Engineering license management

  • Release version: Australia
  • Updated March 12, 2026
  • 3 minutes to read

    • Monitor engineering licenses and usage through OpenLM and Open iT to eliminate audit risks, verify license optimization, reduce inaccurate forecasting, and prevent denials. These license management services support accurate forecasting for software in industries such as aerospace, oil and gas, and construction.

    Watch this short video for an introduction to engineering license management.

    Note:
    Request the Software Asset Management Professional for Engineering Applications store app (sn_samp_eng_app) to access the benefits of the Software Asset Management Professional for engineering applications. For more information, see Request Software Asset Management.

    Engineering license management overview

    OpenLM and Open iT are software license monitoring and management tools that integrate with a wide variety of license management servers such as IBM License Use Management (LUM), Sentinel Technologies, Autodesk, Inc., and Bentley Systems, Inc. OpenLM and Open iT connect with each license management server, consolidate the data, and transfer the data to your ServiceNow instance via the ServiceNow Store application.

    The OpenLM and Open iT integrations connect to license management servers to monitor thousands of engineering software licenses across publishers such as Sentinel, Reprise, FlexLM, Autodesk, DSLS, and IBM LUM. Both integrations are available in the ServiceNow Store.

    The following graphic illustrates how OpenLM and Open iT work with the ServiceNow instance.

    Diagram showing how OpenLM and Open iT integrations collect engineering license data from publisher license servers and transfer it to the Software Asset Management lifecycle

    After you download the ServiceNow Store application and configure the application via Guided Setup, OpenLM and Open iT start data collection from all the license management servers that are connected to either of these. Data such as license usage, denials, user activity, and alerts are collected from the license management servers, and transferred to the ServiceNow instance. The data is normalized and reconciled to produce reports. You can see the total spend on engineering software, the most denied products, license usage over time, and other reports on the Engineering License overview dashboard in workspace. Additionally, you can view the lists of license management servers, discovered engineering licenses, daily peak concurrent usage, user denials, and other metrics on the License operations view.
    Important:
    For more details on the OpenLM setup and configuration, see the Supporting Links and Docs section of the OpenLM Adapter Integration page in the ServiceNow Store.

    For more details on the Open iT setup and configuration, refer to the Open iT LicenseAnalyzer page in the ServiceNow Store.

    Analytics and reporting benefits

    Data collected from OpenLM and Open iT integrations flows into the Software Asset Workspace. The Engineering License dashboard, available under the Software asset analytics view, helps you optimize software spend and support compliance activities. With this data, you can do the following:
    • Monitor concurrent license consumption to improve forecasting accuracy
    • Track and reduce software spend by optimizing license usage
    • Avoid productivity loss by monitoring license denials
    • Support audits and contract renewals with consolidated usage data

    Types of licenses supported for engineering applications

    The Software Asset Management application supports various types of licenses for engineering applications.
    Concurrent licenses
    A concurrent license enables multiple users to share access to software applications from any computer on a network or from a virtual machine. License management servers that are installed on the network manage the distribution of a pool of shared licenses. The types of concurrent licenses include floating, network, and token licenses.

    You can have multiple license management servers; one for each engineering application. The number of concurrent licenses in the shared pool determines the number of users who can use the software application at a given time. When you want to use an application, that application sends a request to the appropriate license management server to determine if a license is available. If a license is available, the application starts and the number of available licenses decreases by one. When the user exits the application, the license returns to the pool.

    Subscription licenses
    A subscription license enables users to access software applications for a specified period. Each license is assigned to an individual user. The Software Asset Management application supports subscription licenses, such as the Autodesk named user subscription license, to ensure accurate usage tracking of engineering applications. The Autodesk named user subscription license uses identity-based user profiles accessing cloud-based licenses.
    Resource consumption
    A resource consumption-based license metric supports client access license (CAL) reconciliation. This license metric represents a 1:1 ratio calculation between the Unit consumption column in the Resource Value [samp_sw_resource_value] table and the Licenses required column in the License Metric Results [samp_license_metric_result] table. The Software Asset Management application supports consumption-based licenses for license management servers such as Bentley Systems, Inc.
    For more information on license metrics and metric groups, see Software license metrics.