What's New in YäRKEN - September 2025

New APIs Integration

Accurate license tracking is critical for cost control, compliance, and fair allocation. This month we added three new API integrations — Power BI API, Defender API, and Google Cloud API — so you can collect license and usage data and use that data directly in your reporting and TBM allocation workflows.

What we connected and why it helps

• Power BI API: Pulls workspace name, user, and capacity usage metadata so you can see who’s consuming Power BI Pro/Premium resources, which workspaces drive the most consumption, and when capacity spikes occur. This is useful for right-sizing capacities and reducing unnecessary Pro licenses.

  

• Defender API: Ingests license assignments and usage signals from Microsoft Defender (Endpoint / 365 Defender). In addition to license metadata, the connector pulls device-level fields such as Computer DNS name, device status (online/offline/enrolled), OS platform (Windows/macOS/Linux), OS and agent versions, license counts / license type, and timestamps like first seen and last seen. These device-level details make it possible to detect orphaned or decommissioned devices.

  
  
  

• Google API: Captures two complementary signals: sign-in activity (user email, last activity date, last accessed app, and sign-in count) and product usage (user email, app name, report date, and usage count), giving a clear view of who is actually using which Google apps and when — critical for reclaiming unused accounts or right-sizing license allocations.

  

   

  
  

  How teams typically use the data

• Optimize license spend: Identify underused or unused licenses across Google, Power BI, and Defender and reclaim or reassign them.

• Custom reporting: Create consolidated reports showing assigned vs active users across Google and Power BI.

• Custom dashboard: Buid a license utilization dashboard that shows monthly consumption trends and top consuming assets.

Multiple Authentication Providers

We now support multiple authentication providers so users can sign in with their organization’s preferred identity platform. An Okta Authentication is integrated in addition to Microsoft Entra ID (Azure AD). This flexibility enables the organizations to onboard with their preferred IdP and present users with a provider-selection option on the login screen.

At the login screen users choose their provider (Okta or Microsoft Entra ID) and complete sign-in using the organization’s configured multi-factor authentication (MFA). The provider selection is simple and visible up front, so users land directly on the correct sign-in flow and benefit from whatever MFA methods their organization enforces — enabling a secure and seamless onboarding experience.

SKU & Project Level Budgeting and Forecasting

We’ve added two flexible, configurable fields to the Budget and Forecast modules to give you better alignment and finer-grained planning: Project ID and SKU.

Project ID: Configurable via Form Configuration, this field lets you attach a project identifier to budget and forecast records. If your organization tracks costs and outcomes by project, enabling Project ID ensures budgets and forecasts are born with the same project metadata used by project accounting teams. This makes it straightforward to roll up budgets by project, reconcile planned vs. actuals per project, and integrate planning with downstream project reporting or chargeback workflows.

SKU (SKU-level budgeting & forecasting): We added an optional SKU field to the planning form and to the spend loading process so you can create and compare budgets and forecasts at the SKU level. When SKU is provided on a budget/forecast record or on a spend line, the system will associate costs with that SKU and allow SKU-level comparisons, trend analysis, and SKU-aware reports. This is helpful for product teams, procurement, or cost owners who need to monitor spend and projections for discrete product SKUs, licensing tiers, or meter types.

Both fields are optional and designed to coexist with your current planning model — enable either or both from Form Configuration. When enabled, mapping and validation behave like other planning fields (required flags, lookups, drop-downs), and SKU/Project ID values are available for filters, KPIs, exports, and reporting.

New Generic Asset Type – Miscellaneous

Why we added it
Teams often have useful datasets that don’t belong to standard asset categories: spreadsheets with ad-hoc inventory, vendor-provided lists, transitional assets, or experimental datasets used by a single team. Creating a new asset type every time increases admin overhead and expands your master schema. To solve that, we introduced a Miscellaneous asset type: a catch-all that lets you ingest, map, and report on any asset-like data without changing your configuration.

What it does

• Accepts any asset records that lack a natural place in your existing taxonomy.

• Supports the usual mapping, cost center assignment, and attribute fields so records can be included in dashboards, chargebacks/showbacks, and reporting.

• Uses the same upload rules and validation logic as other asset types, so ingestion is predictable and auditable.

Benefits

• Faster onboarding for ad-hoc datasets — no schema changes required.

• Cleaner governance — keep master asset types stable while still capturing all relevant data.

New UX for Budget and Forecast Data

A new interactive grid table is now available in the Budget & Forecast modules. The grid delivers a more responsive and adaptable experience when you’re working with extensive planning datasets. It focuses on three goals: speed, usability, and personalization.

What’s changed

• Performance at scale: Virtualized rows and columns mean large monthly or SKU-level datasets render quickly and scroll smoothly.

• Advanced table operations: Column resizing, drag-to-reorder, multi-column sorting, per-column filters, and grouping to roll up lines.

• Custom columns & layouts: Add/remove columns, hide/show fields, and persist custom column orders and widths.

• Save table configurations: Save named views for repeated use (e.g., “Finance Summary,” “SKU Drilldown”), and export/view configurations to share with teammates.

• Data export: Export filtered results or the full grid to CSV/Excel for downstream reporting or reconciliation.

• Adaptive UX: Columns and layouts adapt to screen size; keyboard navigation and basic accessibility support are included.

Enhanced Tower Rules – Distribution to Multiple Assets by Percentage

Tower rules now support percentage-based allocations to multiple target assets. When creating a tower rule, admins can assign one or more assets and specify a percentage split for each target; the system validates the percentages (ensuring they total 100%), and applies the calculated allocations during ingestion. This enhancement makes it easy to model shared tower costs accurately and eliminates manual post-processing or file-based redistribution.

Global Search - A New Search Capability for Dashboards and Reports

A new Global Search lets users find configured resource types — standard and custom dashboards, reports, and other indexed items — directly from the menubar without navigating through multiple dashboards. Once enabled, users type a query in the menubar search box and receive instant, permission-aware results that show the resource type, clear labels, and a direct link so they land immediately on the target page. Results are indexed for fast lookup and can be limited to specific namespaces or resource categories to keep results relevant.

Admins controls enabling or disabling the feature, choose which resource types and namespaces to index, set indexing frequency, and enforce role-based visibility so users only see what they’re authorized to access. You can also exclude sensitive dashboards or limit indexing to production content.