SaaS Catalog

Overview

SaaS catalog provides information on SaaS applications like description, product category, SSO, and hosting information.

SaaS Catalog enables LeanIX customers to use standardized SaaS applications and get more information about them. SaaS Catalog has a dedicated team and an established process to ensure continuous updates.

Please note: LeanIX does not recommend modeling IaaS and PaaS as Application Fact Sheets and so, these components would not be available in the SaaS Catalog.

Key Features

SaaS Catalog offers a comprehensive list of attributes for your SaaS Applications and their related IT Components

Name: name of the SaaS application
Description: of product from its website
Product Category: to categorize and indicate the type of the product
Hosting Type: where the product is hosted
Hosting Description: information on hosting and hosting provider, if applicable, for the SaaS application
SSO Status: whether the product is supported via Single Sign-on
SSO Available Providers: list of all Single Sign-On providers supported by the application

SaaS Catalog Configuration

By linking to the SaaS Catalog, you can get a description, hosting, and Single Sign-on information about the Application from the Catalog, without the worry of maintaining and updating that information.

Go to the Administration area.
Click on Reference Catalogs on the left pane.
Select the fields you would like to Sync (Description, Product Category, Hosting Type and description, SSO Status & Available Providers) from the SaaS Catalog into your Fact Sheet.
Select the relations (IT Component and Providers) to add to the Application Fact Sheets.
Click Save.

Modelling Fact Sheets for SaaS Catalog

When configuring the SaaS Catalog, including the Name data field for synchronization prevents linking multiple Fact Sheets to the same entry. This is necessary to prevent duplicates and display name conflicts in workspaces.

However, there are scenarios where linking multiple Fact Sheets to the same Catalog entry is required. For example, when the same SaaS Application is used by different organizations for distinct Business Capabilities or in different environments for varied purposes. Users often need to model multiple instances of the same Application to bring transparency by incorporating all these applications from various environments.

To address this, if you exclude the synchronization of the Name field in the SaaS Catalog, you can link multiple Fact Sheets to the same catalog item.

If you prefer to synchronize the Name field and still want to link multiple Fact Sheets, a workaround involves creating an abstract parent entry and linking it to the Catalog. Then, model all instances of the same Application as child Fact Sheets under this parent entry.

Link into SaaS Catalog

There are several ways to link to SaaS Catalog - from Inventory, from an Application Fact Sheet, while creating a new Application Fact Sheet - as detailed below.

Once this linking is successful for a given Application Fact Sheet, all updates on the Fact Sheet are audited in the "Last Update" Section of the Fact Sheet. The Status update is listed against the user who performed the linking action. As a consequence of the linking, all updates on the Application Fact Sheet are made by the System User "reference-data"

1. Link to SaaS Catalog via Bulk Linking

Bulk Linking for SaaS Catalog aims to help you become more efficient in automatically updating the life cycle and the end-of-support information for your Applications. Bulk Linking can help you achieve that by allowing you to do rapid actions on the SaaS Catalog page for all your Applications that are listed in your Inventory. Some of the key features of Bulk Linking are:

Linking to SaaS Catalog: quickly link your Fact Sheet to the Catalog in one place

Mark as Ignored: ignore linkage for desired Fact Sheet, depends on your needs

Bulk Linking provides intelligent recommendations for best-matching references for your SaaS Application Fact Sheets that are not linked yet to the SaaS Catalog.

Open “SaaS Catalog” from the Inventory page
You will see a different Application Fact Sheets organized into tabs, by their respective Catalog Status
Counts of Applications in each tab are visible next to the tab heading

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Information
Any facet filters applied in Inventory will be applied to the Batch linking page

Unlinked Fact Sheets Tab

In the Unlinked Fact Sheets tab you can get:

All Application Fact Sheets, as filtered from Inventory, where Catalog Status is unlinked
A quick overview of major details of the customer Fact Sheet and corresponding recommendations provided, on expanding each row
You can click on the Search bar to see alternate recommendations/search for a new query word
You can perform certain actions directly from the Recommendations tab, like:
- Link to Recommended Fact Sheet or alternate selected Fact Sheet
- Preview selected Fact Sheet
- Ignore the selected Fact Sheet

Ignored Fact Sheets Tab

In the Ignored Fact Sheets tab you can see all Application Fact Sheets, as filtered from Inventory, where Catalog Status is Ignored. You can also see a quick overview of the Fact Sheet where it is marked Ignored. With this, you have the option to search recommendations and link/preview a selected Fact Sheet.

When to "Ignore"?

You can use the Ignore feature when:

You want to break the SaaS Catalog linking. "Ignore" is equivalent to breaking the SaaS Catalog link.
Fact Sheets can be marked as ignored if it is proprietary products that you do NOT expect the Catalog to have information about the product.
You want to overwrite the information.

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Warning
Continuous updates from SaaS Catalog will not flow through to your Fact Sheet, once ignored.

Linked Fact Sheets Tab

In the Linked Fact Sheets tab, you can see all Application Fact Sheets, as filtered from Inventory, where Catalog Status is Linked. You also see a quick overview of the Fact Sheet where it is linked and the corresponding Component on the Catalog.

You can perform certain actions directly from Linked Fact Sheets Tab, including:

Search recommendations and Change link to alternate selected Fact Sheet
Preview selected Fact Sheet
Ignore selected Fact Sheet

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Information
Refresh button (or) switching tabs, after an action is performed, moves Application Fact Sheets to the right tab.

2. Link SaaS Catalog via Fact Sheet Detail Page

To start getting information from the SaaS Catalog into your Application Fact Sheet, you may also start by creating a new Fact Sheet and then link the newly created Fact Sheet into the SaaS Catalog.

Open an Application Fact Sheet on your workspace
Click on the ‘SaaS Catalog’ at the top of the right sidebar.
You are directed to the SaaS Catalog page with pre-filled information from your Fact Sheet. Choose the correct search result from the SaaS Catalog preview.
Once you find the correct SaaS Catalog Fact Sheet, click Link to Fact Sheet. Now, your Application Fact Sheet is updated with SaaS Catalog information.

3. Import from SaaS Catalog during Fact Sheet Creation

When a new Application Fact Sheet is created in the workspace, you can now link it to SaaS Catalog in the Fact Sheet creation dialog.

Go to Inventory
Create a new Fact sheet under Actions, on the right side pane
Choose "Application" Fact Sheet type and start typing the name of the SaaS Application you wish to import from the SaaS Catalog
You will now see a "Recommendations from Reference Catalog" section. Select the name from the list to view the Description, hosting, and SSO details of the entry from the SaaS Catalog
Click on "Create and Link" to import Fact Sheet from the SaaS catalog into your workspace. This newly created Fact Sheet will now have details from SaaS Catalog, as configured in the Admin > Reference Catalogs section