Unlock Insights for Application Owners: How to Measure & Track Software Usage
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The average organization spends anywhere from $7.9M to $224.8M on SaaS subscriptions every year.
Despite that heavy cost, the average company uses only 56% of its active SaaS licenses—the other half is either an impulse purchase that only gets used once or turns to shelfware because the target audience doesn’t know their organization has licenses available.
All told, 44% of unused subscriptions translates to somewhere between $3.476M and $98.9M wasted every single year.
You can’t fix that waste without measuring and tracking how much your end-users interact with and correctly your software and application investments.
Beyond the argument for efficiency, it’s easy to breach the licensing terms for one of the several dozen (or hundred) applications in your stack, which might expose you to legal risk and attract penalties if you don’t keep tabs on the applications in your stack.
Or, keep paying for unused licenses for years on end.
Or overlooking security vulnerabilities that might grant bad actors access to your organization’s systems.
All these can change if you are deliberate about documenting the software tools in your organization’s stack and keeping tabs on how your users interact with them.
Let’s look at how to track software usage, why it matters, and the tool stack you need to get started.
Software Usage Tracking vs. Software Metering
It’s easy to mistake one for the other since the lines between metering and usage tracking are blurry.
For one, both methods track software user engagement, monitor end-user behavior, and organize data by when it was accessed, how long it was used, and by whom; similarly, both tactics/approaches help ITSM teams optimize their organizations’ software usage by identifying and reducing SaaS waste.
But, when you zoom in, there are subtle differences in both their methods and goals.
For starters, software metering simply tracks how often an application is launched or left running, while usage tracking monitors how users interact with a software tool, the features they engage with, how they navigate UX patterns/UI elements, and the issues they run into.
It’s similar to the difference between web and product analytics: tools like Google Analytics, Plausible, Matomo, and Fathom are designed to help site managers track page visits, unique visitors, bounce rate, session duration, etc., while product analytics platforms like Whatfix Product Analytics, Heap, Amplitude, and Mixpanel capture feature usage, adoption rates, user flows (i.e., which paths do users take as they navigate through the product), retention rates, and user sentiment metrics such as churn, satisfaction, Net Promoter Score (NPS), and Customer Satisfaction Score (CSAT).
While there’s an overlap, the first (i.e., Web analytics) captures general interest and interaction with prospects, while product analytics comes into play when you’ve converted some of those prospects into users.
How to Monitor Your Organization’s Software Usage
Monitoring your organization's software usage isn't just about keeping an eye on who’s using what. It’s about understanding how your team interacts with the tools at their disposal, identifying areas for improvement, and ensuring you're getting the most out of your software investments. By tracking the right metrics, you can uncover insights that drive efficiency, boost user adoption, and ultimately, support your business goals.
1. Use product analytics to capture end-user behavior
As we explained above (i.e., under usage tracking vs. software metering), product analytics enables your ITSM team to closely observe how users interact with your internal stack, including their interactions with UX patterns and UI elements, browsing patterns, navigation behavior, and any issues they face.
First, you’ll need to integrate the product analytics platform’s tracking code or SDK into your internal applications and then define specific events to be tracked, such as logging in and accessing particular features.
Once that’s in place, product analytics tools enable you to segment users based on the various criteria it tracks, such as demographics, usage patterns, subscription plans, or user roles within the software application.
Using these data points as a benchmark, you can track each user’s journey through specific workflows, and measure user activation (i.e., whether your end-users try out the tools at all), churn (i.e., how many are still using it after x weeks of months), and retention to understand how your employees’ disposition to specific tools in your stack.
Then, using a product analytics platform, you can track custom user events like page views, clicks, form fills, process completions, etc. This allows you to see the average completion rate for your business processes, identify dropoff areas, and assess adoption rates for a product and its individual features.
2. Use a SaaS management platform
A SaaS management platform allows you to administer and optimize your organization’s SaaS applications from a single source of truth. Once your SaaS tools are connected, you can:
It grants unlimited control over and visibility into each product’s usage, costs, security, and compliance profile. Specifically, an ITSM platform tracks usage patterns for each product in your stack and informs you on how many licenses are being actively used so you can decide which ones to renew or decommission.
3. Create a process to vet and onboarding new software
How do you even decide which applications your organization needs?
If you adopt a decentralized model where any staff member can pay for Figma, Trello, or any new SaaS that catches their eye, you’ll end up with hundreds (possibly thousands) of unused licenses, costing you hundreds of thousands of dollars annually.
This is one major reason why you need to gatekeep new subscriptions intentionally.
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Given the variety in the software landscape, there’s a lot of opportunity for duplicate licenses to multiply or for employees to purchase new SaaS products when licenses for close substitutes already exist (e.g., signing up for ClickUp when everyone gets a Notion license by default)— even when you already have a solution that solves the problem you’re facing quite comfortably.
Consequently, you need well-thought-out policies for shortlisting potential software purchases, vetting them to ensure they meet your needs and are not duplicates, and then creating onboarding programs to simplify your end-users’ learning curve.
Continue reading about how to track end-user application usage here.
🚀 Digital transformation clicks with Whatfix
Whatfix streamlines the build vs. buy decision in user onboarding, offering a no-code platform that crafts personalized in-app guidance and support. It’s an ideal solution for businesses exploring efficient ways to onboard users without the heavy lifting of developing custom software. With Whatfix, create dynamic flows, pop-ups, and task lists for an engaging onboarding experience directly within your apps.
Leveraging Whatfix’s analytics, pinpoint workflow inefficiencies and user engagement blocks to optimize onboarding paths and improve user experiences. The platform’s capability to gather real-time feedback through in-app Surveys further refines your strategy, making Whatfix a compelling choice for businesses seeking a balance between customization and convenience in user onboarding.
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TechBullion — The Impact of Digital Transformation on Wealth Management and Financial Advisory Services
Digital transformation is revolutionizing wealth management and financial advisory services by integrating AI, big data, and cloud computing. Benefits include enhanced customer experience, increased efficiency, and better risk management. Challenges include cybersecurity, regulatory compliance, and integration with legacy systems. FinTech innovations like robo-advisors and mobile banking apps are driving this transformation. The future of wealth management will focus on personalized AI-driven services, ESG investing, and immersive technologies like VR and AR, despite the need to address ongoing security and compliance issues.
With constant news of data breaches, C-suite executives are acutely aware of cyber threats. Companies must enhance security while tackling challenges like mobile workforces and digital transformation. Resistance to change and technical debt often hamper these efforts. Security, seen as a barrier, can actually improve user experience and agility when integrated correctly. Identity-based access policies and adaptive authentication are crucial for secure digital operations. Effective security transforms businesses, enabling them to seize new opportunities without adding risk and emphasizing the importance of adaptable and user-friendly solutions.
🗞 Whatfix news bites
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🎙 Whatfix podcast catchup
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