How to improve success rate of Software Asset Management (SAM) jobs

Product Success Playbook

A step-by-step guide to analyze and remediate SAM job failures

Table of Contents

Summary

Goal of this Playbook

Audience

Problem Overview

Executive Summary

How this playbook can help you achieve business goals

How this playbook is structured

Problem Analysis

Upstream Causes

Downstream Consequences

Impact on Your Business

Engagement Questions

Remediation Plays

Summary

Play 1: Review your data

Play 2: Analyze your CI records

Play 3: Fix Play

Data Governance

Summary

Goal of this Playbook

This playbook helps to identify and fix failed SAM jobs.

Details about this playbook

Author

Bibu Elias Punnachalil

Reviewer

Emir Eminovic

Date

11/14/2023

Addresses HSD #

HSD0013813

Applicable ServiceNow Releases

All Releases

Prerequisites

Official ServiceNow trainings: ITSM SAM Foundation / SAM Professional / SAM Enterprise

Time Required

Approximately 2 to 16 hours (depending on your environment)

Audience

Software Asset Manager Configuration Manager or Configuration Management team ServiceNow Administrator or SAM Administrator

Problem Overview

SAM scheduled jobs are used for,

Discovery Model Normalization Identify Restricted Installs Identify New Reclamation Candidates Software Usage Import Update Existing Reclamation Candidates Software Asset Management Content Service Upload/Download In case of job failure, these functionalities can be adversely impacted.

Executive Summary

How this playbook can help you achieve business goals

This playbook can help to reduce the SAM job failures which in turn enhances the overall efficiency, compliance, and cost-effectiveness of software assets and the software asset management process.

How this playbook is structured

This playbook contains a section to identify the SAM jobs failing in your environment. The next two plays focus on analyzing and remediating these failed jobs. Some best practices to prevent these issues from reoccurring are available in the Data Governance section.

Problem Analysis

Upstream Causes

Incorrect integration configuration (eg usage imports , entitlements imports) Access issues Configuration issues in source application

Downstream Consequences

Data Consequence

Obsolete/Incomplete SAM data can result in inaccurate license calculations. Operation Consequence

Operational teams will have to do additional validations. Lack of trust in SAM process.

Impact on Your Business

Successful run of SAM jobs can help organizations improve and maintain things such as the following:

Lower MTTR Accurate software allocation/installation helps in quicker resolution of end user incidents Increase Operational Visibility Software entitlements License allocations Audit/Compliance System Integrity Data Governance Process Gaps Service Level Awareness Warranty/AMC Model Management Process Automation Patch/Security updates Better User Experience Quicker software allocations

Engagement Questions:

Consider the answers to these questions:

Is your production support team enabled to support SAM functions? Are your SAM scheduled jobs being monitored?

Remediation Plays

Summary

The table below lists and summarizes each of the remediation plays in the playbook. Details are included later.

Play Name

Review your data

What this play is about

In this play you will get the list of jobs which failed in last 90 days

Required tasks

List the SAM job results by applying the appropriate filter

Analyze Play

What this play is about

This play helps you to analyze and find the causing error

Required tasks

Follow the steps provided in play

Fix Play

What this play is about

This play helps you to fix some of the known job failures

Required tasks

Find the error in the table and follow the instructions in the associated support article

Data Governance

What this play is about

This play helps preventing future job failures

Required tasks

Periodically, check your job failures and perform corrective actions

Play 1 - Review your data

What this play is about

In this play we will find any SAM jobs which failed in last 90 days.

Required tasks

Navigate to Software Asset Job Results (alm_samp_job_log) table and apply the following filters:

Status is “Failed”

Created on “Last 90 days”

Review the results

If there are no results, you have no failures and this playbook does not apply to you.

Play 2 - Analyze your CI records

What this Play is about

This play helps to analyze the error messages for job failures.

Required tasks

Add the column “Error message” in the list view Add an additional filter condition for “Error Message” is not empty

Analyze the data in error message column to find the cause of failure Additionally investigate the errors and warnings present in syslog

Play 3 - Fix Play

What this Play is about

This play helps to fix some of the known failures,

Required tasks

Use the below table to lookup up the appropriate support & community articles: Error

Support link

SAM - Import User Subscriptions" jobs failing with error: Could not retrieve a new access token with the refresh token

https://support.servicenow.com/kb?id=kb_article_view&sysparm_article=KB0995004

SAM - Import User Subscriptions' job failing with error: No valid bindings were found for organization and technical account combination

https://support.servicenow.com/kb?id=kb_article_view&sysparm_article=KB1360341

Office365 Cloud Subscription issue: SAM - Import user subscriptions job failing

https://support.servicenow.com/kb?id=kb_article_view&sysparm_article=KB0782179

SAM - Collect Office 365 Usage jobs failing

https://www.servicenow.com/community/sam-forum/sam-collect-office-365-usage-jobs-failing/m-p/2642833

O365 Integration fails with GET error

https://www.servicenow.com/community/sam-forum/o365-integration-fails-with-get-error/m-p/2611901

Direct Integration Profile - Job Failing with "You must add integration profile as an input"

https://www.servicenow.com/community/sam-forum/direct-integration-profile-job-failing-with-quot-you-must-add/m-p/2677313

Error in SAM - Import user subscription job

https://www.servicenow.com/community/developer-forum/error-in-sam-import-user-subscription-job/td-p/2590533

Software license reconciliation job is failing in Tokyo

https://www.servicenow.com/community/sam-forum/software-license-reconciliation-job-is-failing-in-tokyo/m-p/2523746

Reconciliation Failing

https://www.servicenow.com/community/sam-forum/reconciliation-failing/m-p/1325723

Activity Center update unsuccessful due to job failures.

https://www.servicenow.com/community/sam-forum/activity-center-update-unsuccessful-due-to-job-failures/td-p/2628954

SAM - Collect Office 365 Usage jobs failing

https://www.servicenow.com/community/sam-forum/sam-collect-office-365-usage-jobs-failing/m-p/2642833

Data Governance

What this Play is about

This play lists the best practices and processes for removing the license entitlements for inactive users.

Required tasks

Setup a process to ensure that the job failures are regularly monitored Steps provided in Play 1 can be used to detect the job failures

Congratulations

You have completed this Product Success Playbook .