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Perplexity AIIn the Software Management industry, there are a few metrics that really matter. Apps installed and number of licenses are critical to understand, but so is usage. In this article, we’ll explore the importance of consumption data for optimally managing assets, and the difference between total usage and Xensam’s Active Usage Tracking capabilities.
Why Consumption Data is Critical to Software Asset Management
When licenses were sold per-user or per-seat, consumption data was nice to have, but had no real impact on cost. Companies paid a once-off price for users or seats regardless of actual utilization. However, the flexible delivery of SaaS enables more precise licensing metrics. More and more vendors are moving towards consumption-based subscription licenses, understanding exactly how much employees are using apps is essential. Usage-based pricing (UBP) has been growing steadily since 2018, with nearly half of SaaS vendors utilizing usage-based pricing models.
Consumption data becomes critical in this landscape of licensing. Without an understanding of their usage, companies can’t make informed decisions on the users and apps they’re spending on. It’s a critical metric to empower cost-saving and consolidation efforts.
Total Usage vs Active Usage Tracking
Software metering tools are not new to the industry. But, while they’ve been around for a while, most only give partial insight into usage, often returning fluctuating or inaccurate data. Many of them only detect usage of SaaS applications, leaving on-prem applications unmonitored.
“We tried out a software metering platform to track application consumption. However, the data was highly inaccurate regarding software usage, installation status, and user allocation.”
– Director of Digital Services Support, Environmental Engineering and Consulting Company
Total Usage: What most IT professionals know as usage data is nothing more than the number of minutes a software has been running, not how much it’s actually used. For example, imagine that you open Outlook in the morning to check your emails and then navigate to other apps without closing the app or web browser. Then, at the end of the day you close all your apps or tabs. A traditional metering tools would register this as 8 hours of Outlook usage.
Active Usage Tracking: While most metering tools would log those 8 hours of total usage, Xensam goes one step further. During those 8 hours, imagine that you were actively working inside Outlook for around 45 minutes. Our intelligent Agent will detect and differentiate between both total and Active Usage. Xensam is the only provider on the market that with this functionality, delivering granular insight of usage down to the minute with Active Usage Tracking.
Unlock Cost Savings with Active Usage Tracking
Active Usage Tracking enables cost savings in several ways. For example, CAD software, Cloud applications, or expensive office applications like Microsoft Project, and Visio, can be uninstalled or replaced with more cost-effective editions or even free “viewer” software if the Active Usage is too low. Traditional Total Usage cannot present a granular picture of usage like this.
With Xensam’s Active Usage Tracking, you can make better decisions on investing in Cloud applications. Cloud providers often present multiple choices and by using Xensam, users with low Active Usage can swap to a product with fewer features and functions. For example; Office365 E1 instead of an E3.
The real difference between E1 and E3 is that with E1 the user must use Microsoft Office online, which means that files needs to be stored online either with SharePoint or OneDrive. With Xensam’s Agent you will get Active Usage data on all installed applications and can evaluate how many users will need E1 and how many will need an E3 or E5 license. If you do this you can save up to $12 per month per user: $144/year per user. Active Usage Tracking can be used for all standard applications too, leading to strong cost savings for your costly CAD environment.
With Xensam’s market-leading Active Usage Tracking functionality, you can pay for what you actually use, not for what’s running as a process in your task manager.