Step 5: Understand Your Applications
Your ‘Applications’ area is where you can take a closer look at the software that makes up your SaaS environment.
Each application can be considered in context rather than as an isolated subscription. Depending on the information available, you can look at the people using the application, associated licences, departments, ownership, costs and renewal information.
This makes it easier to answer practical questions such as:
- Who is using this application?
- Which department relies on it?
- Who owns the relationship?
- How many licences are associated with it?
- What does it cost?
- When does it renew?
Bringing these pieces of information together makes application reviews much more useful and provides a stronger foundation for deciding whether software continues to meet the organisation’s needs.
Step 6: Explore Employees, Licences, Departments and Owners
SaaS management isn’t just about applications. It is also about understanding the relationships around them. SaaSi Hub brings together several important dimensions of your software environment so you can look at your SaaS estate from different perspectives.
Employees: See the relationship between your workforce and the applications they use.
Licences: Understand licence allocation and identify opportunities to review how software is being assigned and used.
Departments: See how applications and software costs relate to different areas of the organisation.
Owners: Identify who is responsible for individual applications and subscriptions, helping create clearer accountability around software decisions.
Together, these areas provide a more complete picture of your SaaS environment and help move software management away from disconnected spreadsheets and individual records.
Step 7: Make Use of SaaSi Hub’s Insights & Tools
Once your core SaaS information is connected, you can start exploring the additional tools available within SaaSi Hub.These are designed to help you move beyond simply knowing what software you have and start actively managing it.
Renewal Calendar
Keep track of upcoming software renewals and identify subscriptions that require attention before important deadlines arrive. Early visibility gives you more time to review usage, involve stakeholders and decide whether a subscription should be renewed, adjusted or cancelled.
Cost Analytics
Understand how your SaaS spending is distributed and identify areas where further investigation may be worthwhile. Looking at costs alongside applications, departments and other SaaS information can provide much more useful context than reviewing individual invoices in isolation.
Shadow IT
Identify applications that may exist outside your organisation’s normal software management processes. Shadow IT isn’t always the result of employees deliberately bypassing IT. Often, people simply find tools that help them solve a problem. Greater visibility allows organisations to understand what is being used and decide how it should be managed.
Reports
Use reporting to turn your SaaS data into information that can be shared, reviewed and acted upon across the organisation. Reports can also help different teams focus on the information most relevant to their responsibilities.
Step 8: Configure Your SaaS Environment
As you become more familiar with SaaSi Hub, take some time to review the options available under ‘Configuration‘.
This area allows you to control how information enters and is managed within the platform.
You can manage:
- HRIS Integrations: Connect and manage your HR system.
- Auto Integrations: Connect supported SaaS applications and services.
- Manual Subscriptions: Add software that isn’t connected through an automatic integration.
- Subscription Pricing Manage pricing information and make adjustments where required.
- Alerts & Notifications: Configure the notifications you want SaaSi Hub to surface.
You don’t need to configure every option immediately. Start with the areas relevant to your organisation and refine your setup as you become more familiar with the platform.
Step 9: Keep Your SaaS Information Up to Date
Getting started isn’t a one-time process. Your organisation will continue to change. Employees will join and leave, departments will evolve, applications will be introduced or retired, licence requirements will change and subscriptions will reach renewal.
That’s why SaaS management works best as an ongoing process rather than a one-off software audit. Keep your integrations connected, review important changes and use the information available in SaaSi Hub to maintain an up-to-date understanding of your software environment.
The more accurate and complete your information becomes, the more useful it is when making decisions about cost, access, licences, renewals and software strategy.
What Should I Do First?
If you’re completely new to SaaSi Hub, don’t worry about setting everything up at once.
We recommend starting with these four steps:
1. Connect your HR system and key SaaS applications: This brings your employee and organisational information into SaaSi Hub. Start with the software your organisation relies on most. If you’ve missed it, seeing the first part to our Getting Started guide here to learn all about these steps.
2. Review your Dashboard: Get an overview of your SaaS environment and identify areas worth investigating.
4. Start exploring: Look at Applications, Licences, Departments and Owners before moving into Cost Analytics, the Renewal Calendar, Shadow IT and Reports.
SaaSi Hub is designed to give organisations a clearer view of the software they use and the relationships between applications, employees, licences, departments, owners, costs and renewals. Start with the information you already have, connect your key systems, and build from there. As your SaaS environment becomes more connected, SaaSi Hub can help you turn that information into practical insight and more informed software decisions.
Your SaaS environment is already there. SaaSi Hub helps you see it, manage it and provide insights to help you control and save.
Once you’ve completed these steps, you’ll have a much clearer understanding of how SaaSi Hub fits into your organisation’s SaaS management process.