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LAMUM vs. In-House Scripts & Tools

For most engineering companies worldwide, the cost of engineering software licenses is the second largest overhead expense they face. Despite the considerable investment spent on these licenses, their management and monitoring is usually done via in-house scripts or tools.

Managing engineering software licenses in-house can cost companies tremendous resources, as well as staff hours and infrastructure that could be allocated to the company’s core functionality. Apart from the opportunity – and financial – cost, these in-house tools often struggle to provide accurate and actionable data that helps companies maximize the efficiency of their licenses. In-house scripts also need to be regularly updated and debugged to ensure their functionality, costing even more staff hours.

You can learn more about LAMUM’s best-in-class functionality, and how it helps the world’s largest engineering firms save 15-25% on their engineering software license costs by contacting our sales team and requesting a demo today!

Zero-Usage Reports

The biggest challenge for CAD/IT administrators is discovering licenses that are under-utilized or have zero-usage over several months. Running a report that shows a number of licenses that have not been used in the last 365 days, is a clear indication that you may want to negotiate a trade-in or even to stop paying maintenance!

It is certainly important to talk about what is being used, how much, by whom, etc. But it is equally important to look at what is not being used. The Zero Usage report does just that. It shows all features/tools that were not used in a specified period of time.

Managers need to know what is not being used as well as what is.

Managers need to consider the best ways to make decisions about:

  • Cost allocations and overall Engineering expenditure
  • Intelligent use of engineering resources
  • Spending restrictions
  • Resource distribution

Learn more about reports.

Discovering under-utilized or zero-use licenses

Batch Reports for Engineering Licenses

Would you like to receive regular reports (every week, once a month, once a quarter, etc.)? LAMUM will automatically create these for you in the middle of the night, and either send to you via email or deliver to a specific folder.

Setting up a Batch report in LAMUM is very easy:
  • Create the report you want and select the time period you would like to analyze (7 days for Weekly, 30 days for Monthly, etc.).
  • Click Create Batch Report, give the Report a User-friendly name.
  • Choose how you want it delivered: email or specified folder. That’s it!

There is no limit on how many Batch Reports you can set up.

Batch Reports can be:
  • Single reports (graphs or tables)
  • Multiple graphs for single tool
  • Selected Features Usage Graphs by Tag
  • Selected Features Usage Tables by Tag
    • Includes all User Details

(Tag is user-friendly name for port@host)

Feature Usage by Tag – Table/Graph

(A “set” of Graphs or Tables for selected Tools)

Allows you to Create Batch Reports for “ALL” or “Specific features” usage details for a given Tag and Time period.

  • A “set” of graphs for selected tools at a given tag
  • A “set” of tables for selected tools at a given tag
  • Created weekly, monthly, or quarterly, e-mailed or dropped in a folder

(Tag is a user-friendly name for port@host)

Multi-graph View Select

(A “set” of up to 8 Graphs, for same Tool)

The Multi-graph view is a batch report that provides a complete and comprehensive set of usage graphs for each daemon.

It may include a combination of up to 8 graphs, such as:

  • Heatmap (Checkouts)
  • Heatmap (Denials)
  • Top 10 Users (by count or time of checkout)
  • History graph
  • Concurrent use graph (24×7)
  • Concurrent use graph (M-F 8-5)
  • Group Usage
  • Unique Users Graph

These can be individual or combined and scheduled weekly, monthly or however preferred. This routine report is available as a downloadable .pdf that can be easily shared with the team or management.

Mergers, Acquisitions & Staffing Changes: Are You Ready?

Right now is a critical time for many companies to make crucial decisions about acquisitions, mergers and changes in staffing. As organizations are thinking about ways to move forward, it is becoming increasingly important to consider what engineering licenses are needed.

  • How many CAD, EDA, PLM or any other engineering licenses do you currently have?
  • What are the future needs and expectations?
  • How will mergers and acquisitions affect your engineering team?
  • How do you manage the different engineering licenses across the various groups?
  • Did your company need to furlough engineering employees or are you currently in the exciting stage of needing to hire more talent?

With the recent increase of both acquisitions and mergers, it can be a two-fold challenge at times. Corporate companies want to make sure that the companies they are investing have a system to manage all of their engineering licenses for greater visibility and transparency. The smaller companies are trying to learn how to show compliance, learn corporate structures and best ways to enter a new way of working.

In some larger companies, training departments are in charge of ensuring new colleagues are aware of the tools that the teams are using as well as ensuring that the employees are aware of the product suite available to them. They also oversee that these tools are used in compliance. Check out our overview of how LAMUM can be useful across the different job functions.

Ultimately, the training departments need to have a good idea of utilization, especially during the current ongoing pandemic. Managers could really see big savings here.

Helpful Articles

Can License Metrics Help Your Team?

Brien Posey recently published an article about “5 Reasons Software License Tracking Hardens Your Organization” for IT Pro Today. Our team could not agree more.

We previously talked about license tracking and how crucial it is for compliance (see here). When new licenses are purchased or renewals negotiated, it is incumbent on the manager to have good historical and forecast data. If the manager is new, they may have no data, may not have access to the previous negotiation history of contractual entitlements.

Without contractual documents, discount agreements, PO’s, payment schedules, geographic entitlements can all sit-in different IT document systems making it difficult to build a complete picture, or worse, be locked/lost when a manager leaves the company.

Therefore, you must centralize and share all Vendor and usage data, but with ability to set access permissions. With this, a new manage can pick up where the old manager left off.

Brien talks about who has ownership of the software running on networked devices (See more about solutions by job function).

He also talks about the importance of innovation. We have recently had many discussions at TeamEDA about the need for innovation and that companies must adapt and think about the best ways to innovate to survive and flourish in this challenging time. How can engineering teams innovate and optimize their processes?

We previously talked about license tracking and how crucial it is for compliance (see here). When new licenses are purchased or renewals negotiated, it is incumbent on the manager to have good historical and forecast data. If the manager is new, they may have no data, may not have access to the previous negotiation history of contractual entitlements.

Without contractual documents, discount agreements, PO’s, payment schedules, geographic entitlements can all sit-in different IT document systems making it difficult to build a complete picture, or worse, be locked/lost when a manager leaves the company.

Therefore, you must centralize and share all Vendor and usage data, but with ability to set access permissions. With this, a new manage can pick up where the old manager left off.

Brien talks about who has ownership of the software running on networked devices (See more about solutions by job function).

He also talks about the importance of innovation. We have recently had many discussions at TeamEDA about the need for innovation and that companies must adapt and think about the best ways to innovate to survive and flourish in this challenging time. How can engineering teams innovate and optimize their processes? See more.

License asset and usage monitoring also make employees more productive and we have seen that with companies we have worked with.

Overall, Brien has many tips and great overview. Make sure to check it out!

Can You Improve Planning with Better Engineering License Management?

Companies use progressively more engineering software for their work. Does your company uses multiple products with overlapping features? As we have talked in our blog before, look at all the various engineering software assets your team is using. An engineering license management tool helps companies with better future planning. It is crucial for engineering teams to understand the actual engineering software and feature usage.

Knowing more about how engineering teams are using expensive software allows companies to:

  • Actionable data for better, data-driven decisions
    • Better budget planning
    • Better return on software investment (ROI)
    • Increased productivity and efficiency and keeping teams on the right track
  • Compliance management
  • Entitlement management
  • Collecting software asset information:
    • Who uses and is responsible?
    • How are FlexLM licenses and engineering software used?
    • Associated costs
    • Software license terms, conditions, renewals
  • Gain intelligence through:
    • Analyzing trends based on combined historic usage
    • Usage tracking as your team’s needs and usage change.
    • Right license types
    • Reducing duplicate subscriptions. Avoid multiple departments registering separately; or if an employee forgot to cancel a previous subscription. It can also be helpful to break expenses down by team, branch or department and automatically generate charge-back reports.
    • Having a clear and up-to-date inventory is crucial.

Engineering License Management for Atlassian

Looking for a license optimization tool for growth and monitoring Atlassian license servers? Looking to control access to high-cost, advanced features licenses offered by one of the Atlassian license servers?

Atlassian Corporation Plc develops products for software developers, project managers and other software development teams.

Tracking usage across the organization (location, team, etc.) is critical for optimizing license selection and expenditures. Optimize Atlassian licenses that your team uses by taking a look at patterns of historical usage:

  • Groups and Projects
  • License Denials
  • License Efficiency
  • License Harvesting
  • License Pool – Total number of Atlassian licenses and Users
  • Real-Time / Actual usage
  • Checkout times – Times and frequency
Product Suites
  • Fisheye/Crucible
  • Bamboo
  • Bitbucket
  • Crowd
Alerts

Set up alerts to stay informed about the status of Atlassian licenses (See here).

Generate Reports

We have a full suite of reports available (more here).

Our reports can also help you to look at license usage statistics according to organizational units.

Effectively optimize your Atlassian licenses and ensure all Atlassian resource requirements are met.

3 Ways to Bring More Visibility to Engineering Applications

Many companies are challenged with having a better understanding of how employees are making the most of expensive company resources. Shadow IT is not a new concept (has been here before COVID) and companies have been trying to figure out ways to have more control of the software being used by teams including engineering.

License Asset and Usage Monitoring and reporting tools can help companies have a better understanding of how the teams are using known engineering applications. Tools like ours can help companies with awareness.

Here are 3 ways to gain greater visibility of engineering applications:

  1. Understand what engineering software is being used by your team. The easiest way to do this is in an Excel spreadsheet. Ask users to share what tools they need to be successful.
  2. Create a long-term plan to address the number of licenses required.
  3. Educate your teams on the need and importance of the transparency.

Are You Ready for the “Great Rehiring”?

Understand your idle license counts to hire more engineers!

We have recently noticed many companies talking about the “great rehiring“. This year, many organizations had to think about their engineering staff counts and making sure they use their engineering software to the fullest. Make sure to take a look at our Guide for Right-sizing Engineering Software.

Are you thinking about hiring more people? Make sure you understand engineering software license utilization across your team. Determining what you have for idle licenses can help you determine number of new hires you can bring in. It can also help with a greater understanding of checkouts and check ins. Ask our experts how LAMUM can help you better track utilization.

How many total licenses do you have? Imagine tracking 600 licenses. How much time does it take for you to look at all your license servers and review licenses?

Our reports help you get information you need in just a few seconds (in report or graph format). LAMUM has some of the best reporting and graphs.

It takes less than 5 minutes to add the license asset and establish the link to port@host for the license server to start collecting data.

Know what you have to increase license count with headcount. As you prepare to potentially upsize or hire in 2022, do you have a full understanding of engineering software.

As you journey onto the hiring expedition in 2022, make sure you have the information you need to make informed decisions.

Learn more about LAMUM.

Engineering License Management for Dassault Systèmes

Looking for a license optimization tool for growth and monitoring Dassault Systèmes license servers? Looking to control access to high-cost, advanced features licenses offered by one of the Dassault Systèmes license servers?

Dassault Systèmes is a world leader in 3D Design & Engineering Software, Dassault Systèmes provides PLM & 3D Modeling Software, Simulation Apps and Industry Solutions.

Tracking usage across the organization (location, team, etc.) is critical for optimizing license selection and expenditures. Optimize Dassault Systèmes licenses that your team uses by taking a look at patterns of historical usage:

  • Groups and Projects
  • License Denials
  • License Efficiency
  • License Harvesting
  • License Pool – Total number of Dassault Systèmes licenses and Users
  • Real-Time / Actual usage
  • Checkout times – Times and frequency
Product Categories
  • Enovia
  • 3Dexcite
  • Simulia
  • Delmia
  • No Magic
  • DraftSight
  • Solidworks
  • Catia
  • And more
Alerts

Set up alerts to stay informed about the status of Dassault Systèmes licenses (See here).

Generate Reports

We have a full suite of reports available (more here).

Our reports can also help you to look at license usage statistics according to organizational units.

Effectively optimize your Dassault Systèmes licenses and ensure all Dassault Systèmes resource requirements are met.