{"id":70115,"date":"2024-06-18T17:49:12","date_gmt":"2024-06-18T17:49:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/whatfix.com\/blog\/?p=70115"},"modified":"2025-10-03T12:07:20","modified_gmt":"2025-10-03T12:07:20","slug":"track-software-usage","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/whatfix.com\/blog\/track-software-usage\/","title":{"rendered":"How to Track, Measure, and Analyze Software Usage"},"content":{"rendered":"

The average organization spends anywhere from $7.9M (firms with <500 employees) to as high as $224.8M<\/a> on SaaS subscriptions annually (mostly enterprises with >10k employees).<\/p>\n

Despite that heavy cost, the average company uses just 56% of their active SaaS licenses. The other half is either an impulse purchase that gets used once only, or turns to shelfware because the target audience doesn\u2019t know their organization has licenses available. All told, that 44% of unused subscriptions translates to somewhere between $3.476M to $98.9M wasted. Every single year.<\/p>\n

You can\u2019t fix that waste without measuring and tracking\u2014in detail\u2014how much your end-users interact with and correctly your software and application investments.<\/p>\n

Beyond license usage, application owners and IT managers must also track end-user behavior to analyze how employees use enterprise software and complete the tasks they’re responsible for. Creating frictionless workflows decreases time-to-completion rates, driving business outcomes.<\/p>\n

In this article, we explore how application owners can track and measure software usage to drive ROI from their enterprise software and digital transformation<\/a> investments.<\/p>\n

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What Is Application Usage Tracking?<\/h2>\n

Application usage tracking captures how employees interact with enterprise software. By measuring time-to-completion for core tasks, identifying underused features, and spotting friction points, IT leaders gain data to optimize processes and drive adoption.<\/p>\n

Without usage insights, organizations can\u2019t improve process KPIs, maximize productivity, or ensure digital transformation success. This puts critical initiatives at risk and creates costly inefficiencies. With the right usage tracking and digital adoption solution, enterprises can connect insights to action\u2014delivering targeted in-app guidance, tailored training, and measurable ROI.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Types of Software Usage Tracking & End-User Monitoring<\/h2>\n

While the general concept is the same, your approach to end-user monitoring will be slightly different, depending on whether you\u2019re trying to track and improve the UX of your customers, employees, or partner. The audience you\u2019re trying to monitor’s usage determines your approach and the tools that\u2019ll best suit your use case.<\/p>\n

1. Application performance monitoring<\/h3>\n

Application performance monitoring<\/a> (APM) refers to both the tactics and tools used to monitor and manage the performance and availability of software applications. It involves tracking various metrics related to an application\u2019s performance, such as response times, resource usage, error rates, and overall user experience. APM aims to identify and resolve issues that could affect an application\u2019s performance and ultimately impact user satisfaction.<\/p>\n

APM tools collect data from different layers of an application\u2019s infrastructure, including servers, databases, networks, and end-user devices. By analyzing this data, APM or observability<\/a> solutions provide insights into the application\u2019s behavior and performance bottlenecks. These insights help proactively detect and diagnose issues, optimize application performance, and ensure that applications meet performance expectations.<\/p>\n

Types of application performance issues you can monitor include:<\/strong><\/p>\n