IFS Assyst vs. OpenLM for Engineering Licensing

I would suggest that in this product class, you get what you pay for. Although it is was sold as SAAS with a nearly 'plug and play' implementation, at least one full time highly trained admin is needed for ongoing support. I would advise a team implementation strategy.

Incentivized

OpenLM can simplify the reporting of complex licenses with multiple toolboxes or products on one server. It covers most of our license server types, but not all. The academic version is reasonably priced (e.g. for educational institutions) giving 90% of the features, however setting it up on-premise was more complex than our original pilot would suggest. We couldn't do without it now.

• IT Asset Management and IT Service Management in one product
• ITIL framework
• Highly customisable service catalogue and processes
• Mature mobility product

• Peak concurrent license use for any period of time, often less than expected, saves unnecessary over purchase.
• Denials of license, can quickly see where a license is not working, say, after an upgrade.
• Comparison of license utilisation (% when near the limit).
• Quick check of expiring licenses.

• Service requests, incident, problem, and change management
• Knowledge mgmt is not-existent - the product uses a WIKI for it's own knowledge base.
• Axios help desk does is not knowledgable and does not follow up on reported incidents
• Training is incomplete - no real resources available except billable by the hour.

Incentivized

• You can share a link to a dynamic report (e.g. the last 365 days). The URL is very long but it can be used with a 3rd party short URL utility and shared with users.
• Upgrading to the latest version took a long time to troubleshoot, which left a short gap in the saved data.

At this point, we are stuck with it. We can't afford a change at this point.

Incentivized

Axios assyst outperforms JIRA in every aspect, JIRA is a good job system but when it comes to complex processes and configuration management then JIRA is simply not the right system.

X-Formation, OpenIT, JTB, Sassafras either more expensive for the particular task of managing and monitoring concurrent licenses, or they had a different set of features (such as Sassafras K2/Keyserver also for remote access)

• Replacement of 3 systems with Axios assyst
• Integration with other enterprise systems

• The academic version has paid for itself handsomely, including our setup costs. The ongoing strategic information saves costs.