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Get started with SaaS

Learn how to get started with Snow SaaS Management by adding your discovery sources. Discovery of your SaaS estate is a requirement for visibility and optimization. To learn more about discovery, see SaaS discovery.

Prerequisites​

To use SaaS, you must be entitled to Snow SaaS Management with the SKU SAAS-H. You can see your entitlements in Snow Atlas settings, in Licenses and usage. If it is not listed in Your licenses, contact your Flexera representative for a trial. For more information, see Licenses and usage.

A user account is required to access the Snow Atlas platform. Learn more about users and roles in Snow Atlas settings and Get started.

Procedure​

Add discovery sources to enable collection of data that populates the SaaS pages with information about your SaaS estate. Collection of user activity populates the usage metrics.

  1. Add SaaS connectors to collect data from your SaaS vendors.

    This can include connections to SaaS vendor portals, Microsoft Entra ID, and SSO providers. Connectors can collect information about subscriptions, users, and user activity. For more information, see SaaS connectors and Manage SaaS connectors.

    note

    If you have SaaS connectors previously configured in Snow Integration Manager, they cannot be used for Snow SaaS Management.

  2. Add Flexera's browser extension to collect SaaS application usage in web browsers across your IT estate.

    The browser extension is a powerful tool to discover SaaS application usage, both known and unknown. This feature requires local installations in your environment. Flexera offers both a browser extension for SaaS and agent-based browser extensions. For more information, see Browser extension and Agent-based browser extensions.

  3. Collect user activity for applications installed on devices to be able to optimize Microsoft 365 and Adobe Creative Cloud subscriptions.

    This feature requires that you have access to SAM Core, which includes local installations in your environment. For more information, see Device application usage.

  4. Set a global Activity threshold to personalize the indicators and insights provided to you in SaaS.

    The activity threshold allows you to customize how SaaS defines user activity. By default, users are marked inactive after 30 days with no recorded activity. The activity threshold setting represents the number of days that must pass with no recorded activity before an active user is considered inactive. For more information, see General SaaS settings.

    note

    You can set a global activity threshold for your entire SaaS system and for individual subscriptions that require their own threshold setting. If you set a threshold for an individual subscription, it overrides the global value set for your SaaS system. For more information on managing individual subscriptions, see Manage SaaS subscriptions.

As you complete these steps, the SaaS pages will become populated with consolidated data, creating visibility of your SaaS estate. You can now move on to cost optimization and application governance. For more information, see Optimize SaaS costs and Govern SaaS applications.