Manage software components

Modified on: Tue, 31 Mar, 2026 at 5:43 PM

Note: Available only for new signups after the 31 March, 2026 release. If you signed up earlier, refer to the existing ITAM documentation.

Freshservice provides a centralized repository for all software discovered across your infrastructure. By tracking software components, you can maintain visibility into your environment, manage license compliance, and identify prohibited or unmanaged software.

This article covers how to discover, manually add, and manage software components using bulk actions.

Discover software automatically

Software discovery is integrated into standard Windows and Linux discovery jobs. When you create or edit a job under Discovery Jobs > Hypervisors / *nix / Windows, you can configure the following:

Enable discovery: In the Software and Applications section, ensure Discover Software is enabled. This facilitates the autodiscovery of software on machines within your defined CIDR blocks, hostnames, or IP ranges.
Linux support: All major Linux distributions are supported, with the ability to discover software registered across various package managers.

View and manually add components

To see your full software inventory, navigate to IT Asset Management > Software > Software Models. You can use column headers to sort, advanced filters to narrow results, or the search box to find specific titles.

If you need to track software that isn't automatically discoverable, follow these steps:

Go to the Software Models page, click Add New.
Enter the Name, Software Type, and License Model.
Select a Deployment Type for better categorization:

SaaS: Cloud-hosted applications.
Mobile: Apps for smartphones or tablets.
Desktop: Software running on workstations or laptops.
Server: Applications running on server infrastructure.

Click Save.

Edit and refine software data

Go to the Software Models page and click any software name and click Edit to refine its record with additional details:

Licensing Logic: Check Track Licensed Count by Keys to base usage counts on specific license keys rather than the total number of installed instances.
Categorization: Assign a Publisher, define a Category, or add Tags for reporting.
Extensions: Add Software Model Aliases or link Software License Keys.

Perform bulk actions on software records

On the Software Models list page, you can perform bulk modifications by selecting multiple records. Once selected, you can access the following actions from the toolbar above the list or by clicking the More options (three vertical dots) icon:

Action	Description
Delete	Removes the software record and provides a detailed summary of associated data to be deleted.
Export selected items	Downloads the selected software component data into a CSV or Excel file for external reporting.
Assign Software to Suite	Groups selected components (e.g., individual Adobe apps) into a single management unit (e.g., "Adobe Creative Suite"). To learn more, see Assign software to suite later in this article.
Refresh/update Software counts	Immediately recalculates instance counts without waiting for the scheduled background task. This option is useful when you have changed the licensing or software count configuration and want to see the impact of the change immediately.
Refresh/update OS counts	Manually triggers a recount of the operating systems associated with the selected components.
Mark selected Software as Managed	Categorizes software as "Managed," including it in standard license tracking and automated count intervals.
Mark selected Software as Prohibited	Flags unauthorized software and triggers notifications if a corresponding alert is configured.
Mark selected Software as Ignored	Removes components from active lists and prevents them from appearing in future discoveries. Note: The Discovered Count field is automatically recalculated for Managed, Unmanaged, and Prohibited software at intervals defined in your Global Settings. However, Ignored software is excluded from this automatic update. To see current counts for ignored items, you must manually run the Refresh/update Software counts action.
Mark selected Software as Unmanaged	Categorizes software as "Unmanaged," identifying it in the system without applying specific license tracking logic.
Set Custom Field Value	Assigns a value to a specific custom field for all selected Software Models.

Assign software to suite

Use the Assign Software to Suite action to organize related software components into managed sets. For instance, you can group various Adobe products into a single "Adobe Software Suite" for streamlined tracking.

To set up a suite, you can either designate an existing software component as the suite header or create a new one (e.g., "Adobe Creative Cloud") using the Add new button. Once the suite header exists, select the individual components from the list, click Assign Software to Suite, and finalize the assignment.