Video
Introduction
Microsoft provides a suite of software products offered as a subscription under Microsoft 365 brand name. There are different software products and services offered such as Microsoft Word, Excel, Power Point under various subscriptions. For example, Office 365 offers E5 subscription ($35/user/month) license which includes Power BI Pro, threat protection, information protection, advanced compliance etc. however Office 365 E3 subscription license ($20/user/month) does not include the same.
Although, Office 365 is a SaaS based subscription, Microsoft allows users to “install” the software on their systems. This capability is provided in subscriptions such as Office 365 E3, Office 365 E5 etc.
Please note, that Microsoft allows users to install O365 in 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.
For an overview of the O365 plans, please refer to the diagram below:
Figure 1 Office 365 Subscription Plans
To understand the different Enterprise subscription plans under Office 365 in more details please refer to this link.
Microsoft also offers Microsoft 365 subscription which is a parent suite of products that combine Office 365, Enterprise Mobility and Security and Windows 10.
Figure 2 Software Components under M365 Subscriptions
An overview of the plans and components under Microsoft 365 are provided in the below diagram
Figure 3 Differences in M365 Subscription Plans
To understand the different Enterprise subscriptions plan under Microsoft 365 in more details please refer to this link.
There is some confusion on the subscription name changes recently performed by Microsoft on Apr 21, 2020. For details on the same please refer to this link
The major name change relates to Office 365 Pro Plus now known as Microsoft 365 Apps for Enterprise. Please also note that some Office 365 plans like E1, E3 and E5 still have the same name.
ServiceNow SAM Support
ServiceNow Software Asset Management Solution, support license compliance and optimization for Office 365 and Microsoft 365 subscriptions purchased through the Microsoft 365 Admin Center.
The overall functional solution architecture is as below:
Figure 4 ServiceNow SAM Functional Architecture to support O365 and M365 License Compliance and Optimization
The features supported are:
- Get user subscription information for all the Microsoft 365 plans purchased on the Microsoft 365 Admin Center, such as Microsoft Office 365, Microsoft 365, and so on.
- Get user activity for individual software components within Microsoft Office 365 subscriptions.
- Determine license compliance of Microsoft Office 365 subscriptions (Office 365 E1, E3, and E5 plans) by reconciling user subscription, entitlement, and software installations
- Get automated optimization recommendations and work flows for Microsoft Office 365 subscriptions (for Office 365 E1, E3, and E5 Plans)
- Determine potential savings while acting on the recommendation
- Enable reserved entitlement management
To understand the list of features and understand how to perform integration to ServiceNow in detail please refer ServiceNow Docs
Please note that, there is another Integration provided by ServiceNow SAM named as Microsoft 365 – this is for license compliance for MS Dynamics 365 and Power Apps Products. For more details, please refer to ServiceNow Docs
Features in details
1. User Subscription details from M365 Admin Center
Once ServiceNow- M365 Admin Center Integration is setup, ServiceNow can pull in user subscription information for all plans purchased on the M365 Admin Center. Usually, Microsoft administrators in the organization manage assignment of users to specific licenses. To understand more about Microsoft 365 Admin Center, please refer to this link.
To check the subscription information please navigate to License Operations > User subscriptions. Please check user details, subscription type, subscription identifier information is automatically pulled from M365 Admin Center. If you want to determine whether the SKU information is correct, one can refer to Microsoft docs. However, this information is already added as part of ServiceNow content, which effectively normalizes the subscription identifier (SKU) information correctly.
Note that, the user principal name is from the M365 Admin Center and is automatically matched with the Discovered User on ServiceNow user’s table. This is important to identify, as there are software installations tied to the user that are discovered through SCCM and are important for determining accurate license compliance.
Figure 5 User Subscription Information Pulled on Service Now SAM from M365 Admin Centre
We can see that ServiceNow is adding the last activity date for these subscriptions, this value is the max of the last activity dates for all software products under the subscription. The last activity or usage is gathered from SCCM (for O365 installed products) and online (through Microsoft Graph APIs).
Please note that currently, we support the last activity date for O365 Enterprise Plans such as E1, E3, and E5. This is because we provide optimization support for the same.
In upcoming releases, we will support usage (last activity date) for all subscriptions such as Microsoft 365 and others.
2. User activity for Individual Software Products
Based on the Last activity, we can determine the usage trends of Office 365 Enterprise Plans. This can be seen in the SAM workspace under Software Asset Analytics>Optimization and Savings> Microsoft
Figure 6 User Activity for different O365 Subscriptions
To understand, the Individual user activity one can drill down the same, and observe the last activity date for Individual Products under the specific plan, as below:
Figure 7 Last Usage Date for Individual O365 Products within the Subscription
Please note, that ServiceNow SAM can determine the last activity date for
- Desktop Products such as Microsoft Word, Microsoft Excel, Microsoft Power Point, Microsoft Outlook, Microsoft One Note, Microsoft Access, Microsoft Publisher
- Online Products such as Microsoft Teams, Microsoft Yammer, Microsoft Exchange Online, Microsoft Share Point Online, Microsoft One Drive and Power BI Pro
This provides useful information for organisations to determine which Products are not being used within a specific subscription plan and thereby optimize.
3. License Compliance Determination
Based on the entitlements and user subscription, ServiceNow SAM can determine software license compliance of Office 365 and Microsoft 365 Subscription Plans.
Figure 8 License Compliance for O365 and M365 Plans on ServiceNow SAM
4. Optimization Recommendation and Potential Savings
Based on the usage and other factors, ServiceNow SAM can determine the potential savings to downgrade from Office 365 E3 to E1 or E5 to E3. In addition, if the organization is using dual licenses (i.e., Office 365 and Legacy Office Professional Plus), it can determine the potential savings if the actions for the same are executed.
Figure 9 Potential Savings based on Optimisations
In addition to the potential savings, ServiceNow SAM automatically generates recommendation for performing the action. These actions are the reclamation candidate workflows, that allows SAM Manager to take actions.
Figure 10 Optimization Recommendations
The customer can drill down to the recommendation to view the reclamation candidates with contextual text for action. Once the reclamation workflow is completed, SCCM integration will enable ServiceNow to automatically uninstall O365 installs from the user’s system upon required approvals.
The above are some of the features supported with respect to Microsoft 365 Products. In future releases, more enhanced optimization features will be added.
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