What is the purpose of this information?
Sometimes changes in business require you to split your account into two separate entities.
As with any new account, splitting an account represents an opportunity to adopt up-to-date, supported applications (older generation applications are not eligible for support), and change your licensing model for the better (the older SELECTserver based licensing [hosted or deployed] does not provide the same opportunities for license reporting and control that Bentley's current licensing model, Subscription Entitlement Service licensing does).
Splitting an account also may represent the challenge to migrate all the settings previously applied to the existing account, to the new account. There aren't any tools to assist with this, and at no time will an administrator have access to both existing account and new account to compare what might have been set up previously.
The site administrators from each account we'll have to work together to ensure a smooth transition
Areas affected when splitting an account
Assets
When an account is split the assets that reside at that account will be split as well. Subscription analytics can be used to determine what applications your user base is actually using (and what your peak use is for these applications) , prior to deciding how to split assets.
Entitlement Management
The default access for any newly created account is that all users under that account have access to all licenses at that account. Any customizations that were in effect under entitlement management to either enable or restrict access to application licensing will no longer be in effect on the new account.
User Base
Splitting your accounts also means splitting your user base. Although users will be migrated with their profiles intact (and this would include any roles previously assigned to the user), the newly-created account, with its newly migrated user base, will not have any allocation or entitlements groups set up previously.
Administrators
It is not possible for a single administrators to manage multiple accounts under user management. Before going forward with a change, new individual should be designated as the administrator (and be aware of the responsibility of an Administrator) for the new account to be created
Fulfillment Contacts
The newly-created account will have to have a fulfillment contact. This may or may not be the same person that was for fulfillment contact on the existing account prior to the split.
Domain Ownership
If both entities that will exist after an account split will be using the same domain, if the domain has previously been claimed the domain would need to be unclaimed as to allow its use by more than one account. Failure to do so may result in new users registering online being assigned to the incorrect account.
Licensing
Checked out Licenses
Licenses reflected is being checked out on their entitlement management may have to be released, if the user of that license is going to be affected by the account split
Offline Usage
Depending on the current settings and entitlement management, users displaced from the original account may lose the ability to activate their software (for Subscription Entitlement Service licensing). Prior to the change it may be prudent to release offline restrictions on licensing to allow user 7 days of offline usage, instead of the user not being able to work (note that users working offline still generates usage towards an account). SELECTserver licensing based applications will function for at least 7 days while offline.
Licensing - Subscription Entitlement Service licensing
For subscription entitlement service-based licensing, users not listed under your account will not have access to your account's licensing. Shortly after a user has moved from one account to another changes to the users policy (which controls which licenses a user can access) happens organically every 4 hours, and the user will have access to their new accounts licensing.
Licensing - SELECTserver based
While Entitlement management based licensing doesn’t maintain the concept of "Site" (for subscription entitlement service-based licensing, licenses from all sites are aggregated under Entitlement Management under an "umbrella account" referred to as Ultimate), in Bentley's contract database individual sites are still maintained. The only consequence is that an account with multiple sites under contract will have multiple SELECTserver activation keys. The keys, although different, will still activate all aggregated applications from all sites by default (the applications each key will activate can be customized as well).
The activation keys follow the site; If a site remains under the original account, the site activation key will remains with that account. If a site is redeployed to a new accounts contract, the new account will also have that site's activation key. If the new account does not have any sites redeployed from the existing account, the new account will have a new site activation key.
Account still using select server-based licensing will have to be mindful that after a split a concerted effort to use the correct site activation key is made. Anyone having access to your site activation key also has access to your licensing.
Prior to the split, site activation keys assigned to your account should be reviewed to determine if it is still prudent or necessary to have multiple sites (and therefore multiple site activation keys) for your account. It is not uncommon for an account not to realize that they have multiple sites / multiple site activation keys. Site consolidation (and the resulting elimination of redundant site activation keys) prior to an account split may be helpful (and easier to manage).
When the accounts are split (depending on where a site is redeployed from existing account to new account), the new user base may have to point to a different site activation key than they were prior. Plans should be in place to distribute the new site activation key to your users. The newly-created account may wish to create custom activation keys instead of distributing their standard activation key, to allow more flexibility in managing their activation keys.
Before requesting an account split
Make sure that under user management all the current information listed prior to the split is correct -
Decide how user base will be split -
Have a game plan for how licenses are going to be managed under the new account
Note any changes from default settings for a select server activation keys and their associated entitlement groups.
Schedule a time for the split to become official, and notify your users of the change.
Inform the user base of the new account through their point of contact will be.
After account split is complete
Under user management
Under Entitlement Management
On user's Workstations
On user's Workstations (SELECTserver based applications)