SAM Managers need to create software model(s) manually which used to make the process of determining compliance on ServiceNow a tad bit inefficient. Hence, we had introduced a feature to automatically create software model in Madrid Release.

Software Model management is a core process to leveraging ServiceNow Software Asset Management (SAM). While model creation can become time intensive for software vendors with complex licensing rules, ServiceNow SAM provides an automated workflow to streamline this process.

In the Quebec release, we have further enhanced this automated process to optimally create software models in a more efficient and effective manner (also made available in Orlando and Paris releases). This blog provides an introduction of this feature.

To take advantage of this feature, SAM Managers or Admin can enable the System Property under Software Asset-> Administration-> Properties and enable – A*utomatically create software models for all licensable products*. They can also enable- – Automatically create software models for all not-licensable products.

Once this property is enabled, automated jobs will search for existing software models for corresponding discovery models, and if an existing software model is not found, the system will automatically create one. This process can save time for SAM Managers and Administrators.

Let’s use an example to explain this feature in more detail

Existing Software Installation and Software Model(s) on the environment

An organization has the following existing configuration

If the property is enabled, ServiceNow SAM will perform the following checks

1. Check Performed by ServiceNow SAM
2. MS Excel 2016 will be covered by SM1 as there is an exact version and edition match, Result: No new Software Model will be created
3. MS Word 6.012 will be covered by SM2 as version and edition conditions match, Result: No new Software Model will be created
4. MS Power point 2016 will be covered by SM3 as version and edition conditions match, Result*: No new Software Model will be created*
5. MS Project 2016 Professional install does not match with the existing software model, Result: ServiceNow SAM will create a new software model automatically

These automated workflows will mark all automatically created software models with created source as “System Property”, making them easily reviewable in the future. SAM Manager can use this field on the Software Model to easily determine which software models were created automatically vs. manually.