FlexNet Manager Suite

"solid; lots of integrations"

Comments: It definitely saves us money and time. We use it in a limited capacity but it still helps. Most importantly it helps ensure that software audits are a breeze! We know we're in compliance and can prove it at any time. Love it!

Pros: It's amazing just how much this tool can interface with. So many connectors to pull in data from various sources. Automated jobs handle all of this with little customization necessary. If you have a custom data source it supports that too! Worst case, give this thing a CSV, map it, and it'll gobble it up. Data mapping tool works well and has been reliable. Numbers it calculates have always been accurate.

Cons: Tools a bit pricey. Web ui can be a bit sluggish at times. Not a huge fan of the fork between on-prem and SaaS solutions, but that's becoming typical. SaaS features are outpacing on-prem.

"FNMS is a pivotal tool for successful management of licensing contractual and financial risk."

Pros: - Extremely accurate inventory data using the included Inventory Agent,
- Excellent public cloud recognition and application of corresponding product use rights,
- Integrates with an extensive range of third party software (inventory sources, CMDB technologies, publisher license management tools, etc),
- Excellent support from Flexera including adding new applications to the recognition library upon request,
- Great new BI functionality with customisable dash boards and visualisations,
- Enables significant cost avoidance and cost minimisation through reclamation of unused software and purchasing based on accurate software deployment and usage data,
- Provides recommendations on changes to use rights according to software publisher licensing changes which you can accept or reject based on your specific contract terms/rights,
- Feeds in to security activities by provides End of Support and End of Life dates for a wide variety of applications to help with planning of application upgrades and patching, and configurable application black and white lists to easily report on unauthorised software installations,
- Best results require SAM integration with business processes including Change Management, SecOps, ITOps, Project Planning, and Procurement in order to best manage financial and contractual risk. The information the platform provides makes this integration key to a variety of business objectives in relation to commercial risk and budget control and predictability.

Cons: It can take some time to get familiar with the extensive features and capabilities. There is a range of powerful features which customers may not be aware of which can deliver significant benefits to the business. Report customisations can be complex but are useful when done right, and the additional Cognos/BI platform provides additional and powerful dash boards and analytics.

"Products are good but Flexera known for worst customer service"

Comments: I have not seen any technical customer service which is more worst than Flexera For high priority tickets to they don't respond 15 days.

Pros: Nice and easy to use

Cons: Worst customer service

"The REAL way to SAVE on Software."

Comments: We have been using the FlexNet Manager Suite for the past 4 years in a number of customers and situations. We have seen the product evolve from a desktop tool into an Enterprise Software Management solution cover a vast number of Server based software titles and complex measurements. We have experienced other so called SAM tools and they are still lack the overall flexibility and technology integration which is required in a real SAM practice. FNMS does not do everything, but it fits in well with most software vendor discovery tools and fills the gap of the major software vendors today and covers approximately 80-90% of the spend in most companies. This one fact makes it a must for any organization who is serious about implementing a SAM Practice and providing real and immediate savings to management.

Pros: Completness - many Adaptors to many common discovery tools making it easy to implement.
Flexible - Software can be managed, modelled and measured across all variations of metrics
Openness - the application allows open access to tables for complex reporting and dashboards where required.

Cons: there needs to be some consistency applied across all publishers. it is quite clear is some parts of the product that certain publishers like Oracle and Microsoft operate different. this is especially difficult in license scoping of Oracle. this could be improved.

"A tool that meets all needs both in Licence Financial and Compliance management"

Pros: Flexera has the capability of providing an end-to-end solution for IT supplier contracts from management of Budget, payments (licences and support & maintenance), entitlements, deployment position and compliance. As a whole of IT solution, I don't believe there is any other tool on the market that approaches its capability

Cons: Further development is required around IT financial management, e.g., Flexera doesn't understand a company's financial year. Also, it needs its own (independent) licence SKU database to allow for licence SKU lookup and modelling. Further flexibility in the user interface to allow for non-essential fields to be turned off (not displayed). It needs batch reporting capability of errors reported online, e.g., this licence isn't covered by support and maintenance. Enhancement in the reporting interface to allow for further joining of tables, e.g., reporting on Responsibility assignment or Third-Party vendor assignment. And it needs a discovery agent for when new non-windows servers are created that are missing Flexera agents.