License Auditing
Windchill uses license group membership and user actions to track license usage. The following terms are used in Windchill licensing:
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Term
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Description
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License Profile
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PTC defined profile that provides visibility to capabilities associated with a Windchill license. For more information, see Managing License Profiles. |
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License Group
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Site-level group for managing users for whom a PTC license was purchased. If the license group is a member of a license profile, then the license profile settings are passed through to the participants in the group. If a Windchill license has a corresponding license group, then users for whom a license has been purchased should be added to that license group.
Some license groups are not members of a license profile.
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Module-Based License
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A license classification based on license group membership and whether a user has accessed capabilities associated with a Windchill module license definition that is enforced through a license profile. Windchill MPMLink, Windchill PDMLink and Windchill ProjectLink, are some examples of module-based licenses.
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Role-Based License
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A license classification based on license group membership and whether a user has accessed capabilities associated with a role-based license definition that is enforced through a license profile. Role-based licenses such as PTC Author and PTC Contributor license provide a base set of capabilities to other licenses.
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Active Daily User License (ADU)
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A license classification based on whether a user is a participant in a concurrent (active daily user) license group at the time they logged in.
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Unclassified
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A license classification for users whose license usage cannot be classified based on their actions or license group membership.
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Windchill performs a number of checks to monitor license usage, which can be determined from a user’s actions and their participation in a license profile (extended through a license group).
The high-level sequence of how Windchill tracks license usage is as follows:
1. At login, checks whether the user is a member of any valid license group. If yes, then user is allowed to log in to Windchill. Else, log in is denied and the following error message appears:
2. In the case of Active Daily User License group member, Windchill checks for active daily user license availability. If Active Daily User license is available for that particular day, then user can log in to Windchill and the login is recorded towards the Active Daily User (ADU) license usage. Else, login is denied and the following error message appears:
| The above behaviors also apply to users attempting to login using Command line tools, Rest services, SOAP services, Info*Engine servlets, Remote Method Invocation (RMI) and Windchill Workgroup Manager. |
3. If the user performs an action that is associated with a license definition, checks whether the user is a participant in a license group (which extends the visibility settings of a license profile).
◦ If the user is a participant in a license group (and by extension a license profile), and they perform an action that is associated with the role-based license definition that the group represents, then they are recorded towards the usage total for the role-based license.
◦ If the user is a participant in a module-based license group (and by extension a license profile), and they perform an action that is associated with the Windchill module license definition that the group represents, then they are recorded toward the usage total for the module-based license.
4. If the user is not a member of any Active Daily User license groups and does not perform any actions that are associated with a license definition, then they are recorded as unclassified license usage.
The following diagram depicts the process of determining license usage.
Windchill records license usage within a daily recording period. License usage is cached for users during the recording period and then resets for the next day.
A user can be counted toward the totals for more than one license. For example, if the user is a member of more than one license group, or if the user performs multiple actions that are associated with different Windchill module-based licenses, then the user will be recorded in the total number of users for those licenses.
Active Daily User license groups represent concurrent licenses, where a license agreement is purchased for a set number of users. These license agreements define a number of users that are allowed to access associated Windchill capabilities within a given license reporting period, but does not define specific users. For example, a site may have a license agreement for fifty concurrent licensed users. During a given license reporting period, any user that is a member of an active daily user (concurrent) license group that logs in to Windchill would be counted toward that license usage. In another license reporting period a different set of users could log in, and so long as the license usage total does not exceed the agreed upon fifty concurrent users during either of the reporting periods, then the site is considered to be compliant.
Role-based and module-based licenses are considered named-user licenses, where a license agreement is purchased for a specific user. Administrators are required to add users to the respective license group in order to entitle the users to a license.
For a list of concurrent and role-based license groups, see
Windchill License Groups.
Module-based license definitions exist for the following Windchill modules.
• Windchill MPMLink
• Windchill PartsLink
• Windchill PDMLink
• Windchill ProjectLink
• Windchill Service Information Manager
• Windchill Risk and Reliability
• Windchill Document Control
• Windchill Design Control
• Windchill Supplier Management
License usage information is available through three reporting utilities:
• Performance Advisor for PTC Windchill
• System configuration collector
• Report tab in License Management utility
For more information, see
License Usage Reports.
