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Optimize user costs

Learn how to optimize your SaaS user costs in SaaS.

SaaS user discovery is about finding the users in your SaaS estate, which subscriptions they are assigned to, and their activity in SaaS applications. User cost optimization is about right-sizing your SaaS subscriptions on user level.

Prerequisites​

Information in SaaS is based on discovery, data consolidation, and information that you add. To be able to optimize your SaaS user costs, you must fulfill some prerequisites:

  • Collect information about your SaaS estate through discovery sources. For more information, see Get started with SaaS and SaaS discovery.

  • Collect user account information through either the Microsoft Entra ID or Microsoft 365 connector. For more information, see SaaS connectors.

  • Collect user activity for SaaS applications; it is crucial for understanding your SaaS usage. Microsoft 365 and Adobe Creative Cloud also require activity collection from devices for the subscriptions to be optimized. For more information, see ​User activity​​.

  • Add billing information your SaaS subscriptions. Without cost, quantity, and duration, optimization metrics cannot be generated. For more information, see Edit subscriptions.

Find the subscription costs of a single user​

Find the subscription costs of a single user to find optimization opportunities where the user is inactive and may not need their subscription.

  1. Go to Users.

  2. In the table, search for the user in Name.

  3. In the column Monthly cost, view the monthly cost for all of the user's subscriptions.

  4. Select the user, and on the Subscriptions tab, view the breakdown of the monthly cost per subscription for the user.

  5. In the column Last active, find optimization opportunities where the user is inactive.

  6. On the Applications tab, view detailed activity status for each application.

  7. If applicable, cancel subscriptions that the user does not need.

Repeat this procedure for all relevant users.

Find the potential savings of a single user​

Find the potential savings of a single user to find optimization opportunities where the user is inactive and may not need their subscription.

  1. Go to Users.

  2. In the table, search for the user in Name.

  3. In the column Monthly potential savings, view the potential savings for all of the user's subscriptions.

  4. Select the user, and on the Subscriptions tab, view the breakdown of the potential savings per subscription for the user.

  5. In the column Last active, find optimization opportunities where the user is inactive.

  6. On the Applications tab, view detailed activity status for each application.

  7. If applicable, cancel subscriptions that the user does not need.

Repeat this procedure for all relevant users.

Find users without any subscriptions​

Find user without any subscriptions, so that you can assign subscriptions to them for applications that they use. Service accounts, or similar, not representing a person in your SaaS estate usually do not have subscriptions assigned to them.

  1. Go to Users.

  2. In the table, sort or filter the Subscriptions column for all users that have zero subscriptions assigned to them.

  3. Select a user, then the Applications tab, to find if they have activity in any applications.

  4. If they have activity, assign subscriptions to them that entitles them to respective applications.

Repeat this procedure for all users representing a person in your SaaS estate who does not have a subscription.

Find users with disabled accounts in Microsoft Entra ID​

Find users with disabled accounts in Microsoft Entra ID, so that you can cancel or reassign their subscriptions.

  1. Go to Applications.

  2. Select a Microsoft application.

  3. On the Users tab, in the table, filter the Account column on Disabled.

    The filtering shows users that have their accounts disabled in Microsoft Entra ID.

  4. The Subscriptions column shows if these users still have subscriptions assigned to them.

  5. In the vendor portal, cancel or reassign their subscriptions to users with enabled accounts.

Repeat this procedure for all users with disabled accounts.

tip

You can also view insights for users with disabled Microsoft Entra ID accounts that are still assigned a paid subscription. Select a Microsoft subscription, and on the Insights tab, view the insights.