Has anyone solved the issue of License overages?

I'm a bit late to all the new updates...Is there any solution to the problem of license overages? It's nice that we can work over in case of emergency, but I'd like a way to deny licenses if we've hit our limit for everyday use. Is there anything that can do that?

Thank you.

MaryB
MSTN 08.11.08.357
GPK 08.11.07.566

Parents
  • All these suggestions won’t really prevent over usage.  The SELECTserver application is not real-time reporting. Since the implementation of the XM product line and forward, TRUST licensing has been the licensing paradigm. This means the clients are “NOT” connected to the server constantly and can be taken off site to work. With the XM Licensing client it typically attempt posts its usages every 24 hours to the SELECTserver, if it can’t it records the usage and will try again the next 24 hrs. It will do this for 30 days then will go into disabled mode if it can’t post its usages to the SELECTserver within that window.

    You also should understand how we count usage.  If you have a select license then the license is good for an hour even if you’re in the application for 20 minutes.  If you only have one license and are in it from 8:00 am – 8:20 am and then someone else uses it from 8:30 – 9:00 use just over used by one.  For further information on this take a look at the following articles:

    TRUST LICENSING BASICS

    communities.bentley.com/.../2771.aspx

    What is usage and how is it calculated?

    communities.bentley.com/.../what-is-usage-and-how-is-it-calculated.aspx

    Mike



  • Does anyone else see a problem with having to find third party solutions to this issue? The way that Autocad users deal with it is to just use the licenses they have, when they're out, they're out....no mysterious bill comes every three months. That is a MUCH better solution and one I'm likely to switch to, if they can monitor usage real time, verses one hour increments.

  • In the company I work we also got a little surprised with the revolutionary way Bentley manages licenses and mainly the solutions they provide to solve the problem. I think with it some companies will try other softwares that play fairer and may leave Bentley.
  • Eh, I'm sure they've done the math on the ROI and figured they end up making more money in the long run with trust licensing as opposed to other methods they've used before. Unfortunately, end-users on a forum complaining won't bring about any actual change - you'd need companies to migrate fully away from Bentley products - and that presents a cost in and of itself.

    Bentley's realized that at this point most firms are committed to either Bentley or Revit - and if a firm is committed to Bentley than they will have to think very carefully about how much it will cost in real money, labor, and production time to move their entire office over to another suite of drafting and production tools.

    It's actually a brilliant business strategy, it just hurts the consumer.
  • To clear up your confusion on MaryB's posts. In the first she was saying trust licensing is not good at communicating who is in what software, the second she is clarifying that she doesn't need to know who is in what file. Its the same issue for most people.

    I have to disagree with you on the sentiment that complaining in forums is fruitless. Many companies and market research firms pay very close attention to what is being said about their product. This thread has also identified a couple of third party solutions for this problem and helps others realize that there is a common struggle with overage.

    Also this problem applies to hundreds of software. To say the choices are Bentley or revit is only valid for certain fields. For us the choice is Auto/OpenPlant, Plant3D or Smartplant. There are plenty of options to Bentley and many firms are already committed to using several. If Bentley makes things too difficult their software will be shuffled to the back of the deck.
  • It doesn't matter what we think about it, it matters whether or not you (and your firm) actually does something about it and stops using trust licensing. That was the entire point of my post which you completely missed. As long as trust licensing continues to be profitable for Bentley, and people continue to use their software en masse - it will be the standard.

    It doesn't matter if you whine if you're still opening your checkbook.
  • I don't think I missed your point, I just disagree with it.
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