SW Licensing Program Reporting Enhancement

Project Overview

Context

The current SW Licensing Program reporting tools create frustration for customers, Authorized Software Providers (ASPs), and internal IBM teams due to their complexity, inconsistency, and lack of consolidated entitlement information.

The goal of this discovery phase is to identify key reporting enhancements to improve usability, data accessibility, and compliance tracking.

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Objective

Identify opportunities to consolidate and improve SW Licensing Program functions, ensuring consistent terminology and a user-friendly experience that helps customers understand their entitlements, transactions, and compliance status.

Problem Statement

Current SW Licensing Program reporting tools are fragmented, inconsistent, and difficult to use. Customers and internal teams spend excessive time reconciling entitlement data across multiple reports. A streamlined, consolidated reporting approach is required to enhance clarity, efficiency, and compliance tracking.

Design Process

Information Architecture Review

• Mapped out existing reporting tools to identify redundancies.
• Defined opportunities to consolidate related reports into a unified structure.

Recommendation Documentation

• Created a document and presentation deck to communicate the opportunities avalible for the reporting platform
• Short prototype clips were provided to demonstrate the functionality of reporting tables.

Key Design Principles

• Consistency: Standardized terminology across all reports.
• Efficiency: Minimized steps required to access entitlement data.
• Usability: Improved report layouts and search functionalities.

Proposed Solutions

Phase 1: Entitlement Reporting Enhancements

1. Consolidation of Reports
   • Merge related reports into a single active and future entitlement dashboard.
   • Standardize part number naming hierarchies across reports.
2. Improved Search & Navigation
   • Implement AI to enhance search and navigation experience

Phase 2: Expansion to Reseller Reporting

• Extend entitlement tracking improvements to Reseller Reports.
• Ensure resellers can easily access data.

Implementation

Discovery Phase Deliverables

• UX recommendations document outlining reporting enhancements.
• Stakeholder validation to align on Phase 1 priorities.

Expected Impact

Key Outcomes

• ‍Reduced complexity by consolidating multiple reports into a unified experience.‍
• Faster access to critical data, minimizing manual reconciliation.‍
• Enhanced compliance tracking, ensuring customers maintain correct licensing.‍
• Improved customer experience, leading to greater satisfaction and efficiency.

Key Learnings

• ‍Users need consolidated data views to avoid navigating multiple tools.
• Consistent terminology and hierarchy are critical for usability.
• Search enhancements significantly improve report accessibility.

Next Steps

• Validate proposed enhancements with stakeholder team.
• Define technical feasibility and implementation roadmap.