License Dashboard, a UK-based provider of Software Asset Management solutions and services, has released an update to their software license management platform, License Manager 11, offering organizations a complete view of their IT estate with added automated functionality to manage user-based software licensing.

License Manager from License Dashboard gives a comprehensive overview of an organization’s Effective License Position (ELP) to help ensure software licensing compliance. User-based licensing allows a user to run a piece of software on a predefined number of devices, however, when users hold accounts from multiple vendors their account information is not always standardised, creating duplicates known as aliases. In what was previously a manual task, License Manager automatically reconciles each user to their multiple aliases and then allocates a single license across a user’s allocated set of devices for each vendor.

David Chamberlain, License Dashboard General Manager commented, “User-based licensing can be extremely cost-effective. But without accurate, up-to-date information, organizations are unable to take full advantage of the grants it offers. They find themselves at risk of making licensing errors such as purchasing unnecessary additional software licenses, wasting precious IT budget.”

License Manager 11 is an on-premise software asset management solution designed for organizations with an in-house SAM team in place. Those using it have full visibility if their IT estate including all connected devices and users, plus these new automated features:

• Reconciliation of multiple user aliases
• Grouping of a user’s subscriptions
• Consolidation of user permissions including what they can deploy and to where

“Our customers have to know they’re using their IT budget effectively,” Chamberlain said. “In Office 365, for example, a subscriber can run specific versions of Office Professional Plus on up to five devices where he or she is the primary user. Without intensive manual intervention, which can take weeks across a large workforce, traditional license management tools could be requesting the purchase of up to five device licenses where just one user license is necessary. This update to License Manager 11 allows the creation of subscription licensing rules, without any manual intervention, meaning this reconciliation task takes just minutes.”

License Manager 11 is designed to integrate with existing inventory tools such as Active Directory, Office 365, Adobe Creative Cloud or SAP. Custom connectors can be created by License Dashboard according to individual customer needs.