Data consolidation

In Flexera One SaaS Management, the discovered data is consolidated and presented in a normalized and structured way, to facilitate visibility and optimization. The update frequency of new data depends on the discovery source.

Data discovery and mapping

SaaS visibility is achieved through gathering of data from various discovery sources. For more information, see SaaS discovery. To analyze this often large amount of discovered data, it must be mapped, tied, and consolidated into meaningful data sets and information. This consolidation also facilitates optimization.

The data on applications, subscriptions, users, and user activity, gathered through the discovery sources, is mapped to vendor data on applications and subscription types in Flexera's database. The data is also connected to the billing information added to subscriptions. In this way, the data is consolidated into structured information and data sets, that is presented in Flexera One SaaS Management.

Consolidation of data records

Applications and users are consolidated from multiple discovery sources to show one consolidated record per item. Subscriptions show one record per discovery source, to create visibility of duplicate subscriptions for the same services, giving an overview of optimization opportunities.

User activity is consolidated from multiple sources and data for the latest activity in respective applications is presented in Flexera One SaaS Management. For more information, see User activity.

Update frequency

Data imported from discovery sources is consolidated and updated in indicators, insights, charts, and tables in the Flexera One SaaS Management pages when the system runs an hourly check. However, data is imported to the system at different times, and hence the pages may not show any new information every hour. Import times for discovery sources vary:

  • SaaS connectors import data at the time scheduled in respective settings, or when manual imports are run. Therefore, the data from connectors may be updated on a daily basis or up to an hour after a data import.

    User activity from connectors is collected once per day, with data from vendor APIs for the previous day. Therefore, activity data from connectors is from the previous day or earlier.

    For more information, see SaaS connectors and User activity.

  • The browser extension for SaaS sends data regularly to Flexera One SaaS Management, but at least every 12 hours. Therefore, browser extension usage data may be updated on an hourly basis, but at latest on a 13-hour basis.

    For more information, see Browser extension.

  • Agent-based browser extension data is collected when it happens and sent by the Inventory Agents at 9 AM by default, unless a custom schedule it set. The data is then sent immediately from the Inventory Agents by Inventory Beacons to Flexera One SaaS Management, unless you have it differently configured. Therefore, the latest browser extension usage data is for the previous day.

    For more information, see Agent-based browser extensions.

  • Device application usage information is collected from devices by Snow Inventory Agents and sent by Snow Extenders to Snow Atlas at 9 AM by default, unless a custom schedule is set. The Data Update Job then runs at 9 PM in SAM Core by default and takes a couple of hours. The data is imported from the SAM Core API to Flexera One SaaS Management on the next day at the following times for each cluster:

    Cluster Import time (UTC)
    AustraliaSouthEast 16:00:00
    EastUS2 11:00:00
    UKSouth 03:00:00
    WestEurope 02:00:00

    Due to this schedule, the device application usage data shown in Flexera One SaaS Management represent the day before yesterday. Setting custom schedules will further delay the import of device application usage data. For more information, see Device application usage and Data Update Job.

  • Manually entered information in applications, subscriptions, and users is updated immediately. But the effects on the relationship between users, applications and subscriptions, such as adding users to subscriptions, is updated in an hourly check by the system to show in indicators, insights, charts, and tables. To view the effect of manual updates directly, select Update data at the bottom of a page. You cannot select the button more than once every 15 minutes, so it is recommended that you complete all of your manual updates before selecting Update data or that you wait for the hourly automatic update.

    To select Update data, you require the Administrator role.