Open iT for SAM Managers

Bring Engineering and Technical Software Into Your SAM Program

6,000+ applications · 100+ license managers · ISO/IEC 27001:2022 certified

Your SAM tool knows where software is installed. For engineering software, that is half the story: license servers such as FlexNet, DSLS and RLM hand out the licenses, and in typical engineering environments 20–40% of checked-out licenses sit idle. Open iT reads those servers, measures whether each user is actually working, and feeds the result into ServiceNow SAM Professional, so reclamation, compliance and renewals rest on real use.

Key Business Challenges SAM Managers Face

Engineering Licenses
Sit Outside Your SAM View

CAD, CAE, EDA and geoscience tools usually run on network licenses issued by a license server. Installation data shows where the software is installed, not who holds a license or for how long. Each license manager keeps its own logs, in its own format.

Checked Out Is
Not the Same as Used

A license server records a checkout and nothing more. An engineer who opens Petrel and goes to a two-hour meeting still holds the license. Reclamation rules built on that data treat idle sessions as real demand.

Audit Evidence Is Spread
Across License Servers

When a vendor audit notice arrives, the usage history for concurrent, token and named-user licenses sits on several servers and in several log formats. Your team has to rebuild a defensible software license compliance position from those logs by hand.

How Open iT Helps

Bring Engineering License Usage Into ServiceNow SAM Professional

Open iT feeds engineering and technical software usage data into ServiceNow, so engineering and business software sit in one SAM view. Product-level usage appears in the SAM Professional dashboards. Feature-level detail, the level at which license managers issue licenses, appears in an Open iT dashboard inside ServiceNow. Stakeholders who never log in to Open iT see the same numbers you do.

One Normalized Record Across 100+ License Managers

Open iT LicenseAnalyzer™ collects usage from 100+ license managers and 27 cloud and SaaS platforms, covering 6,000+ applications. FlexNet, DSLS, RLM, LM-X, Sentinel RMS, CodeMeter, Autodesk Cloud and Bentley Cloud data land in one format, by user, feature, location and hour.

Reclaim Licenses Based on Activity, Not Checkouts

Open iT works in three steps. It reads license servers to show who checked out what. It measures keyboard, mouse, CPU and I/O activity on the user’s machine to show who is actually working. Where you choose, it then suspends idle sessions after a warning, saving the user’s work and returning the license to the pool. Your reclamation decisions rest on measured activity.

Keep an Audit-Ready Usage History

Every checkout, denial and period of active use is stored with user, machine, feature and time. Open iT CLIMS™ adds audit trails of license server changes and expiration monitoring across 12 license managers. User data can be anonymized where privacy rules require it.

Plan Renewals and Chargeback From Measured Demand

Open iT LicensePredictor™ projects usage months ahead, so true-up and renewal positions start from a forecast. Open iT LicensePlanner™ turns the same usage into chargeback and cost allocation by cost center, tracking estimated, budgeted and actual spend per title.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the difference between license checkout data and actual software usage?

Checkout data says a license is taken; usage data says someone is working. License servers such as FlexNet or RLM record checkouts only. Open iT adds activity measured on the user's machine (keyboard, mouse, CPU and I/O) and matches it to each checkout. The difference is the idle share, which Open iT's documentation puts at 20–40% of checked-out engineering licenses at any given moment.

How does Open iT work with ServiceNow SAM Professional?

Open iT sends usage from engineering license servers into ServiceNow. Product-level usage shows in the standard SAM Professional dashboards; feature-level usage shows in an Open iT dashboard inside ServiceNow; your team can also build custom dashboards. IT, engineering, finance and executives then read one set of numbers in the platform they already use, without Open iT training.

How do I reclaim idle engineering licenses without disrupting engineers?

Reclaim on measured inactivity, with a warning first. Open iT shows a pop-up after an idle period you set. If the user is away, it suspends the application, keeping its state and freeing the license, or closes it after an autosave. Rules can vary by application, user group, time of day or overall utilization. Pre-built autosave scripts cover Petrel, Ansys SpaceClaim and Ansys Workbench.

What evidence does Open iT provide for a software audit or compliance position?

A dated history of every checkout, denial and period of active use, by user, machine and feature, across all your license servers. Concurrent, token, named-user, reserved and dongle licenses are all covered. Open iT CLIMS™ adds audit trails of server changes. You compare that history with your entitlements instead of rebuilding it from scattered logs.

Does Open iT replace our SAM platform?

No. Open iT covers engineering and specialized software that runs on license servers and adds that usage to your SAM platform, for example ServiceNow SAM Professional. Your SAM platform keeps the full estate (desktop, SaaS, entitlements, contracts); Open iT supplies the license-server usage and user activity data.

Still have questions? Talk to a specialist.

Make Every Engineering License Count.

You already pay for every license in the pool. See which ones are working, and take that evidence into your next true-up.