Managing software licenses efficiently is crucial for controlling software spend, ensuring compliance, and maintaining operational agility across modern IT environments.
Organizations often assign licenses that go unused or remain unmonitored over time, leading to hidden costs and inefficiencies. AssetSonar’s License Audit feature helps you bridge this gap by enabling IT teams to confirm usage before renewals, reassign unused seats, and enforce license accountability across the organization.
This guide walks you through how to enable, execute, and manage License Audits in AssetSonar – from setup to response tracking.
1. Enable License Audits
To get started, go to Company Settings & Addons→ Audit Items → Software License Audit and click Enabled. Click Update to save your settings.
Once enabled, the License Audit functionality becomes available throughout the application, including within license records, the Audits module, and the alerts system.
Note: Currently, License Audits apply only to user-based licenses. Support for other license types may be added in future updates.
2. Send License Audit Request
Go to Software (Navigation Menu) → Software Licenses and open the relevant license record. Click Ellipsis (…) and then select Request License Audit to initiate an audit.
You will be displayed a modal where you can select the users who have entitlements to the license. You can also resend audit requests to users who haven’t yet responded and add custom notes with them.
2.1. Send Bulk License Audit Requests
You can also initiate license audit requests in bulk. Go to Software (Navigation Menu) → Software Licenses and open the relevant license record.
- Navigate to the Entitlements tab.
- You can use the All Entitlements dropdown to filter users by audit status—such as responded, declined, or pending—making it easier to initiate, follow up, or take further action on audit requests.
- Select one or more users.
- Click the Send Audit Request icon from the action bar.
- You will be displayed a modal with all the entitled users. Here, you may perform the following actions:
- You may select the option to resend the audit request to the users with pending audits.
- Add a note.
- Then click Request Audit.
2.2. Canceling an Audit Request
You can cancel audit requests for individual users if you no longer want to collect responses from them. Go to Software (Navigation Menu) → Software Licenses and open the relevant license record. On the top-right, click Ellipses (…) to expand the menu and click Cancel Audit Request.
A pop-up window will appear showing all users currently with the Audit Pending status.
Select the users you want to exclude from the audit and click Confirm.
Note: Canceled users will no longer appear in the audit progress or reports. Their status will return to Entitled, and no further responses will be tracked for them.
2.3. Schedule a License Audit
You can schedule audits to run at a later time. Go to Software (Navigation Menu) → Software Licenses and open the relevant license record. Click Ellipsis (…) and then select Schedule License Audit Request to schedule an audit for a future date.
In the pop-up, specify:
- When to send the audit:
- A specific date
- Or X days before the license’s renewal date
- A specific date
- Who to include:
- All users
- Or specific users
- All users
You may also choose to resend audit requests to users with pending audits or send notes with the audit requests.
Then click the Schedule Audit Request button. You will be able to see the following line below the license names for licenses for which audit requests are scheduled. Displayed in the screenshot below:
Note: Each license can only have one scheduled audit request active at a time, and once an audit request has been sent, it will follow the same process as a regular license audit request.
2.3.1. Editing a Scheduled Audit Request
Once you have scheduled an audit request and you wish to change it, you will need to follow the same process as the initial scheduling. Go to Software (Navigation Menu) → Software Licenses and open the relevant license record. Click Ellipsis (…) and then select Reschedule License Audit Request.
You will be displayed a form with the current schedule of the audit request. You may adjust it accordingly and click Re-schedule License Audit Request to update it.
3. Respond to License Audit Request
3.1. For Login Users
When the license audit request is sent to a login user, they will receive an email with a link to respond to the audit request. When you click on the link, you are directed to the License Details page, where you can click on the Respond to Audit button.
Clicking the button opens a modal where you can select a response and enter optional comments:
Click Confirm after entering the appropriate options to submit your response. Signature input may be required if your settings enforce it.
Once submitted, admins will receive an email alert indicating who responded, what their response was, and when it was submitted. This ensures prompt visibility into audit progress.
3.1.1 Access License Audits from Notifications
You can quickly access your license audit requests from the Notification (Bell) icon in the top navigation bar:
- My License Audits Due: This takes you to the License Audits tab with the My Pending Requests filter applied.
- License Audits Requested: This takes you to the License Audits tab with the Requested by Me filter applied.
Note: This option is only visible to users with permission to request or respond to license audits.
3.2. Non-Login Users
When the license audit request is sent to a non-login user, they will receive an email with a link to respond to the audit request. When you click on the link, you are directed to a page as displayed below:
Users can respond to multiple requests at once on a consolidated page and click Respond to submit the response without the need to log into the application.
4. Bulk Respond to License Audit Requests
4.1. Bulk Respond for Admin Users
Admins can respond to multiple License Audit requests from the audit response screen. On the License Details page, when the admin clicks on Respond to Audit they are displayed a Respond to Audit modal.
Admins can respond to individual requests by clicking on the arrow (rightmost) icon. This opens the response modal for an individual request. The admin may also select multiple (or all) users to verify (or deny) their audit requests.
When the user clicks Verify or Deny, they are displayed the following modal, where they may confirm the audit with their comments.
4.1. Bulk Respond for Regular Users (Login/Non-Login)
When a login or non-login user receives multiple license audit requests, they can view and respond to these in bulk by clicking on the second link in the received email. When you click on the link, you are directed to a page with all the license audit requests as displayed below:
You may respond appropriately to each of the license requests and then click Respond to submit all the responses at once.
5. Overview of License Audit Requests
You may review all the existing audits by going to More (Navigation Menu) → Audits → Software License Audit
5.1. Member View
By default, you will see the member view.
On the Member View, you may take action against individual or bulk audit requests by selecting all the relevant users, expanding the Actions dropdown menu, and selecting the relevant option.
Use filters to narrow down audits by license, status, requestee, or date, among other options.
You may also click on the Respond button to respond to an audit request and/or add a comment to it.
5.2. License View
You may review all audits for Licenses by going to More (Navigation Menu) → Audits → Software License Audit. The Member View opens by default, but you can switch to License View by clicking on the LICENSE VIEW button.
Use filters to narrow down audits by license, status, requestee, or date, among other options.
You may also take action by clicking on the View and Download icons under the Action column. The view option lets you view the detailed status of the audit requests for that license based on the individual users.
If your role has the permission to respond for other users and an audit request is pending, you will be displayed the Respond link against each user, and you will be able to enter a response by clicking on it.
5.2.1. Edit and Download License Audit Details Report
Clicking on the Download icon lets you download the License Audit Details report in PDF format.
You may view and edit the report template through the following workflow:
Go to More (Navigation Menu) → Customize → Printout Templates → Audit (Tab). There, you may see all the License Audit Templates.
You may perform the following functions.
- Design a new template by clicking the Start Designing Template button.
- Preview the existing template by clicking on the Preview link in the relevant row.
- Copy the existing template and edit it by clicking the Copy icon.
6. Signature Settings for License Audits
To enable and configure signatures for License Audits, go to Company Settings & Addons → Advanced Settings → Signature Captures and click Enabled to activate signature capture for audits.
Once you enable signatures, you will be displayed other options to select the modules for which you wish to enable the signatures. To turn on the signatures for the License Audits, select the relevant checkbox. You may also choose to check the Enforce checkbox to make it mandatory.
Additionally, you may add a custom prompt in the “Display Text” field to specify what users will see. Once you have entered all the relevant information, click Update to save your settings.
6.1. Signature Behavior for License Audits
- The signature requirement applies to both logged-in and non-login users.
- If enabled, users will be prompted to:
- Type their name
- Add a digital signature (if required)
- Admins can view or verify them as part of audit reporting.
7. Email Alerts for License Audits
AssetSonar automatically sends out email alerts to streamline the license audit process when license audits are enabled.
There are currently three types of audit-related email alerts:
- License Audit Requested: Sent to users and admins when a license audit is initiated.
- Pending License Audit
Sent to:- Entitled users: Those who have not yet responded.
- Admins: Summarizing all pending requests across licenses.
- Entitled users: Those who have not yet responded.
- License Audit Responded: Sent to admins when a user responds to the audit request.
You can view, disable, and customize these alerts by going to: More (Navigation Menu) → Alerts & Emails → Software Licenses.
You can modify the templates of the alert emails to match your organization’s communication tone.
Ready to Take Control of Your Licenses?
With AssetSonar’s License Audit feature, you can run clean, accountable, and cost-effective license operations – whether you’re preparing for renewals, consolidating unused software, or ensuring entitlements match actual usage.
Need assistance setting it up? Reach out to us at support@ezo.io — we’re happy to help.
