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Software Asset Management Overview

Software Asset Management Guide
Introduction

Software Asset Management Overview

xAssets Software Asset Management (SAM) helps you discover the software installed across your organization, match it against the licenses you have purchased, and produce a defensible licensing position for compliance, audit, and cost-control purposes.

This guide covers everything you need to run SAM in xAssets: the underlying engine, how to set up the catalog, how to import licenses, how to interpret the licensing position, and how to customize the rules that drive license allocation.

What SAM Does

SAM in xAssets is built on three things that happen continuously:

  1. Discovery finds the software installed on every endpoint, server, and SQL instance you manage.
  2. Recognition classifies each discovered title — is it commercial, free, or a system component? Which product does it belong to?
  3. The calculation engine matches consumption (what is installed) against entitlement (what you own) and produces a per-product compliance position.

The output is a single number per software product: are you compliant, over-licensed, or under-licensed?

Workflow at a Glance

SAM workflow at a glance Seven-step workflow: Discover, Recognize and Load run continuously and automatically; Catalog and License are setup activities; Calculate and Position run on demand. 1 Discover 2 Recognize 3 Load 4 Catalog 5 License 6 Calculate 7 Position Continuous, automatic Discovery pipeline runs on schedule Setup Build and maintain On demand Triggered by you
Step What Happens Where in xAssets
Discover Network discovery scans assets and reports installed software Network Discovery, SCCM, Intune, Active Directory
Recognize Each title is classified (Primary, Secondary, Free, Banned, Unknown) Recognition database (centrally maintained)
Load Recognized titles are written into the asset record Load Now process
Catalog Each licensable product has a catalog entry that titles map to Licensing > Licensing Position
License You record license purchases against catalog entries Licensing > Licenses
Calculate The engine allocates licenses to consumptions Licensing > Calculate Licensing Position
Position The per-product compliance status is published Licensing > Licensing Position

Who This Guide Is For

Role What They Need From This Guide
SAM Manager The full guide — concepts, daily tasks, audit preparation
IT Administrator Chapters 1–5 (setup), Chapter 8 (running the position), Chapter 9 (daily tasks)
Compliance Officer Chapter 8 (Licensing Position), Chapter 9 (audit preparation), Chapter 2 (concepts to interpret results)
xAssets Administrator Chapter 11 (customizing the calculation rules)

How This Guide Is Organized

Chapter What It Covers
1. Introduction This page and a glossary of SAM terms
2. Concepts The mental model: temporal accounting, consumption, grants, affinity, downgrades, license metrics
3. Software Catalog The product catalog that licenses attach to
4. Recognition How discovered titles become catalog products
5. Software Licenses Creating and managing license records
6. Importing Licenses Bulk loading licenses from spreadsheets and vendor statements
7. Allocation How licenses are allocated to consumptions, and how to override automatic allocation
8. Licensing Position The compliance dashboards, reports, and queries
9. Daily Tasks Common operational tasks: spot checks, reclaim, audit prep
10. Operations Scheduling, batch jobs, performance, data quality
11. Customizing the Calculation Editing the calculation rules to match your licensing policies