Count of Users and Usage Time by Software Title

There isn’t a built-in SCCM report that can help IT Asset Management (ITAM) Administrators keep track of the number of users that are using specific software titles, so that’s why we created this report.

How can you guarantee the accuracy of the software inventory results from the previous month? The answer turns out to be quite simple: delay when the report is run.

During our research, we determined that you shouldn’t run this type of report on the first of the month. By waiting an extra eight days, or longer, you can ensure that the software metering details are the ones from the previous month. Simply waiting means that you don’t need to make any changes to your SCCM environment by having software metering data returned daily. We found that even when this data is returned on a daily basis, the results are often not reliable on the first of the month. Why? A number of computers could be turned off, or the results for some computers may not appear depending on the time of day when the report is run.

We also concluded that you can run our report months after the software metering data is returned to SCCM and still get accurate results. By default, the previous month will always be selected, but you can simply change the month and year in order to review older data. By the way, our team thought this update would be a, “five-minute fix.” This proved not to be the case, but we think you’ll agree it was well worth it!

Why didn’t we create a drill down report listing software titles and user names? Wouldn’t it be important to know who is using these applications? These are great questions! The person who approached us with this problem resides within Europe, so General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) prohibits collecting this information. Do you think we should create a drill down report for our North American customers? Would that be useful? The Enhansoft Team would love to hear your thoughts.