Asset Vision®Asset Vision® OptimizeSoftware UsageHow to View Physical Software Usage

How to View Physical Software Usage

The Optimize Reports in this section focus on the software products that are installed on the same computer where they are used.  They focus primarily on software signature installation counts, usage as determined by keystrokes and minutes in use, and user-entered costs associated with used and unused software.

Physical Product Usage Overview

Physical Product Usage Overview

Clicking on the Physical menu item container renders a dashboard that contains two widgets:

  • Top Normalized Products by Minutes in Use: List of software packages that have been normalized in Asset Vision ordered by total minutes in use.
  • Top Programs by Minutes in Use: List of programs ordered by total minutes in use.

By Product

By Product

This section represents reports based on normalized software product data.  This will include any software signatures that have been mapped to a normalized software product and version.  

Clicking the By Product menu item renders a dashboard that contains one widget:  

Top Products by Minutes in Use: Pie chart representing normalized software products ordered by total minutes in use.

  • All Products: This data view displays the usage of normalized software products (licensed and non-licensable) and provides a high level view of software assets. The counts in the aggregated columns of this data view represent the number of installed software signatures.  Clicking on the links will drill down into the list of software signatures corresponding to the count.
  • Device Licenses: This data view displays usage of software products with Device CAL or Seat license metrics, two license models that are device centered. The counts in the aggregated columns represent the number of devices where corresponding software signatures are installed.  The columns are the same as for All Products.
  • User Licenses: This data view displays usage of software products with User CAL or Named User license metrics. The counts in the aggregated columns represent installed software signatures and unique user counts.

By Program

By Program

This section represents reports based on installed programs, both software signatures and stand-alone.  

Clicking the By Program menu item renders a dashboard that contains one widget:  

Top Programs by Minutes in Use: Pie chart representing installed programs ordered by total minutes in use.

  • All Programs: This data view displays usage of installed programs, also called executables.  Counts represent days of different types of usage.  Both software signature and stand-alone programs are included in this view.
  • Without Signature: This data view is identical to All Programs, but is filtered to show only programs that are NOT associated with a software signature.  Counts represent days of usage.
  • Un-Normalized Signature: This data view displays usage of software signatures that have not been normalized to match with entries in the Chaklun database.

Finding Unused Software to Uninstall

Finding Unused Software to Uninstall

Navigate to Optimize > Software Usage > Physical > By Product > All Products

Running the default scope will provide a useful range of data to analyze. These reports show each software product that a software signature in the environment has been normalized to. The columns in the middle of the report show usage statistics and can be used to identify extraneous software products that should be uninstalled due to their low or nonexistent usage.

To find unused software the user can filter out the value of 0 for Unused Devices since that column calculates unused software. To filter out a value, right click on the field and select Filter Out

The user can also create a new filter line and specify the column name, operator, and value.

The user can also create a new filter line and specify the column name, operator, and value.

Running this filter will show all software product records that have unused installations.

Clicking on one of the values in the Unused Devices column will bring up a separate data view that shows a list of the machines where the Product is unused. It displays the machine in which each Product is installed so that the user is able to locate the unused software signature if they wish to uninstall it.

Finding Underused Professional Versions of Software

Finding Underused Professional Versions of Software

Navigate to Optimize > Software Usage > Physical > By Product > All Products

After running the scopes filter to load the data, the user is able to apply filters directly to the data view as well. If the user wants to find underused professional versions of software they can click the drop down arrow for one of the column names and enter the value they want to search for (in this case, it is the key word “Professional”).

Or they can create a filter line that contains the same value.

The Full Use Devices column shows installation counts for Software Signature Minutes and Keystroke counts that pass the threshold value in the Scopes filter. The user can focus on this column in addition to the Not Used column (which displays counts based on if the software installation never passed the minutes or keystrokes) to identify installed software that can be uninstalled or assigned to devices that show greater usage for those software products.