Normalising & Rationalising Apps Manually (with ACE:AI)

Modified on Mon, 5 Feb at 4:42 PM

TABLE OF CONTENTS

What is ACE:AI?
ACE:AI Usage

What is ACE:AI?

See here for an overview of ACE:AI.

ACE:AI Usage

Overview

To view the ACE:AI suggestions navigate to the Applications module, you may need to enable Pending applications in the Rationalisation Status ribbon (you can process any application, but the most common use-case is to process Pending apps)

Select some (or all) of the applications in the main grid, then click either the ACE Rationalisation or ACE Normalisation

The ACE window will open showing recommendations in yellow. The recommendations can be turned on and off if required.

Application Normalisation, Categories and Descriptions

Overview

Normalisation is the process of cleaning up application names and making them more consistent across multiple products from the same vendor. This is generally done before application rationalisation, because having a consistent set of names and versions makes rationalisation easier.

Field	Changes	Discovered example	Rationalised example
Vendor	Changed to a user-friendly name	Adobe Inc / Adobe Incorporated / Adobe Ltd	Adobe
Name	The vendor name is dropped, other "cleaning" also applied	Adobe Reader	Reader
Version	The version is cleaned up into the standard version format of Major.Minor.Build.Revision, superfluous zeros are dropped, as are any text characters	11.00.0002.3"	11.0.2.3

Application categories can be applied as part of the normalisation process. Example of categories are Multimedia, Finance and Application Components.

Application Descriptions are looked up via the OpenAI API and can be added if required. Note that any existing Application Descriptions will be overwritten.

How to Normalise and Categorise Applications

In the Applications module ensure the applications which require normalisation are visible. In most cases this will require that you enable Pending in the Rationalisation Status in the ribbon.

In the main grid, select the applications to be normalised (or click Select All)
Click ACE Rationalisation -> ACE Normalisation in the ribbon

Any normalisation suggestions will be highlighted in yellow. In the example below the following changes are suggested:
1. The Vendor is changed to Adobe
2. The App Names are cleaned
3. A quote character is dropped from the versions
4. The Edition is moved from the App Name
5. The ACE categories are added

Firstly the suggestions must be approved.
1. Approvals can actioned one at a time by clicking the toggle button to the left of the suggestion (the suggestion will turn green)
2. Or in bulk by selecting a number (or all) of the rows, then clicking Quick Approve Normalisation
3. Or in bulk by selecting a number (or all) of the rows, then right-clicking -> Approve Normalisation -> All (more granular options are available here too)
4. The approved items will be highlighted in green

To apply the approvals click Apply Approvals

Click Close to review the changes in the Applications grid

Application Rationalisation

In the Applications module ensure that the applications which require rationalisation are visible. In most cases this will require that you enable Pending in the Rationalisation Status in the ribbon.

In the main grid, select the applications to be rationalised (or click Select All)
Click the ACE Rationalisation button in the ribbon

A new window will open showing rationalisation suggestions in yellow, and confidence ratings of those suggestions, based on other customer decisions.

In the example below the following rationalisation decisions are suggested:
1. Reject these applications (in this case they are components of another application)
2. Accept Adobe Reader 10.1.1.33
3. Rationalise Adobe Reader 11.0.17.9 to Adobe Reader 11.0.23.22
4. Accept Adobe Reader 11.0.23.22

Firstly the suggestions must be approved.
1. Approvals can actioned one at a time by clicking the toggle button to the left of the suggestion (the suggestion will turn green)
2. Or in bulk by selecting a number (or all) of the rows, then clicking Quick Approve Rationalisation
3. Or in bulk by selecting a number (or all) of the rows, then right-clicking -> Approve Rationalisation-> All (more granular options are available here too)

To apply the approvals click Apply Approvals
Click Close to review the changes in the Applications grid