Early this year, we were asked to chose between Select Open and Select Basic Licensing. A few weeks ago, we had been billed on some over usage on some software. For our better control on the usage, we prefer NOT to opt neither of the above licensing scheme but to keep our OLD Select Licensing. Where it is impossible for any over usage and no Quarterly Bill.
Pls advise and confirm, can we revert back to OLD Select Licensing?
I would like to clarify that the choice between Open vs. Basic Access is not a change in licensing schema. The ability to use more software than owned quantities has been part of the licensing schema since 2006 when we implemented key based licensing and moved to a more flexible model, thus allowing for offline and disconnected use of our software. The Basic Access program is only a rebrand of the same SELECT licensing you have had since 2006.
Since 2006, if you utilized additional software licenses, you would have been asked to purchase additional perpetual licenses. We realize that perpetual licenses can be expensive and require a large monetary committment from our users. This committment is not always feasible for an account- especially in cases of incremental project-based use. As such, we created the Quarterly Term License.
The Quarterly Term License allows you to utilize additional licenses than what you own without fronting the costs of a perpetual license.
Each account will need to look at their usage, determine whether or not their portfolio is in line with their usage, and decide whether or not to buy perpetual licenses, utilize QTLs, surrender licenses, or portfolio balance licenses. Every account will be different and many accounts will take advantage of all of the options I just listed.
Really, the choice between Open and Basic comes down to a difference in Quarterly Term License invoice rate as well as a difference in which products you have access to. If your account chooses to take advantage of a QTL in order to reflect usage demands, Open Access will give you a lower invoice rate- 14% rather than 16% for Basic. Open Access also grants access to additional Bentley products outside of what you own, while Basic does not.
Answer Verified By: Phil Chouinard
Unknown said: Since 2006, if you utilized additional software licenses, you would have been asked to purchase additional perpetual licenses.
Since 2006, if you utilized additional software licenses, you would have been asked to purchase additional perpetual licenses.
I'm sorry Elisabeth, but this is incorrect. Up until recently (the last year?), if we utilized additional software licenses (by accident or on purpose), we would receive a call from our account manager. In the case of regular overages, he would tell us that we need to purchase additional licenses. In the case of rare overages caused by the lack of real time license monitoring, we might not receive a call at all.
Our account manager previously had the flexibility to work with us and our license usage patterns. That is no longer the case. The system may not be new, but the enforcement is. That is the big problem.
Its been stated many times in this forum, but here is the summary: If Bentley wants to charge their customers for every license overage, they need to provide a way for their customers to monitor and control their license usage.
Guys - watch the last postings on this thread.
communities.bentley.com/.../85726.aspx
In short:
Bentley is neither interested nor able to implement usage restrictions to its products.
You'll need to buy a third party software product to do that, or implement routines at your office to do that. The latter one is practically impossible to do.
Hi,
Hopefully Bentley will reconsider and introduce the option to cap the useage. Meanwhile our IT dept. made a VBscript that runs next to ustation.exe and blocks the useage if we reach our lic. limit. Runs in test now.
There is a Bentley reseller in Antwerp who develops a tool also (would be available in Sept).
Problem is also that it is hard to get exact information on how the system is working. We dropped a few service tickets about this and no answer. Radio silence :(
best regards,
Nicolas Tobbackx, Elia Brussels
Hi Nicolas,
I apologize for the delay in response to your Service Requests, I will look further into that from the Bentley side. For future reference, we are focusing on online content so I'd suggest reviewing this site whenever possible.
I have reviewed your two Service Requests and I believe that this should answer both your questions. This information was pulled from the following document: communities.bentley.com/.../12388.bentley-connect-selectservices-formerly-selectserver-quick-start-guide.aspx)
How License Usage is Measured?
Bentley CONNECT SELECTservices records daily usage on an hourly basis (by calendar hour):
• Each unique machine accessing a product within a calendar hour counts as 1 usage for that machine during that hour. (i.e., if 50 sessions of MicroStation were opened on one machine in the course of an hour, usage would be recorded as 1 for that machine). Therefore, a user logging onto a different machine and using the same product during the same hour would be counted as another usage.
• The total number of unique machines accessing a Bentley product within a calendar hour are recorded. The hour with the most usage, per Bentley product, becomes the daily peak usage for that application. So in your case, during a 1-hour stretch you had 31 unique usages of MicroStation but overall for that same day you had an additional 9 usages for a total of 40.
I hope this helps,
Glenn
The usage limits apply to all 24 hours of all days. Therefore, can one save 'roll-over' hours for non-usage?
Each hour that I did not use the software, should be stored as bank or credit.
Unknown said: The usage limits apply to all 24 hours of all days. Therefore, can one save 'roll-over' hours for non-usage? Each hour that I did not use the software, should be stored as bank or credit.
That sounds like a most sensible idea but Bentley wont go for it. They will just bill you for the over usage!