Feeding SaaS deployment data to FNMS

[Baz967]

Hi Everyone,

Is there any possible method to upload SaaS deployment data to FNMS manually via Business Adapters or One-off upload as an inventory data by tagging to either devices or to users.

[mfranz]

Hi,

The answer depends on what kind of data you have exactly. SaaS usually implies user-related data. If you can match users to their devices, you could interpret the data either as direct device based evidence or access-type evidence. From the evidence data you could link to existing applications or create your own ones. This approach can be accomplished with the One-Off Upload feature or you could write your own Inventory Adapter. The Adapter might be interesting if you plan to update regularly.

Because this would be just a workaround with some assumptions, you may also just go with a "lighter" approach. We have repeatedly used such data to allocate user accounts directly to "User" and "Named user" type licenses. If you have device access data, it also works with "Device" and "Node locked". The elegance of this approach is less clutter in form of evidences and evidence-application-relations and potential new application. The actual source data could still be presented in a custom report, in case someone would like to double-check the results. This can all be done with a Business Adapter and/or some custom SQL.

Best regards,

Markward

[Baz967]

Hi @mfranz ,
Thank you for your reply.

Could you please specify the tables that should be targeted to allocate or store software deployment data, particularly for self-declaration purposes? In our scenario, we aim to upload utilization data of SaaS products extracted from SaaS portal, which includes devices and users associated with specific SaaS products.

[mfranz]

If you plan to go for a "simple" license allocation, the SoftwareLicenseAllocation_MT table is what you should look at. The Business Adapter Studio (BAS) handles allocations nicely, it is a proper alternative to manual SQL in most cases.

If you want to depict the trinity of User - Device - Evidence, you can have a look at existing inventory adapters, like Microsoft 365. It puts the data into ImportedRemoteUserToApplicationAccess_MT, but keep in mind that this is in the context of a Compliance Connection, working with additional data tables.

[Baz967]

Hi @mfranz ,
Thank you for your response.

I have checked the SoftwareLicenseAllocation_MT  and ImportedRemoteUserToApplicationAccess_MT tables and understood that SoftwareLicenseAllocation table has links of allocating license to end user.

The ImportedRemoteUserToApplicationAccess table seems similar to our requirement. It stores applications that users have access to. However, we couldn't identify a column similar to publisher, application name in this table to upload the data. Could you please help us with exact tables to target for uploading extract of SaaS data to upload as software installation data in to FNMS.

Also, in the BAS screenshot shared above, it is license allocation. Our requirement is to find out the way to bulk upload of SaaS data used by users which will be assumed as just application data used by users in our scenario.

[mfranz]

As the Imported prefix shows, this is not the compliance level of data, but on a raw data level. That means, you'll have to refer to some kind of evidence. The table does offer ExternalFileID and ExternalInstallerEvidenceID, linking to:

• ImportedFileEvidence_MT
• ImportedInstallerEvidence_MT

There's also ExternalUserID linking to ImportedUser_MT.

You'll need to implement a whole inventory adapter, which needs to take care of multiple tables in specific order. I advise you to have a closer look at the existing Microsoft 365 inventory reader, because it also handles SaaS data and is quite similar to your requirements.

This is not a trivial task, maybe consider hiring someone experienced with inventory adapter creation, or perhaps, consider the Allocation shortcut.