Integrate ServiceNow with Desktop Central for up-to-date inventory information

Many companies around the world believe IT asset management can be managed by hand, using spreadsheets. Often, it's only after an audit that these companies realize their manually-maintained spreadsheets are outdated due to negligence. They may have to pay a huge software bill for licences they aren't even using. Image courtesy- www.streamvms.com

Thankfully, the solution is simple: Keep track of what software is installed and optimize the number of software licenses automatically, using software tailor-made for this purpose. That way, administrators stay on top of that information at all times to avoid unwanted audit surprises.

To make this task easier, we're integrating Desktop Central with ServiceNow. ServiceNow supports IT asset management and is one of the most popular help desk tools in the world. Unfortunately, though, it doesn't provide all the information you need to manage assets.

Desktop Central supports the integration of asset data into ServiceNow's configuration management database (CMDB). The CMDB provides information to help you understand your organization's entire IT environment and manage all IT assets.  Desktop Central also adds fundamental information to the CMDB regarding IT hardware and software assets by periodically scanning the systems in your network. 

Though ServiceNow also provides the same data, it's not always reliable and complete since it's not updated regularly. Desktop Central uses the agent-server model, which helps it update the information immediately after each scan, ensuring consistent accuracy. On top of that, Desktop Central also provides additional information regarding software, printers configured in managed computers, mapped logical disks, and other outlying asset data that ServiceNow can miss.

You can see the information modified by Desktop Central in the following ServiceNow screenshots.Computer hardware information:Computer software information:Network adapter information:

The last thing any company wants is a surprise at audit time. Stay on top of your employees' software and hardware information to avoid audit disasters. 

Stay tuned for more awesome integrated features for ServiceNow and Desktop Central!