Using Software Reclaim

Software Reclaim is for software administrators, security managers, financial officers and end-users. This article covers the core functionality in Software Reclaim.

You can access Software Reclaim under the Solutions tab when you log in to the 1E Platform. Platform Modules and Solutions visibility depends on your license agreement.

The Savings Opportunities page provides an overview of what software titles are being used and identifies reclaim opportunities that will reduce your software costs.

Page view options

The default page view is a software centric view showing you every software title in your estate, with or without licenses.

You can configure the Savings Opportunities page using the top toolbar to show either a device or software centric view based on either all software, with or without licenses, or licensible software only by clicking the following icons as indicated:

  1. Device Centric View: Updates all fields to display device centric data.

  2. Software Centric View: Updates all fields to display software centric data.

  3. All Software, with or without licenses: Focuses your data on all software.

  4. Licensible software only: Highlights licensible software only.

  5. Search by software title: A free text field to refine your view.

  6. All Vendors: A drop-down list of all software vendors represented across your estate.

For example, if you filter the page on a device centric view showing you every software title in your estate, with or without licenses you might want to find data on a specific title. Choosing Mozilla from the All Vendors drop-down and clicking Go shows you data associated with that vendor, which can be narrowed down by using Search by Software title.

Summary tiles

The page summary tiles reflect your selected page view options.

  • No License Required Software Titles or Licensible Software Titles: The total number of variations across all software titles in your environment.

  • Potential Savings (USD $): The total potential savings if you remove all software which does not have the status Used.

  • Achieved Savings (USD $): The value of software automatically removed due to Software Reclaim policies since the start of the year. Clicking this panel takes you to Savings Achieved.

Device Centric View

When you select Device Centric View you see the following tiles.

Used and unreported

This tile shows the distribution of installations in the three usage categories, Used, Rarely Used and Unused, clicking on a category updates your page view to match your selection.

  • Blue - Used: Software that has been used in the past 30 days.
  • Orange - Rarely used: Software that has been used in the past 31-90 days.
  • Red - Unused: Software that has not been used in the past 90 days.
  • Gray - Unreported: Software that has been installed in the past 7 days and when usage is unidentifiable e.g. background software.

Administrators who want to reclaim unused software to recycle licenses can use this information to set their reclaim policies.

Location

The bar chart shows software installations by location. You can filter this view by clicking on a location bar, or by using the drop-down menu.

Management Groups

This chart displays Management Groups configured in 1E Platform in descending order according their device membership. You can focus on a specific Management Group by either choosing it from the drop-down menu, or by clicking it in the bar chart.

The bar at the bottom shows the total number of devices in each Management Group. For details about Management Groups and how to use them in 1E Platform, refer to the Management Groups

Department

This tile allows you to filter your view according to the Persona Types and or Work Style you have created by using the drop-down menu or clicking a column in the bar chart.

For details about configuring Persona Types and or Work Style, refer to Initial login and user management. To add and configure Personas and Work Style navigate to Solution Settings > Configuration > Persona Management.

Software Centric View

When you select Software Centric View you see the following tiles.

Used and unreported

For details, refer to Device Centric View, Used and unreported

Licensable Software: Top 10 titles by install count

This chart displays licensible software in descending order according to install count. You can filter the page on a specific title by clicking it in the bar chart. By hovering your mouse over each colored section of the bar chart you can see the reclaim value for each category of software, from Used, Rarely Used and Unused.

Top 5 savings opportunities

This chart displays the top five savings opportunities in descending order according to dollar saving. You can filter the page on a specific title by clicking it in the bar chart.

Summary table

Displays a summary of devices or titles based on the how you have filtered the Savings Opportunities page. Clicking on elements on each page tile allows you to focus on areas of interest.

Items highlighted blue allow you to filter and explore the results further. For example viewing the Savings Opportunities page using the Software Centric view with by All software, with or without licenses shows there are fourteen results of unreported installations of Google Chrome. Clicking on the total, displays a drawer showing you fourteen installations of seven different version/architecture combinations across nine devices.

The default view in Rule Management is software centric and shows rules associated with All software in your estate, with or without licenses. You can switch between this view and Licensible software only using the icons at the top of the page.

  1. All Software, with or without licenses: Focuses your data on all software.

  2. Licensible software only: Highlights licensible software only.


Refer to Evaluate rules and Add new rule for an explanation of these features.

Clicking each of the following panels changes the focus of the page to display each of the following:

  • Enabled Rules: Displays all rules you have created and enabled.
  • Drafts/Disabled Rules: Displays rules that are in draft or you have set to disabled.
  • Deleted Rules: Rules you have deleted.

By default the Rule Management table view is Enabled Rules and displays a summary of Vendor, Title, Version, Edition (VTVE), highlighting details for Used, Rarely Used, Unused and Unreported software. This view includes the Management Groups associated with a title and gives you the option to Edit, Disable or Delete the rule associated with that software title by clicking the Action column's three vertical dots.

If you disable a rule, you can enable it by clicking the Draft/Disabled Rules panel and clicking Enable for that rule in the displayed table.

If you delete a rule, you can recover it by clicking Deleted Rules, selecting the rule and choosing Undelete from the Action column.

Evaluate rules

Clicking Evaluate Rules runs all enabled Software Reclaim rules against their targeted software using the rule scope and conditions you have set. Doing this enables Software Reclaim to identify reclaim opportunities across your estate.

Add new rule

Clicking add new rule opens the Create Reclaim Rule page which guides you through the process of creating a new Reclaim rule based on either All software in your estate, with or without licenses or Licensible software only. You can switch between this view and Licensible software only using the icons at the top of the page.

Add a new rule example

Software Reclaim uses a wizard to guide you through creating a new rule.

  1. Select your Targeted Software:
    1. Select your Targeted Software, using the Vendor drop down menu. In this example we select Corel Corporation.
    2. Select the Title, we select WinZip PDF Pro.
    3. Selecting Version allows you to select either a specific version, or choose All Versions, we select version 5.0.0.61.

    4. At this stage you can reset the wizard or save your changes.
  2. If there are existing rules for the targeted software, you can set rule precedence. When you set precedence it allows you to overrule any existing rules associated with the same software. Clicking set rule precedence opens the Set precedence for rules drawer. Drag and drop rules to re-order. The rules precedence will follow the order set. This is important when a device is in more than 1 management group, as it may match several rules. In this case, precedence will decide which rule takes effect. Moving these rules will change the order immediately.
  3. Create the Scope:
    1. Once you have selected your new rule's targeted software, you are prompted to define which device management groups this rule should apply to. In our example, we apply the new rule to every Management Group where this software is unused, and if there are savings to be made, maximize the potential reclaim benefits.
    2. After choosing to apply the new rule to all Management Groups, Software Reclaim displays a summary of these groups.
  4. Define your rule's conditions:
    1. Next, we set conditions which define what happens to Corel Corporation WinDVD installations, based on its usage status.
    2. For each option you can choose from:
      Mandatory uninstall: The user will not be consulted before the software is removed.
      Optional uninstall: The user can keep the software by sending a reason back to the administrator, or agree to uninstall it. Users can choose to ignore the notification (For example, if a user is in a meeting), which sends a reminder every 7 days for 28 days. After 28 days, an automated uninstall is initiated.
      Do nothing: No action is taken.
    3. For this example we leave these options as the default Mandatory uninstall.
    4. For custom uninstalls Software Reclaim allows you to set custom uninstall strings.
  5. Now the rule is complete, we click create reclaim rule. The default rule status is Enable rule selected, deselect this option if needed.
  6. Our new rule is now listed on the Rule Management page, which is sorted by Last Updated.

Edit a rule

To edit a rule, click the three dots under the Action column for a software titleAdd new rule Once you have made your changes, click the update reclaim rule button at the bottom of the page.

Disable a rule

To edit a rule, click the three dots under the Action column for a software titleAdd new rule Once you click disable, the entry for this title will be listed on the Draft\Disabled Rules page.

Delete a rule

To delete a rule, click the three dots under the Action column for a software titleAdd new rule Once you click delete, the entry for this title will be listed on the Deleted Rules page.

To recover a deleted rule, click the three dots under the Action column for the software title and select Undelete.

Savings Achieved provides details on savings achieved in the selected time period. For each report you can choose which status you want to view, by clicking the status listed at the bottom of each panel.

Reclaim History

The Reclaim History table can be customized using the filter and by clicking the three lines in the first column and choosing which columns to display.

Once a reclaim rule has been created and sent to the end user, you can asses the reasoning provided by the end user for wanting to keep their software. Additionally, you have the option to reject the reasoning and initiate an uninstall event.

Most settings are common to all Solutions. For these common settings, refer to Solutions setup.

Only settings specific to this Solution are covered below.

Specific Software Reclaim Core Stats are available to view on this page.

API Management

Splunk HEC Configuration

You must have access to both Business Impact and Software Reclaim to use this feature.

Using Splunk HEC Configuration you can offload audit log data from 1E Platform to Splunk. To do this you will need the following information:

  • Server Hostname: In the format <hostname>:<port>
  • Rest API Endpoint: For example /services/collector/event
  • Splunk Token: A Splunk token for HEC.

Once you have completed the form, select Enable send audit logs to send audit data to your Splunk instance.

The account used to fetch platform audit log data is your Platform Sync account which is configured under Configuration > API Management > 1E Platform.