Incremental license use is a major concern for many users. (Incremental license usage occurs when the number of licenses used at a point in time, exceeds the number of licenses held. This is legitimate usage but will result in a Term License being issued.) As such, the tracking of usage is an important first step in managing it. The following support solution provides a best practice for daily generating and monitoring usage reports so that usage can be managed to your expectations.
SELECTserver can compile usage data in a variety of reports to track usage. The Daily Peak Usage report in particular provides the highest usage counts for any product and can be compared against the number of licenses owned as specified on contracts. The Daily Peak Usage report is also useful for identifying products that routinely near the maximum utilization of licenses owned, suggesting a higher probability of such use.
For users of SELECTserver OnLine, please use the following web address:http://selectserver.bentley.com/
For users of a deployed SELECTserver, please use the following web address instead, replacing "YourServerName" with the computer name of the server running SELECTserver:http://YourServerName/bss/admin
For SELECTserver OnLine users, enter a Bentley login when prompted. Please note that only designated SELECT site administrators have access to this resource.
Once logged in, select Site Settings from the Site Configuration drop-down.
Locate the Notification Settings section at the bottom, and ensure that then Enable Notifications checkbox is selected. Although this setting can notify an administrator of an impending license file expiration, it also activates the notification service for overage emails. Specify email addresses for one or more interested contacts. An email will be sent to contacts on this list whenever an overage is detected by SELECTserver.
Important: This setting relies on the license quantities listed in the SELECTserver license files to detect overages. For users who have opted into SELECT Open Access, license quantities are unlimited on the license file, making the notification setting useless. Instead, please use the SELECT Open Access portal to view usage against licenses owned by selecting "SELECT Open Access" from the Reports drop-down menu.
In additional to notification emails, a Daily Peak Usage report can be used to monitor usage as well. From the Report drop-down menu:
Select Peak Usage Reports -> Daily Peak Usage
On the following screen, select Last 30 Days from the Date Range drop-down menu. This setting is highly recommended since the report reflects usage that has been provided by workstations so far. Most Bentley products report any recorded usage the next day they are run. So if an engineer does not open Bentley products on a workstation for a few days, the recorded usage will not be reported to the license server until then. Laptop users with sporadic network access will also delay the reporting of usage. Consequently, usage reports become more accurate as they near 30 days, the maximum duration that a Bentley product can operate apart from the license server. As new data is received, SELECTserver will update the report data.
Modify the applications to include in the report if necessary. Then click the Save Settings button.
Give the settings a name when prompted. The saved settings will be accessed later when scheduling a report.
Select Schedule Report from the Reports drop-down menu.
The Report Scheduler screen shows any reports that are configured to automatically generate. These reports will be generated and sent via email at predefined times.
Click the Schedule a Report button.
In the Create window, pull down the Report Parameters drop-down menu, and select the report settings you saved earlier. If the list is empty, please return to the previous section to save the report settings.
Be sure to also select "Daily Peak Application Usage" from the Report Type drop-down menu, and enter the email address(es) where the generated report should be sent. Specify the time zone to use in the reports as well.
Finally, click the Repeat check box, and ensure that the Daily radio button is selected. Once the report settings are configured to the desired settings, click the Save button.
The Report Scheduler will now show a new listing for the report. The Daily Peak Usage report will be generated and emailed to the provided email address(es) at approximately the same time everyday.
Be sure to examine the reports that are received via email everyday, and note any new usage entries. As mentioned earlier, do not look at yesterday's usage only. Usage for previous days will update as workstations report to the license server.
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