An insurer faced a Documentum finding built on a named seat count that swept in service accounts, integration users and dormant logins as if each were an active consumer. We reduced it by 78 percent.
Open A Case →The vendor opened with a finding priced on a named seat count that treated every identity with repository access as a licensable consumer. Service accounts, integration users and long dormant logins were all counted. Repository sprawl across several business units made the raw headcount look far larger than genuine usage, and the opening number was set at list price with back maintenance stacked on top.
We ran the same four operations we apply to every engagement, set out in full in the method.
Respond. We took over first contact inside the seven day notice window, scoped the engagement under NDA, and moved all communication onto a single controlled channel before any measurement script ran.
Reconstruct. We built the effective license position independently from entitlements, then mapped the true consumer population, separating real users from service, integration and dormant identities across every repository.
Rebut. We challenged the count line by line, showing that the seat definition turns on genuine consumption rather than mere repository visibility, and that decommissioned and machine identities do not belong in the headcount.
Resolve. We settled on the corrected count and converted the position forward into a clean agreement with a defined seat metric, so the same ambiguity could not be reopened at the next review.
The finding fell from $7.2M to $1.6M, a 78 percent reduction, settled on the buyer's terms. The corrected seat count became the forward baseline rather than the inflated opening number.
The detail of this work lives in our ECM and Documentum audit defense. Products overlap across the estate, so the same approach informs our ALA and entitlement review and OpenPass enterprise agreement negotiation. The end to end sequence behind every reduction is in the complete OpenText audit defense playbook.
This result came from a buyer side reconstruction and a line by line rebuttal. If you have received an OpenText or Micro Focus audit notice, open a case before the vendor sets the baseline.
Open A Case →