Use Software Asset Management and Application Portfolio Management to manage technology onboarding

  • Release version: Xanadu
  • Updated September 14, 2022
  • 2 minutes to read
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    Summary of Use Software Asset Management and Application Portfolio Management to manage technology onboarding

    ServiceNow customers can leverage the Software Asset Management (SAM) application together with the Technology Reference Model (TRM) from Application Portfolio Management to effectively manage the onboarding and lifecycle of technologies within their organization. The TRM serves as a curated list of software products that includes approval statuses and lifecycle phases maintained by enterprise architects and used by application owners.

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    Key Features

    • Technology Reference Model (TRM): Maintains approved software products with defined lifecycle phases, including start and end dates.
    • Software Asset Management Integration: Provides visibility into TRM lifecycle phases for software models linked to TRM products.
    • Certified Flag Automation: When a software model is created and associated with an approved TRM product, the Certified checkbox is automatically selected to indicate compliance.
    • Approval Sync and Notifications: If a TRM product’s approval status changes to unapproved, existing software models are flagged with a banner indicating they are not approved, prompting users to update the Certified flag accordingly.
    • Reclamation Candidates: Automatically generated when a product is marked unapproved, identifying software installations eligible for reclamation. These candidates are closed or canceled once the product is re-approved.

    Practical Use Case

    For example, when a software model (SW1) is associated with an unapproved product (PostgreSQL), the Certified flag is set to false, the software is marked as restricted, and removal candidates are created for installations. Once the product gets approved in TRM, a banner appears on SW1 to update the Certified flag to true. New software models (SW2) created after approval automatically have the Certified flag set to true and are not restricted.

    Key Outcomes

    • Ensures software models and installations remain compliant with organizational software approval policies.
    • Provides automated tracking and management of software lifecycle phases aligned with TRM approvals.
    • Enables proactive identification and reclamation of unauthorized software installations.
    • Supports enterprise architects and application owners in maintaining accurate software asset records and compliance control.

    Use the Software Asset Management application along with Technology Reference Model (TRM) of Application Portfolio Management to manage onboarding of technologies.

    TRM is a list of software products with information on their approval of use. Each product is associated with a set of lifecycle phases with a start and end date. The TRM library is maintained by the enterprise architect and used by application owners. For detailed information on TRM, see Technology Reference Model.

    The Software Asset Management application gives visibility into the TRM lifecycle phases for all products associated with software models. When a software model is created and associated with a product that is approved for use in TRM, the Certified check box in the software model form is selected by default. All software models associated with that product are then available for use.

    Software model from

    If the same product in TRM is later marked as unapproved, the existing software models associated with that product don't reflect that change. However, when you open the existing software models, a banner appears stating This software is not approved for use in the Technology Reference Model (TRM). To be in sync with the TRM, set the Certified flag to FALSE..

    If a new software model is created with this product, that software model is marked as unapproved, and a banner isn't displayed as this software model is in sync with TRM.

    If a product is marked as unapproved in TRM, reclamation candidates are automatically created for all software installations that are associated with that product. After the product is approved for use in TRM, the existing reclamation candidates are either marked Closed complete or Closed canceled.

    Software Asset Management and TRM use case

    This section describes a use case that demonstrates how the Software Asset Management application and TRM interact.

    For example, you create a software model SW1, on September 15, 2022, and associate it with PostgreSQL, which is an unapproved product in TRM. By default, the Certified check box in the SW1 form is set to false and the Restricted software check box is set to true. Also removal candidates are created for any installations discovered.

    On September 18, 2022, release 14.5 of PostgreSQL gets approved for use in TRM. If you now open SW1 a banner appears stating the following This software is approved for use in the Technology Reference Model (TRM). To be in sync with the TRM, set the Certified flag as true. However software models with older versions would continue to be restricted.

    If you create another software model SW2, on September 19, 2022, and associate it with PostgreSQL, the Certified check box is set to true and the Restricted software check box is set to false in the SW2 form.