceptions, but for most of them, it will create a discovery model or link it to an existing discovery model. Is the If it's already there then it will normalise the discovery model which ensures you have normalised data. So it will be either normalised, partially normalised, published or normalised or much not found. In the end if it's partially normalised it means that the pr...	Recording
25	SAP Integration is a great example, we had observed some limitations on the SAP systems that were in scope, when we performed the integration and worked with servicenow upport.	data to your entitlement data. Again, a very long answer, but quite a broad question. So hopefully that gave you some some view on on kind of how our what our data model looks like from an entitlement versus inventory perspective. Thank you, Satish. So your SAP integration is a great example. We've observed some limitations on the SAP system. We're in scope and you've worked with service and our support. That's great. Thank you. That's that's what we like to hear. Obviously, we work hard to make sure we cover as many use cases as possible. But where there are gaps or limitations, then absolutely work with work with support to get those tracked. And we'll work hard to find workarounds. And again, if, if enough, if there's enough customers with the same challenges, we'll make sure we address those in product as well. So that's a great example there of where that happens. OK, so we're doing pretty well here. We've got a few open questions still. I'm just taking a look at those. Oh, OK. I ...	Recording
26	This question is regarding PPN, if we have PPN, it's easy to get the Model and Entitlement Components. But if we do not have any PPN info, how do we take it forward, how will Custom PPN gets created and how does it provides me other components of Model (metrics, licensed type etc	When there is no PPN (or not recognised), it is key to create a Software Model yourself first. Best practice is to search for an existing Discovery Map (DMAP) since this will ensure the Software Model is linked to the Content Library, including life cycle data, etc. If there is also no matching DMAP, then you need to create it yourself indeed. When you are opted-in to the content service, it will share the information with the content team and therefor it might be supported in the near future.	Written
27	What is the best practice: before migrating to SAM Pro, should we clean up SAM Basic table (Software Installed cmdb_software_instance) with software installation information?	ion of how a lot of these records tie together when it comes to installation versus entitlement and so on. So do take a look at that. I found it quite useful. And as I say, I dropped the link in chat so you guys can take a look at that for yourselves. All right, so question from Agatha, what is the best practice before migrating to Sam Pro? Should we clean up Sam basic table with software installation information? So Agatha, so this question is related to if you don't have Sam Pro, but you're using the what used to be called what is called rather Sam fundamentals. So as part of ITSM, we offer a very basic Sam capability and a lot of customers you know who are using that then end up going and buying the full version of software asset management professional and a migration takes place. So when you enable the the plug insurance Agatha for Sam Pro, it should automatically migrate your software data from the software instance table to the software install table. That's part of Sam Pro. So ...	Recording
28	How & When the software model field populates on the discovery model? is it from content library?	It is populated by a scheduled job SAM - Discovery Model to Software Model matching	Written
29	when the job runs?	Live answered	N/A
30	also software model populates from content library correct?	Hello, good morning, good afternoon, good evening. Depending on where you're joining from, this is the Software Asset Management office hours. We are very happy to have you on the call. I can see we've got a few people joining. So just while we're waiting, if you can drop us a chat message, let us know where you're calling in from. And that just gives us an idea for, for where people are joining us from on our first Asia Pacific and Amir Sam office hours. So we've got some people joining from from Germany, from Denmark, from Bahrain, Fantastic welcome, Vincent, and a few people from India. So, yeah, we've got a very multinational audience and, and for those of you who this is your first office hours, We, we, we started a Sam office hours back in February this year and it's been very successful. We we regularly have over 300 participants to those calls, but those calls are a little bit more US and shall we say Western Europe friendly in terms of time zones. So what we wanted to do with ...	Recording

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