How to Manage Adobe Creative Cloud in Certero

Introduction

Certero for SaaS: Adobe Creative Cloud connects to the Adobe API to retrieve your Creative Cloud product profiles, subscription quotas, and user assignments. Unlike traditional on-premise software licensing where compliance is the primary concern, SaaS optimization is the focus: you are paying for subscriptions whether they are used or not.

This guide walks through the key tasks: configuring the connector, reviewing product profiles, analyzing user assignments, identifying optimization opportunities, and building reports.

Before you start

Make sure you have:

• Access to the Certero Unified Platform with the Certero for SaaS: Adobe Creative Cloud module

• Adobe enterprise customer status (the API is only available to Adobe enterprise customers)

• An Active Directory Connector configured (recommended, for user matching and optimization analysis)

• Familiarity with Certero Essentials training concepts (dashboards, saved reports, scheduled reports, charts, trends)

1. Configure the Adobe Creative Cloud connector

Certero uses connectors to collect data from vendor APIs. The Adobe Creative Cloud connector retrieves your product profiles, subscription quotas, and user assignments from the Adobe portal.

1. Navigate to the Connectors area of the platform.

2. Create a new Adobe Creative Cloud connector.

3. Configuring the connector requires three key steps:

   • Create a key pair

   • Create an Integration in your Adobe API enterprise console

   • Create a Connector in the Certero Platform

4. Enter the connector properties based on Adobe's API requirements.

5. Configure scheduling for automated data collection using the platform's standard scheduling approach.

6. Save and run the connector to perform the initial data pull.

A detailed connector setup guide is published on the Certero Customer Center.

2. Navigate the Adobe Creative Cloud grids

After the connector collects data, navigate to the Adobe Creative Cloud area via the main menu. There are two main grids:

3. Review product profiles

The Products grid shows the product profiles in your Adobe portal that are used to assign products to users and groups.

1. Navigate to Adobe Creative Cloud > Products.

2. Review the Summary tab, which shows the key columns:

   • Enabled: The total pool of subscriptions assigned to each profile (what you are paying for)

   • Available: Subscriptions that are unused (not assigned to any user)

   • Used: Subscriptions that are assigned to users (click the number to see the list of assignees)

   • Usage: Percentage ratio of Used over Enabled (higher percentage = better utilization)

3. Understand product profiles: a profile allows you to split your total pool of subscriptions for a product into separate sub-quotas. For example, a university might create two separate profiles for the All Apps product — one for staff and one for students. Different administrators can be delegated to each profile, and profiles can also enable or disable individual apps and services within a product.

The primary optimization scenario on this grid is where you are paying for products but have not assigned them, summarized by the Usage percentage.

Set unit costs

1. Switch to the Financial tab on the Products grid.

2. Right-click a product, select Actions > Set Unit Cost.

3. Enter a unit cost (e.g., annual cost per subscription) and click Save.

4. The grid calculates:

   • Total: The full cost of subscriptions you are paying for

   • Overspend: The cost of unused (Available) subscriptions

Cost quantification is essential. It allows problems to be measured in financial terms, decisions and actions to be prioritized, and optimization opportunities to be exposed on dashboards.

4. Analyze users

The Users grid provides two key tabs for optimization analysis.

Summary tab

1. Navigate to Adobe Creative Cloud > Users.

2. Review the Summary tab, which shows user information, how many product profiles each user has assigned, the names of those profiles, and the total cost for those profiles.

3. Use this grid to identify users with overlapping or incorrect product profile assignments — for example, users incurring costs for two different profiles that contain the same product.

Active Directory tab

1. Switch to the Active Directory tab.

2. Review AD information for matching users, including Last Logon and the state of their AD account (enabled or disabled). Certero matches Adobe users with AD users based on email address.

3. Use this data to find:

   • Users with disabled AD accounts who still have Adobe CC subscriptions assigned — these are likely wasted subscriptions

   • Users who have not recently logged into AD, perhaps because they have left the organization — subscriptions may be going unused

   • Inactive users (e.g., no AD logon in the last 90 days) who still have active subscriptions

Adobe CC users in Certero can also be assigned an Org Unit and Location for integration into your custom reporting hierarchies.

5. Identify optimization opportunities

Based on the data in the grids above, focus on these key optimization scenarios:

Every opportunity is a possibility until you have investigated and confirmed it based on your own organizational requirements and conditions.

6. Build reports and dashboards

Use the Certero platform's reporting capabilities to surface and track optimization over time.

Dashboard ideas

• Summary tiles: total spend, subscription quantity, total users, subscriptions expiring within 90 days

• Optimization opportunity tiles: disabled users with active subscriptions and their cost, dormant users with active subscriptions and their cost, users with more than two product profiles

• Charts: subscription quantities by product, available (unused) subscriptions by product, users grouped by product count

• Trend charts showing growth of waste over time and remediation progress

Scheduled reports

Use the platform's scheduled report feature to email grid reports (filtered or unfiltered) as spreadsheet attachments on a recurring basis — for example, a monthly list of disabled or inactive AD users with Adobe CC subscriptions assigned.

Custom reports

Use the custom report builder to access related data types. For example, combine EXE file usage data for AD users who have Adobe CC subscriptions to understand whether users are actively running Adobe applications on their devices.

Tips and common pitfalls

• Focus on optimization, not compliance. SaaS subscriptions prevent over-consumption by design, but they do not prevent over-spending.

• Set Unit Costs early. Without costs, optimization opportunities remain abstract numbers instead of actionable financial data.

• Combine multiple data points before reclaiming licenses. A disabled AD account with no recent logon activity is a stronger signal than either data point alone.

• Use the Active Directory tab data alongside product assignment data for a fuller picture of user status.

• Schedule regular reviews. SaaS waste accumulates over time as employees leave, change roles, or stop using products.

• Remember that the Adobe CC API and connector are only available to Adobe enterprise customers. Customers without the Adobe CC module can still manage Adobe Creative Cloud entitlement manually in Certero for Enterprise SAM.

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