About M365
M365 Or Microsoft 365 is a subscription(s), comprising several different products and services such as Office 365, Windows and Enterprise Mobility and Security (or EMS). Office 365 and EMS include many other products and services within it.
Some of the products can be “installed” on computer and some are only services which can be accessed through the internet. Please note, that Microsoft allows users to install M365 products on multiple devices, however sign in is only allowed on max 5 devices at one time. More details on the same, please refer to this documentation link.
To manage subscriptions, Microsoft 365 had an admin center (M365 admin center) which includes ‘many’ other products which can be purchased and installed. Some of these products may not be part of M365 subscription. For example: Dynamics 365, Visio Online etc.
Figure 1: Product and services available under M365 Admin Center
Microsoft 365 contains many products such as Office 365, EMS (Enterprise and Mobility Suite) and Windows 10. As shown in the diagram below, you can see that within Microsoft 365-> Office 365 contains other products such as Microsoft 365 Apps for Enterprise which in turn includes many other products such as Microsoft Word, Excel, Power Point and many more. This is represented in the diagram below:
Figure 2: Product and services available under M365 subscriptions
Microsoft 365 Subscription Plans
M365 has several subscription plans and depending on the subscription plan some products or services may or may not be available. For example: Power BI is only available in Office 365 E5 not on Office 365 E3. To understand more about Microsoft 365 Enterprise subscription please check here. To understand details about all products and services per subscription plan you can refer here
Some examples of M365 and O365 subscription plans are mentioned below:
Figure 3: Product and services available under different M365 Subscription Plans
Figure 4: Product and services available under different O365 Subscription Plans
Products that are part of Microsoft 365 subscription may or may not have installation. In addition, some of the products may also be purchased individually. This is represented in the below diagram:
Figure 4: Product and services available M365 E3 Plan
ServiceNow SAM Pro Support for Microsoft 365
We have enhanced our support for Microsoft 365. To understand our previous support you can check the blog article here.
The latest support for Microsoft 365 on ServiceNow SAM Pro is mentioned below. For details you can refer ServiceNow Docs here
Figure 5: License Compliance and Optimization Support for M365 on ServiceNow SAM Pro
Figure 6: License Compliance and Optimization Support for M365 on ServiceNow SAM Pro
ServiceNow SAM Pro Support Highlights
- Showcase Optimization opportunities for low usage, unassigned licenses, dual license, and consolidation. Thereby support for action through prescriptive reclamation workflows
Figure 7: Optimization Support for M365 on ServiceNow SAM Pro
Figure 8: Reclamation workflow created on ServiceNow SAM Pro to downgrade based on low usage
2. Showcase Active, Inactive subscription with last activity date
Automatically identify subscriptions across Microsoft 365 that are active, inactive, or not assigned. This is helpful for SAM Managers to act on unused subscriptions.
Figure 9: Last activity determined for M365 Subscriptions
3. Software License compliance determination
ServiceNow SAM Pro supports license compliance determination as per Microsoft licensing rules. Some of the advanced use cases supported on SAM Pro are mentioned here
Figure 10: ServiceNow SAM Pro License compliance determination for M365 subscriptions
4. ServiceNow SAM Pro content services support
M365 has several distinct products and services which are constantly changing, and depending on the subscription certain products and services are available. For example, recently Microsoft made some changes related to new subscriptions without Teams for new subscriptions. To read more about these changes, please refer here
Changes like the above would be hard to track manually. Hence, on ServiceNow SAM Pro we provide latest content support for the products and services that are available as part of M365 subscriptions. This helps in determining the correct license compliance.
As you can see a few examples of automated content support showing that Microsoft 365 Enterprise E3 is comprised of EMS E3, Windows Enterprise E3, Office 365 E3 as suite component. In addition, Microsoft Office 365 E3 is further comprised of several suite components like Outlook, One Note, Power Point and many more.
Figure 11 Content Support for M365 Enterprise Plan 3
Figure 11 Content Support for O365 Enterprise Plan 3
5. Microsoft 365 Optimization Support on ServiceNow SAM Pro
Microsoft 365 is used by organizations across industries making it one of the most used enterprise products. In many cases, organization purchase costly subscriptions such as Enterprise E5, increasing their subscription cost drastically year over year.,
Hence to help customers optimize their existing license cost, ServiceNow SAM pro supports several use cases such as:
Figure 12 M365 Optimization use cases supported on ServiceNow SAM Pro
To understand more details on optimization, you can read ServiceNow docs. Below we will discuss about few use cases related to optimization support on ServiceNow SAM Pro:
Use Case 1: Optimization based on Low usage:
Support downgrade from M365 E3-> F3 or Office 365 E3-> E1
Figure 12 Optimization use cases for low usage
Usage or Last activity is determined for many Microsoft 365 products, and based on reclamation rules the reclamation candidate workflows are auto generated. To understand how ServiceNow determines the last activity, please check here. To understand reclamation rule creation, check service now docs here. Please note that ServiceNow provides some reclamation rules OOB (Out of Box), you can modify the last activity threshold based on your use case.
Similarly, ServiceNow support downgrades based on low usage for additional use cases such as:
- M365 E5-> E3
- Office 365 E5-> E3
- Reclamation of individual subscriptions for products such as One Drive, Teams, Exchange Online, SharePoint online and Power BI
To understand how ServiceNow SAM Pro determines low usage or last activity. Please read the blog here
Use Case 2: Consolidation of subscriptions
Users are assigned multiple subscriptions, and it is more cost-effective to have a consolidated single subscription with less cost, providing access to all products supported in multiple subscriptions.
Figure 12 Optimization use cases for consolidation of subscriptions
Use Case 3: Dual License or Overlapping Subscription
Users are assigned overlapping subscriptions, which is leading to higher cost. ServiceNow SAM Pro recommends removal of one subscription without compromising on the products or services the user would have access to.
Figure 13 Optimization use cases for dual licensed subscriptions
Use Case 4: Automated determination of unassigned licenses
Organization purchase licenses in bulk and thereby need to assign it to individual user for usage. However, in many cases these are left unassigned waste licenses. ServiceNow SAM Pro highlights these unassigned licenses so that SAM Managers can take action on the same, by reducing the unassigned license count.
Figure 14 Optimization use cases for removal of unassigned licenses
High Level Architecture of the solution
The high-level architecture of ServiceNow SAM Pro with Microsoft 365 is provided below. To understand how to perform integration please refer ServiceNow docs here .
Figure 15 High Level architecture of M365- ServiceNow SAM Pro integration
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