License Dashboard

Author: AJ Witt, The ITAM Review

This is our third review of License Dashboard’s ITAM toolset. Since 2012 we have seen continuous development and improvement as the solutions have evolved from being Microsoft-focused to being a full-spectrum ITAM tool. Over this time, we have also seen ITAM roles evolving from being seen as a clerical, record-keeping, bringer of bad news to a strategic partner for C-Suite decision-makers. License Dashboard has certainly kept pace with this change.

Our 2016 review (accessible here) remains accurate & relevant and so this review will focus on recent improvements to the product and our view of how it meets current and future ITAM toolset requirements. This review focuses on License Dashboard License Manager and License Dashboard Portal (LD Portal).

Inventory & Discovery

This product suite has always been discovery and inventory source agnostic, meaning it will consume data from a wide range of sources, such as Microsoft SCCM, VMware vCenter, and other IT management toolsets. License Dashboard also partner and integrate with Lansweeper to provide rich inventory data for non-Microsoft assets. They will also provide their own agent-based and agentless discovery tools should they be required. Flexible discovery via agent, agentless, and hybrid approaches are a key strength of this product.

Data Quality

License Dashboard’s open approach to discovery and inventory necessitates its powerful integration and normalisation functionality. Multiple sources of data are combined to provide as complete a picture of an asset as the discovery sources allow. The product retains its focus on being audit-ready and this is reflected in its approach to ensuring that data is verifiable and of high quality. This enables an ITAM Manager to be certain about the data upon which they are basing their decisions.

Scalability

License Dashboard is enterprise-ready, currently supporting individual customers with over 175,000 seats. Equally, it will scale down to the SME sector, supporting organisations who perhaps don’t have dedicated ITAM teams with an intuitive and low-maintenance approach to presenting ITAM data.

Reporting

Reporting, via License Dashboard Portal, is the standout highlight of this product and puts it significantly ahead of many of its competitors. It blazes a trail in terms of meeting requirements for BI & Reporting for modern ITAM teams. It does this by ensuring that it balances user requirements with data security. At its core is a BI solution powered by Qlik which provides real-time drill-down access to all the data held in the core License Dashboard License Manager product. This data is dynamically-filtered based on end-user requests in real-time.

Access to data can be controlled via the use of profiles. For example, very high-level views may be provided to C-Suite users, or department-specific data to individual managers. The latter is particularly important as technology budgets begin to migrate away from central IT control. Where other tools might require export to a spreadsheet and use of complex pivot tables – or even SQL syntax – License Dashboard Portal makes this all accessible within the tool, within minutes, and for any user. Importantly, all roles are centrally configurable to ensure access to sensitive data is restricted. With the increased focus on privacy and user access levels, this is vital to ensuring the product meets regulatory demands.

User & Subscription licensing

The software market trend is very much towards user-based and subscription licensing and this product has functionality for managing per-user license assignments and consumption, along with dedicated optimisation for products such as Microsoft Office 365. Much of this functionality is provided via a partnership with Binadox further evidence of License Dashboard’s approach of partnering with some of the best-in-breed solution providers rather than trying to reinvent the wheel. There is also an integration for bringing in Microsoft Azure usage information, although not for AWS or other public cloud platforms.

Update: License Manager 12

License Manager 12, released in early 2020, builds on the strengths of previous versions of the product by modernising the user experience and presentation layer. Look and feel is undoubtedly important for software users, and also for stakeholders who benefit from the output from the tool. All too often, ITAM tools surface too much detail in somewhat austere user interfaces. Whilst detail is vastly important – and is still something at the core of License Dashboard’s products – it isn’t necessary to see the “inner workings” every day, particularly if you have a senior stakeholder sat alongside you. License Manager 12, and the corresponding updates to LD Portal, mean that it is perfectly feasible for an ITAM manager to present direct from the tool at a board meeting with a modern, responsive Business Intelligence experience. As well as enhancing the reputation of the ITAM team with senior stakeholders this also saves report preparation time. I know when I was a daily user of ITAM tools that I spent at least a day a month exporting data into other tools to prepare reports – that’s simply not necessary with License Manager 12 & LD Portal.

The License Dashboard user experience update makes the tool look professional and aligns it with BI reporting toolsets such as Tableau, Qlik, and PowerBI. It is also en vogue with it’s optional dark mode, something that I would appreciate and make use of as an end user. It is best-in-class and sets a benchmark for other ITAM toolsets.

Conclusion

License Dashboard continue to evolve their products to meet modern ITAM team needs. I’m particularly impressed by their flexibility, customer focus, and awareness of what they do well, and when they should partner with other solutions. Reporting & Business Intelligence functions are class-leading. Overall this is a very well-rounded suite of capabilities suitable for any deployment scenario, backed up with excellent support, managed services, and ITAM expertise.