In trying to keep the number of licenses we use under control, I was wondering if opening two (or three) instances of the same version of MicroStation on one machine would use more than one license. I thought I heard before that you can open as many as you like one one machine and it would still only use one license, but I wanted to verify this.
Thanks,
Ken
Yes, as shown in the following fact sheet, multiple sessions of the same product within the same hour (i.e. X:00 - X:59) on one machine count as one usage:
"Overlapping usage or multiple sessions by the same machine during a calendar hour do not count as additional usages. Once an individual machine has accessed an application, only one license use will be reported for the calendar hour, even if multiple sessions were opened or other machines are using the application."
Although not explicitly stated in the documentation, I confirmed internally that this includes different versions of the product as well. So if an engineer is checking a model in two different versions of MicroStation, for example, usage of only one license will be recorded.
Answer Verified By: Tamicca Sellars
Unknown said:Thank you for the useful replies. One other question I had about the usage though... If I open MS at 8:15, close it at 8:30, open it again at 8:51 and close it again at 8:57, does that still all count as one license used for the period of 8:00-8:59? Or would that second usage also be held to the 10 minute minimum and therefore the usage would be from 8:00-9:59? Thanks for the help!
No, the ten-minute minimum would apply to the second usage. So usage would be counted in the 8:00 and 9:00 hours in your scenario.
Unknown said:One additional thing, Jeremy. The fact sheet you referenced made mention that SELECT Administrators can track usage trends and control access to license usage. Is there any documentation about controlling access? We are looking for a way to control access so that any user isn't able to just open whatever they want at anytime. We would like to provide a hard ceiling of license usage for the company with the ability to periodically go over that ceiling when high workload requires it (and just take the quarterly license overage charges).
The SELECT License and Download Management fact sheet provides some strategies for limiting access to control usage. For example, use custom activation groups to limit groups of engineers to products that they are permitted to use instead of all products. Please note, however, that SELECTserver does not require a real-time connection with client machines as it is primarily a license reporting tool, not an enforcement tool. Third-party tools discussed in this forum may provide the enforcement you seek.