Understanding Application Ownership in Software Management

Software Management is Deel’s tool for IT admins to track the apps their company uses, including costs, renewal dates, and owners, with AI insights and renewal reminders to help cut waste. With Application Ownership, organizations move away from a centralized IT bottleneck by delegating the accountability for SaaS subscriptions to the department leads and workers who actually manage the software.

When you are assigned as an Application Owner, you become the point person your team relies on to track costs, manage upcoming renewals, and make sure the app is actually providing value to your organization.

In this article

• What is an Application Owner?
• App Owner Responsibilities
• Owner Permissions: What You Can and Cannot Do
• How to Access and Manage Your Applications
• Notifications & Reminders
• FAQs

What is an Application Owner?

An Application Owner is the primary individual responsible for monitoring, managing, and making renewal or cancellation decisions for a specific software product within Deel.

• Eligibility: Any active Worker in Deel can own an application. You do not need to be an IT Admin.
• Admin grants Ownership: Admins can also assign you as an owner to existing tools.
• Multi-Ownership: Deel supports collaborative management. Multiple Workers can be assigned by an Admin to co-own a single application.

App Owner Responsibilities

Managing an application only takes a few minutes of your time. As an owner, you are primarily responsible for:

• Maintaining Contract Details: Upload the latest contract, add the total contract value, and review parsed contract data to keep the administrative side clean.
• Making the Renewal Call: You decide whether to confirm the renewal, change the current plan, or mark the application as cancelled.
• Checking Usage: Monitor who on your team is actually using the app so you can spot inactive users and flag seats you no longer need.

How to Access and Manage Your Applications

1. To view the apps you are responsible for, log into Deel and navigate to the IT tab on the left-hand menu. On your IT profile page, locate the Software Management widget, which displays a quick summary of your tasks, such as upcoming renewals and expiring contracts.
2. When you open Software Management, you will see a personalized dashboard that only shows the applications assigned to you as an owner. The top of this page features quick-access panels highlighting apps that have an Upcoming renewal, are Expiring soon, are Overdue, or have Missing contract dates.
3. Click on any application from your list opens its detail view, where you can take direct action.
   • Updating Contracts & Status: Click the Manage button in the top right corner to Upload new contract or Mark as cancelled.
   • Editing Information: Click the edit (pencil) icons next to Contract details or General information to update values or timelines. Note that the "Owner" and "Data sources" fields will be read-only for you.

Owner Permissions: What You Can and Cannot Do

To keep company data secure and workflows standardized, Deel separates day-to-day management from core system administration.

As a Worker-Owner, you CAN:

• Edit application sections and details.
• Upload a single contract and review its parsed data.
• Confirm a renewal or mark a contract as cancelled.
• View contract history, supporting documents, and linked data sources.

As a Worker-Owner, you CANNOT (Admin Only):

• Change Owners: You cannot add co-owners, replace an owner, or remove yourself from ownership.
• Delete Applications: You can mark an app as cancelled, but permanently deleting an application from the workspace is restricted to Admins.
• Unlink Data Sources: You can see which Identity Providers (like Google Workspace or JumpCloud) are supplying data to your app, but you cannot unlink them.
• Use Bulk Imports: Bulk contract uploads and CSV imports are reserved for Admins.
• Change Notification Settings: Reminder schedules are set globally by Admins.

Notifications & Reminders

When you are assigned as an owner, you will instantly receive a notification via Email, Slack, or as an in-app Deel message.

Deel will automatically send you reminders ahead of a contract's renewal or expiration date so you have time to make a decision.

• Supported Renewal Frequencies: You will receive automated reminders for contracts that are billed Yearly, set to Does not auto-renew, or have a custom cycle of 365 days or more.
• Unsupported Renewal Frequencies: Reminders are not sent for Monthly, Quarterly, or short-term custom frequencies under 365 days.

FAQs