[How-to] Simplify License Management with Microsoft 365 and AssetSonar Integration

AssetSonar’s integration with Microsoft 365 simplifies license management by directly importing licensing data from Microsoft 365 Admin Center into AssetSonar. This includes plans, total seats, entitlements, and start/end dates, while supporting automatic suite creation for licenses tied to multiple applications. This integration reduces manual tracking, improves compliance readiness, and enhances visibility into license usage and costs.

Benefits of Microsoft 365 and AssetSonar Integration

This integration brings the following benefits to your organization: 

• Centralized License Management: Consolidates all Microsoft 365 license data, plans, and entitlements in one place.
• Proactive Cost Optimization: Identifies unused seats to reduce spending and improve license allocation.
• Compliance Made Simple: Provides audit-ready, real-time license data to ensure governance.
• Streamlined Suite Management: Automatically groups multi-app softwares into suites for easier tracking.

Now let’s see this integration in action: 

Enabling Microsoft 365 Integration

Follow this pathway to enable the integration: Settings -> Integrations -> Direct SaaS Integrations. Now click the ‘Connect’ button under the Microsoft logo. 

A new popup will open up where you’ll enter your Microsoft credentials to enable this integration. 

Here is how you can extract this information from your Microsoft 365 account: 

Before setting up the integration, please note that following permissions would be required for the integration to work:

Application Permission	Description
AuditLog.Read.All	Enables you to read the user sign-ins for your tenant
Reports.Read.All	Enables you to read the user access event details in your Microsoft account
Directory.Read.All	Enables you to read the list of users in your Microsoft account

1. Login to the Microsoft Entra ID at https://entra.microsoft.com/.

2. Once logged in, click on the Applications → App Registrations tab in the left navigation bar.

3. Click on the ‘New Registration’ button on the top left to register a new application.

4. Enter the Name and select the Supported account types and click the ‘Register’ button.

5. The application will be registered and the Application (client) ID and Directory (tenant) ID will be generated. 

6. Click ‘Certificates and secrets’ to generate the Secret key.

7. Click the ‘New Client Secret’ button and add the description and fill out the ‘Expires’ field. Then click ‘Add’.

8. You’ll get the value for Client secret Key. Copy it.

Copy and paste these credentials into the Microsoft Integration setting on AssetSonar.

Once you have successfully filled out these fields, click the ‘Add’ button to finish creating the integration. 

You’ll see that the previous ‘Connect’ button will now be changed to a dropdown. Choose the ‘Import Licenses’ option as shown below:

Importing Software Licenses

Once you have chosen the ‘Import Licenses’ option, you’ll be redirected to the software licenses listing page. Here, you’ll be able to access the Import Licenses modal from where you can view the licenses that can be imported to AssetSonar. 

Choose the licenses you want to import into AssetSonar and click ‘Next’.

Clicking the the ‘Next’ button will enable you to bring the details of every license’s entitlements and total seats from your Microsoft account. 

Now you’ll see a new popup where you can enter details for the first software licenses from your import list. If you are bringing in all software licenses from the list, you’ll have to fill out this information for every single license.

You’ll be required to add the cost, payment frequency, start date, and end date details in the form as shown below: 

Click the ‘Next’ button and repeat the same process for all other licenses that you are bringing in the system. From here you can also link the software if they are normalized to these imported licenses. However, if you link more than one application to a single license, you’ll be able to form a software suite and the suite name will be the same as the license name being imported. A software suite contains multiple software applications, usually from the same vendor.

After adding all the details to the importing licenses and linking them to the existing software, you can then see a list of software licenses you just brought in AssetSonar. Click ‘Done’ to import the licenses. Here is how that snapshot looks like:

You’ll be able to view the recently imported software licenses on the license listing page. A filter will be applied by default on ‘Source =  Microsoft’ to view these licenses.

Software Suite Actions

You can connect multiple softwares and group them together to form a software suite. For example, let’s suppose that we want to link Microsoft 365 Business Premium with multiple applications to create a software suite. We’ll go to Microsoft 365 Business Premium’s detail page. Click on the ‘Link’ icon to start creating the suite. 

A new popup will appear with a list of recommended software for you to choose from. Please note that only. normalized software will be shown on this list. Here is a snapshot: 

Click the ‘Link’ button and you’ll see a message indicating that the applications have been linked successfully. You can view the details of this suite from the ‘Suites’ tab on the software listing page. You’ll be able to view the number of components in the suite and the User Count and Install Count for each component. 

Click the ‘Associated Users’ tab to view the details of the users accessing the applications in the suite. 

Similarly, you can also view associated licenses as shown below:

Click the ‘Associated Assets’ tab to view the assets linked to this suite.