Challenge #1: automation expectation vs. reality

SaaS Management requires API access to your key business apps. This is one of the most common SaaS integration challenges teams face during implementation. For instance, imagine you’re using Zoom within your business. Great news – Zoom has a fantastic API which shares a user list along with the roles, license plan (enterprise, pro, basic) and date of last login for every user. Their API also shares activity metrics such as the number of ‘pro’ meetings each user is holding.

Zoom’s API also supports user management, allowing you to downgrade or de-provision those unused licenses via an automation setup in your new SaaS management platform. In short, this provides all the information you need to identify unused licenses and the corresponding wasted SaaS spend. If every SaaS app had an API like Zoom’s, life in the IT team would be great. In reality, we find that around 30-40% of apps have an API with user-related endpoints. Of these apps, around half of the APIs will have broad functionality for user activity metrics and user management.

To make things more complicated, some apps only offer API availability – or access to specific endpoints – if you’re on a premium plan. Additionally, availability of APIs is skewed towards the more popular apps. It’s nuanced, to say the least, but you’re likely never going to get full coverage for your SaaS inventory. This doesn’t mean you can’t get value from your SaaS management initiative, but it does mean you need to level your expectations and formulate a plan to get useful information for key apps that lack an API. Being aware of any SaaS integration challenges early helps teams set realistic expectations and avoid stalled automations.

Perhaps most importantly, you need clarity from your SaaS management vendor on the API availability and quality for your core SaaS inventory.