What is software asset management (SAM)?

Software asset management is the process of managing and optimizing the purchase, deployment, maintenance, utilization and disposal of software applications within an organization. SAM is crucial for maximizing efficiency and managing the risks associated with software assets.

SAM provides a systematic approach to managing software licenses and compliance, ensuring that organizations do not overpay for software they do not need while staying compliant with legal agreements.

Why is software asset management important?

Understanding the importance of SAM can dramatically influence an organization’s bottom line and legal compliance. Let’s see how effective software asset management helps companies in the following areas:

Cost optimization

SAM helps organizations save money and maximize their IT budget by identifying unused or underutilized software licenses. By reallocating or terminating these licenses, businesses can avoid wasteful spending and improve budget accuracy.

License compliance

By maintaining proper records of purchased licenses and how they are used, SAM ensures that organizations comply with software license agreements and avoid legal penalties associated with non-compliance.

Risk management

SAM reduces security risks by preventing the use of unauthorized software that may lead to security vulnerabilities. Regular audits and monitoring of software usage help in maintaining security standards.

Operational efficiency

Effective SAM streamlines various IT processes, such as software deployment, maintenance and upgrades. This leads to enhanced operational efficiency and productivity since IT staff can quickly address software needs and issues.

Vendor management

SAM provides valuable data on software usage that is crucial during negotiations with vendors, ensuring that terms and prices are favorable to the organization based on actual usage data.

Asset lifecycle management

From procurement to disposal, SAM manages every stage of a software asset’s lifecycle, ensuring that each asset is fully utilized and securely disposed of when no longer needed.

What are the key components of software asset management?

SAM is built on several foundational components that ensure its effectiveness across various stages of software lifecycle management. Let’s explore those key components that are critical for streamlining operations, ensuring compliance and maximizing the value derived from software investments.

Software inventory

A comprehensive software inventory is the cornerstone of effective SAM. It involves identifying and cataloguing every software asset within the organization, including installations on all devices and in cloud environments. This inventory provides a clear view of what software is in use, where it is installed and how it integrates with business operations, which is essential for managing software assets effectively.

License management

Managing software licenses is a critical component of SAM. This involves tracking each license’s purchase, deployment and terms of use to ensure compliance with licensing agreements. Effective license management helps avoid legal issues related to under-licensing and the financial implications of over-licensing, ensuring that the organization only purchases what it needs and uses what it purchases.

Software usage tracking

Monitoring how and where software is used within the organization is vital for optimizing resource allocation and cost. Software usage tracking helps identify unused or underutilized licenses that can be reallocated or terminated, thus reducing waste and ensuring the most efficient use of software assets.

Compliance monitoring

Regular audits and compliance monitoring are essential to ensure that all software use is in line with vendor agreements and regulatory requirements. This helps avoid legal penalties and fines associated with non-compliance, which can be substantial. Compliance monitoring also reinforces corporate governance by ensuring that software usage adheres to internal policies and external legal requirements.

Software procurement

Effective procurement processes are integral to SAM and involve the selection, negotiation and acquisition of software licenses. If managed well, procurement ensures that software purchases are strategic and aligned with the organization’s technology needs and budget constraints. This process also involves vendor management, fostering relationships that can yield better service and pricing conditions.

Software deployment and configuration

Ensuring that software is properly deployed and configured is crucial for both operational efficiency and security. This component of SAM involves the installation and configuration of software to meet specific organizational needs while maintaining system integrity and compliance with licensing terms.

Risk management

Identifying and mitigating risks associated with software assets, such as security vulnerabilities and compliance issues, is a critical aspect of SAM. By addressing these risks proactively, organizations can protect themselves against potential breaches and ensure continuous compliance with various regulatory standards.

What are the benefits of implementing software asset management?

Implementing software asset management brings a multitude of benefits to organizations, including:

• Cost savings: One of the most immediate benefits of SAM is significant cost savings. Through meticulous tracking and management of software licenses, SAM helps organizations avoid over-purchasing and paying for unneeded software. It also identifies underutilized or unused licenses that can be reallocated or terminated, thus optimizing spending and reducing wasteful expenditures on software assets.
• Risk reduction: SAM greatly reduces various risks, including legal, financial and security risks. By ensuring compliance with software licensing terms, organizations can avoid hefty fines and legal disputes that arise from non-compliance. Additionally, managing software assets effectively helps mitigate security risks by preventing the use of unauthorized or outdated software that may be vulnerable to security threats.
• Improved efficiency: Implementing SAM streamlines several IT processes, including the deployment, maintenance and updating of software. This leads to improved operational efficiency since IT departments are better equipped to manage software needs promptly and accurately. Enhanced efficiency also means that IT staff can focus more on strategic initiatives rather than being bogged down by routine software management tasks.
• Better decision-making: With a robust SAM system in place, organizations gain access to accurate and comprehensive data about their software usage and compliance. This information is crucial for making informed decisions about future software investments and strategies. Accurate data helps in predicting software needs, planning budgets and negotiating more favorable terms with vendors.
• Vendor relations: Effective SAM improves relationships with software vendors by ensuring that transactions and interactions are based on accurate usage and compliance data. This transparency allows for more effective negotiations and fosters trust, potentially leading to better service and more favorable pricing or licensing terms from vendors.
• Compliance assurance: SAM ensures that an organization adheres to all relevant software licensing agreements and regulatory requirements. Regular audits and compliance checks help maintain this adherence, providing peace of mind and protecting the organization from potential compliance-related issues.

How is software asset management implemented?

Implementing software asset management is a strategic process that involves several carefully planned steps. By following these steps, organizations can ensure that their SAM practices not only meet current software management needs but are also scalable and adaptable to future changes. Here’s how SAM can be effectively implemented to maximize its benefits:

1. Assessment: The first step in implementing SAM is conducting a thorough assessment of the existing software assets. This includes identifying all software currently in use, the licenses held and how these assets align with the organization’s needs and compliance requirements. This assessment helps to establish a baseline of what software is owned, how it is used and any gaps in licensing that might exist.
2. Planning: Based on the assessment, a SAM strategy is developed, outlining the organization’s objectives for software management and the procedures to achieve them. Planning involves setting clear goals, such as cost reduction, compliance improvement or operational efficiency, and detailing the actions required to reach these goals. This stage may also involve selecting SAM tools and solutions that fit the organization’s needs.
3. Implementation: With a plan in place, the next step is to implement the chosen SAM tools and processes. This includes installing software inventory tools, setting up systems for tracking and managing licenses and integrating SAM practices into the IT department’s daily operations. Implementation may also involve configuring software usage monitoring systems to collect data on how software is being utilized across the organization.
4. Training and awareness: For SAM to be successful, it is crucial that all relevant personnel are trained on the new systems and processes. This training should cover the importance of SAM, the specific tools and procedures put in place and the roles and responsibilities of each team member. Additionally, raising awareness about the benefits of SAM and compliance requirements helps to foster a culture that values effective software management.
5. Monitoring and optimization: After implementation, continuous monitoring of software usage and compliance is essential. This ongoing process helps to identify any issues or inefficiencies, such as unused licenses or non-compliant software use, allowing for timely adjustments. Regular reviews of the SAM strategy and its outcomes should also be conducted to ensure that the organization continues to meet its software management goals efficiently.

What are the best practices of software asset management?

To effectively manage software assets and ensure a high return on investment, organizations should follow established best practices in software asset management. Here’s a closer look at some of the best practices that can enhance the effectiveness of your SAM program.

• Conduct regular software audits: Regular software audits are essential for maintaining control over software assets and ensuring compliance with licensing agreements. These audits help identify unauthorized software, reconcile software licenses and ensure that all installed software is legally compliant and adequately licensed. Regular audits also provide an opportunity to review software needs and usage patterns, which can lead to cost savings and efficiency improvements.
• Establish centralized repositories: Creating centralized repositories for software licenses and agreements simplifies management and enhances visibility across the organization. This repository should include details about each license, such as purchase dates, renewal dates, usage terms and compliance conditions. Centralized repositories make it easier to retrieve information during audits, manage renewals and ensure that licensing documents are up-to-date and accessible.
• Implement automated tools for software discovery and usage tracking: Utilizing automated tools for software discovery and usage tracking can significantly improve the accuracy and efficiency of a SAM program. These tools automatically detect and catalog all software on the network, monitor usage patterns and provide detailed reports that help manage licenses more effectively. Automation reduces the risk of human error and frees up IT staff to focus on more strategic tasks.
• Foster collaboration between IT, procurement and legal departments: Collaboration between IT, procurement and legal departments is critical to the success of a SAM program. IT departments handle the technical aspects of software management, procurement manages the acquisition of software and legal ensures compliance with licensing agreements and copyright laws. Regular communication and collaboration between these departments can prevent discrepancies and align software asset management with organizational policies and objectives.

How IT Glue can enhance your software asset management

Understanding the assets within your IT infrastructure, including both hardware and software, plays a crucial role in ensuring seamless operations. For IT managers, it is essential to know who owns these assets, where they are located and how to troubleshoot issues if they arise.

IT Glue is an award-winning documentation solution that offers powerful asset management capabilities. Through its seamless integration, IT Glue provides a complete inventory of all your assets, including who owns them and where they are stored, all in one place. This data can be leveraged when making critical decisions. Learn more about how IT Glue can help in your asset management and unlock the full potential of your complex and ever-growing IT environments.

IT asset management, which includes both software assets and hardware assets, is crucial for organizations to optimize the usage of assets and maximize their value. Want to discover the best practices to follow while performing IT asset management? Download this free eBook.

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In this blog, we’ll discuss the different aspects of software documentation and how you can make the most out of it to benefit your organization.

What Is Software Documentation?

Software documentation refers to any writings, video messages or images that typically accompany a software product. It exists mainly to help users understand the product, interface, capability, benefits and more. Most importantly, it also answers significant questions that may arise when using the product.

Why do we need software documentation?

Documentation is an integral part of any software development process. During software development, developers usually write down everything including API documentation, release notes, build notes and other instructions. These documents play a critical role in the maintenance stage of the software development life cycle.

Without proper documentation, future developers who work on a software product will have a tough time understanding its information architecture, user experience and more. When the information is hard to locate, your support team will have a tough time assisting your customers. In short, proper documentation could be the difference between success and failure in achieving your communication goals.

What should software documentation include?

The documentation you create should achieve these goals – facilitate understanding for end-users, assist the support team and consumers in finding relevant information, and resolve issues that may be encountered during the software development process. Based on these goals, you need to document everything relevant to your software.

For instance, if a module in a software product needs to be extended, its existing model and architecture need to be understood by the developer in detail. Similarly, identifying common bugs and causes is essential to ensure faster resolution of issues. Your software documentation should include all this information in detail so that it is easily understood by future stakeholders.

What Are the Different Types of Software Documentation?

There are several types of software documentation available depending upon the target audience they are created for. They all perform a critical role during the software development life cycle. For our understanding, let’s focus on the four main types of documentation associated with the software development process.

Requirements Documentation

This is typically done at the beginning of the software development process. This outlines the expectations behind the development of the software product including what it does, what goals it serves, which environment is ideal for its operation, etc. It also focuses on the functional requirements, compatibility requirements, limitations, configurations, hardware requirements, software requirements and more.

Architecture Documentation

This document outlines the high-level architecture of the software being developed. This mostly concerns the design element of the software development process. It provides information about the components in the software, their roles, their functionalities and the data flows among various components. Since it is associated with design, this documentation doesn’t have much code.

Technical Documentation

This concerns all the technical details of software development. It is mainly intended for a technical audience like software developers. This usually includes API documentation, release notes, a high-level overview of the software and system documentation. The quality of technical documentation is extremely important in any software development. Any errors in documentation may lead to inadequate solutions that don’t meet the expectations of stakeholders.

User Documentation

This documentation is intended for the end-users who actually use the software product. Since this is created for non-technical people, it should be simple and detailed. Some of the examples include how-to guides, tutorials, user manuals, reference docs, configuration guides, etc.

Software Documentation Best Practices

The purpose of any documentation is to transfer knowledge. Since the success of a software product requires comprehension of its usage, software documentation can make or break a product. To ensure you document everything the right way, you need to follow these best practices.

• Prioritize Documentation: Documentation should not be just an afterthought in any software development process. You need to actively prioritize documentation to save your valuable time and effort. When you document correctly, you don’t have to remember every little detail and you can eliminate errors in the process.
• Know Your Audience: Focusing on your audience is the best way to document everything. For instance, your technical documentation intended for developers can have complex terms and jargon. However, this should not be the case for user documentation. You need to create documentation based on the audience you are trying to appeal to.
• Create a Content Strategy: Documentation is not a one-off approach. It is a continuous process that follows the evolution of a software product. You need to create a content strategy to appeal to your target audience. Think about the types of content you can create and think about the delivery methods to reach your target audience.
• Use the Agile Approach: An agile approach offers a lot of benefits for software documentation. Many firms already use agile subsets like Just in Time documentation, Docs Like Code, etc., to ensure collaboration among all stakeholders. This also provides you with better control over document versions and sources.
• Work With Experts: When creating technical documentation, you need the expertise of developers to come up with the right documentation. Make sure you have a way to ensure collaboration between experts and other stakeholders.
• Use the Right Documentation Tool: Manual documentation is not only tedious but also allows room for lots of errors. You need a powerful documentation tool that automates the documentation process and boosts efficiency. You can try tools like IT Glue to easily create all the required documentation and share it with the concerned stakeholders.
• Incorporate Customer Feedback: When you create documentation for end-users, your customers’ feedback becomes critical in understanding their concerns and difficulties. You need to collect customer feedback and figure out a way to incorporate it into your development process.

What to Look for in a Software Documentation Tool

Manual documentation is a time-consuming process and takes a lot of effort. To ensure optimal use of your resources, you need a documentation tool that can automate the process and bring structure to your documentation infrastructure. Some of the key features to look for in a software documentation tool include the following.

• Structured Organization: The info you enter into your documentation tool should be automatically structured. By using a common framework, you can organize information effectively and ensure instant retrieval.
• Secure Access: Multiple people in your organization are likely to use your documentation tool. Your software needs to provide secure access to everyone without compromising security.
• Password Management: There should be a fully integrated password engine linked with all your documentation. This ensures the effective retrieval of user passwords.
• Relationship Mapping: This feature brings related items together and ensures easy access to all relevant information at your fingertips. When related items are grouped together, you don’t have to search for them when performing a complex task.
• Integration: Your documentation software needs to be easily integrated with other major platforms and third-party applications. This is an essential feature when you are working with multiple disparate tools.
• Enterprise-Grade Security: Security is a major requirement in this age of rising cyberthreats and ransomware. When your documentation tool is loaded with security features like access control, password vault, multifactor authentication, etc., you can rest assured that your information is always safe.

Software Documentation With IT Glue

IT Glue is a leading, cloud-based documentation platform that can document your most valued assets into knowledge and information. The knowledge you and your team gather in your everyday tasks can be easily consolidated and related to hardware and software information. This means everything can be accessed from a single pane of glass, putting everything at your fingertips.

IT Glue’s SOC 2-compliant documentation platform features an immutable audit trail, multifactor authentication and next-generation password management engine, all of which are fully integrated and linked with all your documentation.

To know more about how IT Glue can help with software documentation, request a demo!

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Software Documentation in IT Glue

In IT Glue, software applications are almost always documented as flexible assets. By using flexible assets, you’re able to document software using the fields that you need or want the most. The software itself can be documented as a Vendor, with fields for such items as type (SaaS, on prem, etc), Status (active/inactive), importance, business impact, compliance certifications, risk level and further fields for things like account manager contact info or support information.

You could have fields for the department that uses the software, or the software champion – the latter linked to that specific contact.

A copy of the vendor contract can be held within this flexible asset, or it can be in a separate Contracts folder and linked back to the Vendor asset.

User Licences

There’s probably a couple of approaches to user license documentation. For applications that are used by everybody, perhaps the easiest thing is to set up SSO. If you use Network Glue, it has automated documentation of Active Directory users as Contacts in IT Glue, and those contacts will double as licenses for software that’s been deployed company-wide.

For software that is only used by a few different users, it may be easier to set up a field in IT Glue to note which users are covered under the license. Those users can also be linked to the flexible asset – either the License asset or the Software Application asset.

Passwords

IT Glue’s Passwords feature is also a powerful way to make sure that only the right users have access to each piece of software. Let’s say you have only a single license for a piece of software, but multiple users will need to access that. Set password permissions for that software accordingly, so only the people who need access can have it.

If you need your client to have access to a piece of software that you also require access to, MyGlue will ensure that all the right people have access to the application in your client’s organization, as well as among your team. That’s collaboration-as-a-service in action.

Automating Software Documentation

Obviously, the best approach to software documentation is to automate it. Typically, that will require a script build with our API that brings that information into IT Glue (and ideally keeps it up to date). Check out our Git repository for a handy Powershell wrapper and contributions from our user community.

The ability to create flexible assets and scripts that meet your unique needs is one of the most powerful attributes of IT Glue, along with the ability to relate different assets together – so knowing which users are using which pieces of software, for example. To learn more about how IT Glue simplifies software documentation, or any other type of IT documentation for that matter, our demo video reveals all.

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