License Management System Glossary

Purpose of this Document

This is a dictionary of terms used when referring to the License Management System.

Application Server

An Application server is a Geomant product installation for a customer (Organization) that can connect to the License Server, check for features enabled and consume or release volumes for a specific product.

Authorization Key for Tenants

The Authorization Key is a unique identifier that is used by the License Server to determine to which Tenant the agent logged in belongs. The key should be handled as confidential, because it essentially serves as a password. It can be changed by the Tenant Administrator.

The Authorization Key needs to be configured during the product installation, usually as a URL parameter. For example, in DC4CRM each Tenant should have a separate Call Center configured in SF.com. The URL in the CC config uses the Authorization key. If the Tenant changes the Authorization Key, the SF.com call center URL needs to be changed too.

Billing Types

It is the process of invoicing for the subscription periods of a product payed by the Customer (Organization/Tenant) to revise license usage and costs to their business needs.

License Management Portal introduces the following billing concepts:

  • Prepaid
  • Postpaid

The system supports assigning different billing types for different Products. It is also possible to modify the billing type of an Organization/Tenant when allocating them to a Product.

Prepaid Billing: What does prepaid mean?

When a product volume or feature is sold for a particular subscription period, the Customer orders the required number of licenses for the relevant product volume and/or feature in advance.

This license limit cannot be exceeded during the subscription period.

Billing is fixed during the subscription period and based on the number of licenses ordered.

The minimum subscription period is 1 month.

Postpaid: What does postpaid mean?

When a product volume or feature is sold for a particular subscription period, the Customer orders or in other words, subscribes to the product volume and/or feature, and in this case the number of licenses is not specified up-front, but determined based on actual usage during the subscription period.

License usage is calculated monthly, and based on the following method:

High-watermark takes the highest peak value that a product/service volume usage has reached in a month.

Billing will vary during the subscription period based on actual license usage.

Connection File

The Connection file is a digitally signed XML file generated by the License Server, When placed on the Application Server with the product installed, the Connection file allows that server to identify itself when connecting to the License Server.
It can be placed on any Application Server installation.

The Connection file can be downloaded by License Owners.

Each Application Server needs a unique Connection file and so an application server entry on the License Portal. Two cannot use the same file simultaneously.

Feature

A Feature represents a functionality of the software which can be enabled by licensing only.
For example, Unified Agent has database integration implemented for phone number lookup, but even if configured correctly, it will only work if the corresponding Feature is allocated to the Organization using the server.

Grace File

It logs grace related events and Organization Product allocations.

Grace Period

The grace period feature ensures that Application Servers will function during short network outages.

The grace period implementation relies on a special log-like file. The file is downloaded by the application server automatically when it first connects to the License Server or after the file is regenerated.

Externally modifying or deleting the file will cause your application lose grace period functionally.

It is made for one server specifically and cannot be moved to another. There should not be a need to ever view this file.

Values of Grace Periods

License Portal tracks two amounts:

  • the time passed since the server was last connected
  • the total time the server spent in grace periods

The time the server was functioning, but no longer allowed logins due to the exceeded single grace period does not count in the total amount.

Examples of Grace Periods

The default values are used in the following examples: 7 days single and 21 days total grace.

  1. A server is disconnected from the Internet. After about 10 seconds, the connection to the** License Server** will time out (during these few seconds, login attempts will fail with network error or network timeout). After the disconnection for up to 7 days (7 * 24 hours, not calendar days), the users will get a warning when logging in and the UI will change slightly to indicate the grace period being in progress.

  2. The Application Server will try to re-establish the connection. If the server reconnects within 7 days, the users will be able to log in without the warning and UI change. If it does not, users will get the login error Grace exceeded. The number of days not being connected will be added to the total (up to a maximum of 7 days for a single incident).

  3. If the total of 21 days is reached (minimum of three separate, full 7 day incidents or more shorter ones) the application server will only allow agents to log in if it connected to the License Server. Another disconnection will no longer start a grace period. Instead, agents will get the Grace total exceeded error message.

It is important to notify Geomant, or its partner if agents report any grace error/warning messages when logging in, as soon as possible, to avoid any downtime caused by network errors. Checking your Applications Server's internet connection is also recommended in these cases.

Tenant and Organization volume limits set before the disconnection will continue to apply during the grace periods.

Single Grace Period

The number of days the Application Server can be disconnected from the License Server and still allows logins. This is called a grace period and the product will display warnings when logging in agents. Reconnecting to the License Server resets the counter.

Total Grace Period

The number of days the Application Server can spend in grace period. Each time after the Application Server reconnects after a grace period, that time is added to the total. Unlike the single grace period's counter, this can only be reset by manual intervention from a License Owner user

License Owner

A user with License Owner role represents the license keeper or owner and has the widest permission set within License Management Portal.

License Server

License Server keeps statistical information on usage for billing purposes and it stores the following data:

License Server Data

  • Login: license is being checked out for a given product
    • Login time
    • Tenant with all known details (e.g. tenant name, logged in user)
    • Used volume licenses (e.g. CTI Agent, Recorder agent, email agent)
    • Features used
  • Logout: license is being released
    • Logout time
    • Tenant with all known details
    • Released volume and feature licenses
  • Heartbeat: License usage is confirmed by client component

Limit

A Limit is a pair of integers representing the maximum concurrent usage allowed for a volume and the expiration date of the limit.

Organization

An Organization is the license consumer with the ability to distribute allocated licenses between Tenants.

Organization Administrator

A user with Organization Administrator role represents a company that is able to consume licenses by redistributing them to other units.

Product

A Product - in this context - is a set of Volumes and Features a certain Geomant software solution can use. The software is licensed by allocating the Product with a defined amount of Volumes / enabled Features to the Organization who purchased the software license. The Organization can then redistribute it to Tenants.

The software solution itself is also referred to as a product, the License Server representation has the same name.

Tenant

A Tenant is a license consumer who has no ability to redistribute licenses.

Tenant Administrator

A user with Tenant Administrator role represents the end user company and is able to consume acquired product licenses, but without the ability to redistribute them.

User

A User administered in License Management Portal is able to login and perform actions defined by the hierarchy and assigned role.

Volume

A Volume represents a functionality of the software for which concurrent usage is measured and the fee for the license is based on that usage. Usually, each agent logging in to a specific system consumes a Volume for that system. E.g. DC4CRM is licensed based on the maximum number of concurrent agents logged in. The volume consumed by agents when logging in is called "CTIAgents".

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