How Does CloudEagle.ai's Discovery Engine Work?

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Are you facing difficulty keeping track of all the SaaS applications used in your organization?

According to Tom Cipola, Senior Director and Analyst at Gartner, the rising SaaS app costs pose a major challenge for enterprises today. Issues like shelfware, shadow SaaS usage, and a 25% 3-year CAGR in SaaS spend per employee have created a critical problem.

The resource waste is real, draining your SaaS budget. But you can take control, stop the waste, and master SaaS management today. To do so, the first step is ensuring you have the necessary mechanisms in place to identify all the applications in your SaaS portfolio.

That’s where CloudEagle.ai comes in. With its comprehensive discovery engine, SaaS discovery becomes fast and easy, giving you complete visibility of your apps and spending.

Let’s take a quick walkthrough on how you can discover your SaaS apps and spend using CloudEagle.ai.

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TL;DR

• CloudEagle.ai identifies all SaaS applications, whether IT-approved or not, by integrating with SSO systems, finance platforms, APIs, browser plugins, and reading network logs collected using tools like Zscaler, etc.
• The platform detects unsanctioned apps, overlapping tools, and unauthorized purchases, sending proactive alerts. Its detailed data mapping reduces inefficiencies like SaaS sprawl.
• With over 500 API integrations, it provides precise data on app usage, user roles, permissions, and compliance, delivering an eagle-eye view of SaaS usage and spending.
• CloudEagle.ai offers detailed, real-time insights, including feature-level usage data, enabling organizations to identify underutilized features and optimize costs effectively.
• It offers detailed app usage and spend insights by department and app, simplifying SaaS budget management. Also, automated license reclamation workflows help maximize license utilization and reduce costs.

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What is CloudEagle.ai’s discovery engine?

It is the foundational feature of a SaaS management platform that gives you complete visibility and control over your SaaS portfolio, including apps, spending, users, and contracts.

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With its industry-leading 500+ integrations, CloudEagle.ai simplifies SaaS discovery by identifying all your apps and spending and organizing them in one place for easy governance. With a single-pane-of-glass view, you can easily manage your entire portfolio, rationalize apps, optimize costs, and make smarter purchasing decisions.

CloudEagle.ai uses five methods to identify and track all software apps—whether IT-approved or not. These methods include SSO integration, finance and credit card integrations, direct API integrations, browser plugins, and reading network or VPN logs.

By pulling data from all these sources, the platform makes sure no app goes unnoticed. SSO gives you login and high-level app usage info, finance provides spending details, and HRIS integration offers user data—making it simple to keep everything under control.

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Key aspects of CloudEagle.ai’s discovery engine

CloudEagle.ai is the fastest SaaS management platform, up and running in just 30 minutes, giving you quick control over your SaaS portfolio. It simplifies and streamlines management by:

1. Comprehensive spend and app discovery: With CloudEagle.ai, you can discover all the apps in your portfolio and their relevant spending data right from a single dashboard.

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Our 2023 SaaS spend report showed that software spending is the third-highest spending in an organization, next to office lease and employee salary. To effectively track your spending, having a clear picture of your SaaS spend is crucial.

And, CloudEagle.ai does exactly that for you. It provides you with a clear picture of how much each department is spending and how apps are being used. It also automatically categorizes apps by department, making it easier to optimize costs based on usage.

Explore Health Ceramic’s inspiring success story to see how they leveraged CloudEagle.ai to gain 100% SaaS visibility and spend data.

2. Real-time usage monitoring: With CloudEagle.ai, you gain detailed, actionable real-time insights into how your SaaS apps are being used. Unlike other SaaS management platforms that offer only basic usage data, it goes further by providing feature-level insights.

For example, you can track how many meetings were scheduled on Zoom and how many envelopes were sent using DocuSign.

With this data, you will know exactly how specific app features are being utilized, making it easier to identify underused or redundant features and eliminate unnecessary costs.

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CloudEagle.ai doesn’t stop at identifying underutilization; it helps you automate the process of harvesting your licenses with harvesting workflows.

Here’s how you can configure it to reclaim and harvest unused licenses, ensuring optimal usage and ROI.

3. Detailed reporting: CloudEagle.ai provides comprehensive reports across key categories, including spend visibility, budgeting, app visibility, shadow IT, spend optimization, and more.

For example, if you need reports on spending, you’ll get granular data such as total spend by individual users, departmental spend by app ownership, spending by vendor, and costs broken down by user departments.

How does the CloudEagle.ai discovery engine work?

1. SSO integrations

The platform automatically logs and tracks all apps accessed via your organization’s SSO system, identifying which apps employees use and how often.

Here’s how the process works:

• Connection to identity providers: CloudEagle.ai connects to your SSO providers, such as Okta, Azure AD, Google Workspace, and others, to automatically pull data from your user directory—no manual input is required.
• Mapping app usage to users: It tracks which apps users are logging into, creating a clear map of all apps in use and who’s using them.
• Detection Shadow IT: CloudEagle.ai makes it easy to spot unsanctioned apps within your organization. You can set up proactive alerts to catch unauthorized apps purchased with company credit cards, stopping shadow IT early. It also helps identify overlapping apps across departments, cutting down on redundant subscriptions (SaaS sprawl).

2. Integration with finance, expense management systems, and credit cards

CloudEagle.ai integrates with finance and expense management systems like Workday, Tipalti, Freshbooks, QuickBooks, Expensify, and many more to gather all your spending data. This includes detailed insights into apps purchased by employees, ensuring complete visibility into your SaaS costs.

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CloudEagle also integrates with credit cards. Unlike SSO integrations that may miss apps accessed without authentication, it captures every transaction, including those made with corporate or personal credit cards. This ensures that even apps purchased outside the official procurement process or later reimbursed are identified and effectively managed.

All your billing and transaction data is mapped to each app and vendor, and you can see it all in one easy-to-read dashboard. Additionally, it provides detailed reports to help you track historical spending and manage budgets effortlessly.

3. Direct API integration

CloudEagle.ai doesn’t just rely on system integrations; it also offers direct integrations with over 500 applications, making it one of the most comprehensive integration libraries in the market.

These direct integrations provide detailed insights into which users have access to each SaaS app and their permission levels, such as user or admin roles.

The platform also analyzes audit logs, providing a clear record of changes made within SaaS apps. This helps you monitor app usage, improve security, and ensure compliance.

The detailed insights include:

• Accurate data: With CloudEagle.ai’s direct integrations, you’ll always have up-to-date information about your SaaS apps. It pulls data straight from the app, so you get precise insights into app usage, user logins, and activity—all in real-time.
• User access management: Through direct integrations, you can also track user roles, permissions, and access levels, and track session durations and changes made within the app.

4. Browser Plugins and Integration with Security Systems

Not all apps are discovered through SSO logins or finance apps. Some may not support APIs or are off the radar, which is where browser plugins and security system integrations help.

Browser plugins are small software programs that integrate directly with web browsers (like Chrome or Firefox) and track which web apps users are accessing.

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CloudEagle.ai uses browser plugins to track app usage, even if the apps are not connected to your SSO, finance systems, or APIs. For example, when an employee opens a new browser-based app, the tool logs the activity and sends the data to the discovery platform, ensuring all apps are tracked.

However, while browser plugins offer valuable insights, they shouldn't be relied upon as the primary discovery method. They provide noisy, surface-level usage data that may not be useful for effective optimization.

CloudEagle.ai integrates easily with security and login software, giving a clearer and more accurate picture of app usage. By connecting with your existing systems, it tracks who is using which apps and when providing detailed information on app access.

This is why CloudEagle.ai combines browser plugin data with direct API integrations, providing more accurate and detailed usage data. This approach offers a clearer, more complete view of software usage, unlike tools that depend on noisy browser plugins or limited integrations, which can result in incomplete or misleading insights.

Check out this insightful video by Iffi Wallah, co-founder and CEO of Edge, who shares how the company uses CloudEagle.ai to enhance SaaS visibility.

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Conclusion: Why choose CloudEagle.ai?

With CloudEagle.ai’s comprehensive app discovery and real-time usage monitoring, you gain complete visibility into your SaaS stack.

Whether you want to prevent shadow IT, eliminate redundant subscriptions, or realize cost saving opportunities, you can opt for CloudEagle.ai.

You get more than just a SaaS usage tracking software by choosing the platform — you access a platform that integrates seamlessly with your IT systems, delivers actionable insights, and grows alongside your business.

Ready to take control of your SaaS portfolio and realize savings?

Book a demo with CloudEagle.ai today and transform your organization's SaaS management.

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