Subscriptions

A subscription entitles users to a SaaS application for a specific period of time. The Subscriptions pages in SaaS show consolidated data for your SaaS subscriptions. Use these pages to gain visibility and to find cost optimization opportunities.

Definition of subscription

Vendors often license and sell their SaaS applications using a subscription model. A subscription is a legally valid agreement with a vendor that entitles you to use a SaaS application for a specific period of time. Subscriptions can also be called SKUs, subscription plans, licenses, license plans, or entitlements, depending on the vendor.

Subscriptions may be sold for a variety of metrics, but a user-based metric is the most common. Subscriptions are usually billed regularly and renewed until cancelled.

A vendor can offer subscriptions for single applications or for a combination of applications. A subscription that entitles users to multiple applications is called a bundle.

Vendors often group their related applications and services. This is called family.

Utilization and usage

Utilization is how you use your purchased subscriptions: how many you have assigned to users, if you have unassigned subscriptions, and if you have overassigned subscriptions.

Usage is how your assigned subscriptions are used. Usage is based on user activity in the respective applications that the subscriptions entitle users to. For definitions of user activity, see User activity.

For a SaaS glossary, see SaaS: Reference.

Costs and potential savings

Costs for utilization and usage metrics are based on billing information, such as quantity, cost per unit, and duration. Costs can be shown as the total for the duration of the subscription or as periodized, based on the billing period, such as into monthly or periodical costs.

Potential savings are based on the cost of unassigned subscriptions and the cost of subscriptions where the assigned users are inactive or have no activity in the application. Only user-based metrics are taken into account, and the cost for subscriptions where activity cannot be monitored is not included. Potential savings are often periodized and presented as monhtly potential savings.

For a SaaS glossary, see SaaS: Reference.

Subscription management

Subscriptions are primarily added to the system through the discovery sources that you connect to, but you must manually add billing information, such as cost, duration, and sometimes quantity.

If you have subscription types that cannot be discovered, you can add them manually and also add users to them. If you have paid subscriptions that you do not want to see in optimization views, you can mark them to be excluded from total calculations of usage and cost metrics. For more information, see Manage SaaS subscriptions.

For information on subscription cost optimization, see Optimize SaaS costs.

Subscription pages

The subscription pages show consolidated data for all discovered and manually added subscription types in your SaaS estate, based on the discovery sources that you connect to and the billing information that you add. Consolidated data is presented in indicators, charts, insights, and tables. There are multiple filtering options on the pages, as described in Filters.

For a SaaS glossary, see SaaS: Reference.

Subscriptions page

The Subscriptions page shows utilization and usage metrics related to all your subscriptions. Use this page to get an overview of the assignment rate of your purchased subscriptions and the user activity in assigned subscriptions.

The indicators show utilization and usage information for your subscriptions that are within their start and expiration dates. Subscription types marked as Free or Excluded are excluded from the indicators and chart. The table lists all your SaaS subscription types and their usage metrics in relevant applications.

Subscriptions cost page

The Subscriptions cost page shows all costs related to your subscriptions. Use this page to get an overview of your total costs for subscriptions, and the potential savings on unassigned subscriptions and assigned subscriptions where the users are not active.

The indicators show cost information for the current month for your subscriptions that are within their start and expiration dates. The table lists your SaaS subscription types and their relevant cost metrics. Subscription types marked as Free or Excluded are excluded from the indicators, charts, and table on this page.

Family page

The Family page shows information for all related services from the vendor. Use this consolidated view for visibility and to find optimization opportunities across the whole product family.

Manually added subscription types are excluded from the family page.

The product family page has the following tabs:

• The Subscriptions tab shows metrics related to your subscriptions in the family. Subscription types marked as ​Free or Excluded​​ are excluded from the charts. The table lists all your SaaS subscriptions in the family and their assignment metrics and costs.

• The Insights tab shows optimization opportunities related to your subscriptions and users in the family.

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  • Subscription types without added billing information, such as cost, or those marked as Free, show zero potential savings on the insights.

  • For upgrade and downgrade insights, all relevant subscription types must exist in the system for potential savings to be generated.

• The ​Applications tab shows metrics related to your SaaS applications in the family. Applications related to subscription types marked as ​Free​​ are excluded from the indicators and table.

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  Only applications that are connected to a subscription in the family are shown on this tab. Applications in the family that are found through discovery sources that do not discover connected subscriptions, such as the browser extension, are not shown.

• The Users tab shows metrics related to all your SaaS users in the family.

The Subscriptions filter affect all tabs on the page, as described in Filters.

Individual subscription page

The individual subscription page provides information for a single subscription type. Use this page to find optimization opportunities for the subscription.

The individual subscription page has the following tabs:

• The Insights tab shows the optimization opportunities for the subscription type. The table lists all your consolidated SaaS users and their activity in applications relevant for the subscription type.

  note

  • Subscription types marked as Free show no indicators or charts.

  • Subscription types without added billing information, such as cost, or those marked as Free, show zero potential savings on the insights.

  • For upgrade and downgrade insights, all relevant subscription types must exist in the system for potential savings to be generated.

  • Manually added subscription types for Power BI are excluded from Microsoft E3 to E5 upgrade insights.

• The Details tab shows the details for the subscription type.