KB: Allocate/assign license seats to users

Solution Details

Notes: 

• It's best to make changes to allocations when the license seats are not in use.  Otherwise, until seats are returned to the pool from their previous allocations, the Altium Designer license management page may not correctly reflect current usage.  That may not be an urgent concern.

• The company dashboard's "All Account Members" group is a built in group that automatically contains every AltiumLive account in your organization.  It does not need to be modified and cannot be  deleted.

• When working with a private license server, Allocations are called License Assignments.  And the functional equivalent of the company dashboard's "All Account Members" group is called the "All Users" role.  Groups are called Roles.

 
Many customers never have to get involved with license allocations.  Here, however, are some situations where creating/modifying allocations may be useful to your organization:

1. If you want to expose or hide license seats based on groups/roles you have created.  For example if you have users that only need to use Altium Designer to work on schematics (Altium Designer SE license) and you don't want those users taking a full Altium Designer license seat from the pool, you can create a group that contains the users who you do want to see the full license seats, then edit the allocation/assignment for the full licenses to change the "Assign to Group/Role" to the new group/role.  Only members of the new group/role will see the license seats that are allocated/assigned to that group/role, so the ADSE users will not see those seats.  You probably don't mind if the full license users grab an ADSE license from time to time when they are in a pinch, so you don’t need to touch the allocation/assignment for the ADSE license seats.  
2. In another scenario, you may have a 10-seat license shared by fifteen engineers.  But one of those engineers is your most senior workaholic who threatens to just go home when they can't get a license if they are all in use.  To avoid that, you can create a group, put that user in the group, then adjust the license to have two allocations.  One allocation with one seat allocated to the workaholic's group, and the other allocation with the other nine seats allocated to the others group.  In this situation, you should create a second group for the "others" so that the workaholic will only see the single seat and not be able to accidentally take one of the other nine seats, thus leaving one license unused and unavailable to anyone else.  The downside here, is that in the unlikely event that the workaholic takes a vacation, the single seat allocated to the workaholic's group cannot be seen or used by anyone else even though the workaholic is not using it.  So it may increase your management requirement if you want to maximize your license usage during those times.
3. If you have licenses with other than a Single Site geographical scope, you may want to prevent local users from using license seats with a Continental or Global geographical scope.  You can use allocations to offer only the Single Site licenses to your local users and similarly hide access for the Single Site licenses form the users that are not local to your site to stay in compliance with the EULA.
4. If you have any Standalone type licenses, they are intended to be used by only one person.  You can use an allocation to be sure only the intended user can see and use a Standalone license.
5. If you have different teams, you can allocate how many seats are available to each team, so each team has a fair chance to use a license seat without any team overwhelming the pool.

If you end up having more than one allocation/assignment for a license you must specify a number of seats to be used by each allocation/assignment, and the total number of seats specified amongst all the allocations/assignments, cannot add up to more than the number of seats available in the license.
 
 
Differences License Types:

On-Demand
When an On-Demand license is issued, by default, it is allocated to the All Account Members group.  Unless you have special requirements, that's probably a good way to leave it.  The configuration you may want to adjust would be to check the box for "All available seats" so if you ever add a seat to your license you won't have to remember to go back to the allocation and change the seat count. And, you can consider whether you want to "Allow Roaming" so your users can check out a license to use when not connected to the Internet.  You can set the Max roam duration (hours) if you want to limit the duration to 72 hours for example, before the license will be returned automatically to the pool.  The default 0 stands for unlimited duration (until the license expires).  A user roaming a license for the duration is functionally the same as if they were using a standalone license.

On-Demand license allocations are managed from the AltiumLive company dashboard.  To get to the company dashboard, a group administrator can sign in here:
https://live.altium.com/#signin
Then click on the avatar icon portrait (Current User Control) button,
Then choose Company Dashboard from the user profile menu

If you don't see that option, you may need to clear your cache and cookies.  You can use Shift+Ctrl+Del to get to the settings page quickly.  You can also try a different browser.  Chrome works.
If you are already signed in, this link should take you to the company dashboard:
https://dashboard.live.altium.com/
Refreshing the browser window can help with unexpected behavior.  You can also try clicking on the "REFRESH" button found on the Overview page.

(Here's a link to documentation with more detail about the company dashboard):
https://www.altium.com/documentation/altium-dashboard
 
 
To find the license of interest.  Start by clicking the licenses tab at the top...

...or at the left (if you are on a newer page), then click on the license of interest.

 
With the license information page open, click on + New Allocation or Manage the right side of the allocation details section


Here are the screens that you will work with next:

If you need more information for each option, please see this documentation:
https://www.altium.com/documentation/altium-dashboard/managing-licenses#!allocating-licenses
(Automatic leasing is not recommended if you have more than one license.)
 
Standalone
Standalone license allocations are also managed from the AltiumLive company dashboard the same way as On-Demand above.  

The only configuration you should make for a Standalone license allocation is the group to which the license is allocated.  Since a Standalone license is only intended to be used by a single user (on up to three computers - Work, Home, and Laptop when traveling), it is sometimes helpful to create a group that has only a single standalone user in it, then create an allocation for the license such that only that group and hence the single user will be able to see/use the license.

Private Server
If working with license assignments is necessary for your private server licenses, we recommend using Altium Infrastructure Server (AIS) or an on-prem managed content server.

By default when a license is added to a private license server (including on-prem managed content servers that are configured to hand out licenses), a license assignment is automatically created for the All Users role/group.  This is controlled by a check box with an obvious description.  Different private license servers will look a little different and the way to get to the screen is different.  Our legacy Private License Server (PLS) does not have this option, so it cannot be turned off.

 
The Server's license and the Client Access Licenses (CALs) (if applicable) should always have a license assignment with all seats assigned to the All Users role.  As described at the top of this article, unless you want to expose or hide license seats based on roles you have created you won't need to make changes to the license assignments.  But if you do, click the edit (pencil icon)

 
And again on the assignments page

 
Then you can make adjustments as needed (see the On-Demand section above for guidance.)


 
Here's documentation for Altium Infrastructure Server (AIS):
https://www.altium.com/documentation/altium-infrastructure-server/private-license-service#!license-assignments

Here's documentation for our On-Prem Enterprise server:
https://www.altium.com/documentation/enterprise-server/licensing#!licensing-users

Here's documentation for On-Demand and Standalone (configured from the company dashboard):
https://www.altium.com/documentation/altium-dashboard/managing-licenses#!license-allocation
 
 
Issues:

• A user doesn't see a license in the Altium Designer License Management page. - Check that there is an allocation for the group in which the user is a member.

• You recently purchased an additional seat for a license.  The company dashboard shows the correct seat count, but the license management page in Altium Designer is still showing the old seat count. - Correct the Seat count in the allocation or check the box just above for all available seats.

• The license management page is showing the same license twice - The user is in more than one group that has an allocation to the license.

• When trying to use a license, you get a message that all seats are in use, but the Assigned Seat Count column in the License Management page shows not all seats are used. - Check the license's allocation/assignment to be sure the total number of seats allocated/assigned does not exceed the number of seats offered by the license.

• If you are having an issue with a second On-Demand license being acquired by a user, try unchecking the box for "Automatic Leasing".  While this might be a nice feature if you have only one license with lots of seats, it can be an issue if more than one license tries to automatically lease to the same user as the user signs in.  The check box is probably not needed anyway since Altium tries to re-use the same license it had the last time it was run, if it is available.
   
  Here's a Knowledge Base article with other possibilities to review:
  https://www.altium.com/documentation/knowledge-base/altium-designer/multiple-designer-licenses-being-used

• Your private license server is licensed, but there is a message at the top that says it's not. - Make sure there is a license assignment for the All Users group.  If you just added the license, you may need to sign out and back in again.

 Here's a Knowledge Base article on hiding expired licenses, which is done through allocations:
https://www.altium.com/documentation/knowledge-base/altium-designer/hide-old-expired-licenses