Spend Overview

The Spend dashboard in BigFix Inventory provides a comprehensive view of software and hardware usage costs. It enables you to track and analyze software spend, optimize license utilization, and manage budget allocation effectively. The dashboard displays key financial metrics, such as license compliance, cost breakdowns, and trends, helping organizations make informed decisions about software investments.

Layout of the dashboard

The layout of the dashboard includes the following:

Date and timestamp: The dashboard shows the date and timestamp when the data was last updated.
Reports: Clicking on the Reports opens the existing reports dashboard. For more information, refer to the Overview: Reports.
Health Check: Clicking on the Health Check opens the health check dashboard. For more information, refer to the Overview: Health Check.
Inventory: Clicking on Inventory opens the Inventory dashboard. For more information, refer to the Inventory Dashboard.
The tiles representing various metrics and data visualizations that help you to better understand the software asset management situation, improve compliance, reduce costs, and optimize license usage.
Filter: You can narrow down displayed data using a filter to choose a software product, a publisher, a cost center or a project. For example you may want to verify expense for a given publisher or analyze spend trend in a selected cost center. To use the filter, choose its type and then enter the related value. You may use autocomplete to list possible values. Drilldown links from the widgets will be updated to include the filter value and navigate to panels showing only applicable data.

Permission required: View Contracts or Edit Contracts

Note:

The data that is displayed is calculated based on the computer group assigned to the current BigFix Inventory user.
The generic calculation for delta is: Delta = Contract Metric Quantity - Metric Measurement
The generic calculation for threshold delta is: Threshold Delta = Threshold - Metric Measurement
It is recommended to create one contract per one product so that Spend dashboard values are calculated correctly. Otherwise, spend and other values may be doubled for each product or publisher in a contract.

Spend dashboard filter


Widget Name	Software Product and Publisher filter	Project and Cost Center filter
Spend, Potential Savings, Underlicensed, Top 5 Publishers, Spend by Categories, Contracts/Renewal in 30 days, Contracts/Renewal in 90 days, Contracts/Non-compliant Products	Filter limits data to contracts with the given product or publisher.	Filter limits data to contracts having at least one active purchase with the given cost center or project.
Top 5 Spend Breakdown by Cost Centers/Projects, Spend Quarterly, Spend Trend per Type	Software Product and Publisher filter limits data to purchases of contracts with the given product or publisher.	Filter limits data to purchases with the given cost center or project.
Uncontrolled Products	Filter limit data to software instances with the given product or publisher.	Filter is not applicable to this widget (no additional filtering is applied in this case).

Spend dashboard widgets

Spend

The Spend tile shows the sum of expense for all contracts visible to the user, which is the sum of expense in all active purchases in these contracts. Clicking on the Spend tile redirects you the list of 'All Contracts' report where you can view and edit contracts data. The 'All Contracts' report is extended with Expense related information. Expense details can be provided on the Purchase level. You can also add information about what Cost Center and Project the specific expense is related to. The number is displayed as 0 if there are no expenses in the available contracts, or no available contracts.

Potential Savings

The Potential Savings tile shows the estimated cost of underutilized licenses in compliant contracts. Clicking on the Potential Savings tile redirects you to the list of the 'All Contracts' report, where each contract has a delta value of more than 0.

Underlicensed

The Underlicensed tile shows the estimated cost of missing licenses in non-compliant contracts. Clicking on the Underlicensed tile redirects you to the list of the 'All Contracts' report, where each contract has a delta value less than 0. The number is displayed in red color if the value is more than 0.

Top 5 Publishers

The Top 5 Publishers graph shows the top five publishers according to the spend value when the spend is more than 0. Clicking on a publisher name redirects you to the list of the 'All Contracts' report for that publisher.

Top 5 Spend Breakdown

The Top 5 Spend Breakdown graph shows the top five spends categorized as cost centers and projects when the spend is more than 0.

Cost Centers—The graph shows the top five spends broken down as per the cost centers set in the active purchases. Clicking on each breakdown redirects to the Purchases in Contracts report for active purchases with the selected filter.
Projects—The graph shows the top five spends broken down as per the projects set in the active purchases. Clicking on each breakdown redirects to the Purchases in Contracts report for active purchases with the selected filter.

Spend by Categories

The overall spend value per different component categories of the discovered software is shown under this tile. For more information, refer to 11.0.2 License type and software category.

Clicking on the 'Spend by Category' widget redirects to the All Contracts reports where the data is filtered by the selected category, with a new 'Software Categories' column that lists the software categories of discovered software for the given contract. The spend shown in the widget matches the sum of the expenses in this drilldown.

Spend Quarterly

The graph shows the sum of expenses for the quarters of the current year. It is assumed that the expense of a purchase was on its entitlement start date, so the graph categorizes the purchases in the current year by the quarter of their entitlement start dates. Clicking on a quarter redirects the user to the Purchases in Contracts report, which displays purchases that have an entitlement start date within that specific quarter.

Contracts

The section is further categorized as follows:

Renewal in 30 days - The tile shows the number of contracts which have an entitlement end date within the next 30 days. Clicking on the tile redirects you to the 'All Contracts' report where you can view and edit contracts data.
Renewal in 90 days - The tile shows the number of contracts which have an entitlement end date within the next 90 days. Clicking on the tile redirects you to the 'All Contracts' report where you can view and edit contracts data.
Uncontrolled Products - This tile shows the number of discovered commercial products that are not assigned to any contract. Explore the Software Classification report to review commercial products.
Clicking on the 'Uncontrolled Products' widget redirects to the Software Classification report where the filters show the currently discovered, not suppressed software instances having license type 'Proprietary Software', and without contracts for the assigned software products. A new 'Contract IDs' column shows Contract ID list for a given software instance. The number of unique products in this list matches the number on the widget.
Note: To see data in the drill down, you need permissions to view Software Classification panel.
Non-compliant Products - This tile shows the number of discovered commercial products (i.e. having license type 'Proprietary') that are not assigned to any contract. Clicking on the tile redirects you to the 'All Contracts' reports where you can access the non-compliant contracts. The number is displayed in red color if the value is more than 0.

Spend Trend per Type

The graph shows the sum of expenses for each of the last 24 months and is additionally grouped by contract types. "General" and "Hardware" types are in one category, while other types are separate categories. It is assumed that the expense of a purchase was on its entitlement start date, so the graph categorizes the purchases in the last 24 months by the month of their entitlement start dates and by the contract type. Clicking on a category redirects to the Purchases in Contracts report for the purchases with the entitlement start in the given month and with the given contract types.