What is the purpose of this information?
The Subscription Entitlement Service (SES) is the latest Bentley licensing system, replacing the legacy SELECTserver application which is being deprecated. Increasingly, Administrators are looking for options to control which users have access to applications, increasing security to protect what an Organization owns, as well as enabling Perpetual or Term licenses depending on each Organization business needs. This document outlines the 5 steps to complete this process. It may be beneficial to review the terminology page before continuing.
What is the Subscription Entitlement Service?
How do I get started?
*Please note: It is the responsibility of each Organization to manage their own licenses. Understanding license management directly affects consumption and cost. All Subscription Entitlement Service settings can be configured prior to being used by users.
Step 1 - Register Users and Install CONNECTION Client
Users must be registered within Bentley’s Identity Management System (IMS) because SES requires user sign-in to activate applications. SES applications need to know who each user is, what Organization they belong to, and which applications they are allowed to activate.
Download and install the CONNECT Edition Application that uses Subscription Entitlement Service. Bentley applications are Microsoft System Center Configuration Manager (SCCM) compliant and can be distributed using other packages that contain the product msi file. There are 3 installation options available:
Please reference the detailed software download instructions for additional information.
*Please note: Some Subscription Entitlement Service desktop applications contain the CONNECTION Client when downloaded.
Step 3 - Configure the Entitlement options
The Administrator can configure these options before deploying SES-based applications to each user, thus controlling the user experience from the beginning.
Option 1 - Users and Groups: Provides control over the ability to enable applications, where entitlements can be restricted per user or group. These restrictions can be shifted as needed by the Administrator.
How do I configure users and groups?
Sample Use Cases for Users and Groups:
1. I have 10 engineers in a company of 30 people, where the other 20 users have no reason to use any Bentley applications. I have 10 licenses for these applications so that I am covered by Perpetual licensing. To ensure that only the 10 engineers use our applications, I removed the entitlements from the other 20 users. These 20 users are now blocked from opening any Bentley applications which controls unintended usage of these products.
2. I have 3 different projects that have 5 specific users assigned to each project, however all 3 groups need to use our 10 MicroStation licenses. I can create 3 groups in Entitlement Management for each project, then each day I can enable the MicroStation entitlements for 2 of the 3 groups so that I fully utilize my 10 Perpetual licenses.
Please reference the detailed Groups documentation for additional information.
Option 2 - Alerts: Provides a usage alert that can be configured (per application) that will notify both the application user and the Administrator that the available Perpetual licenses have been consumed.
How do I configure alerts?
Sample Use Cases for Alerts:
1. I have 5 licenses of MicroStation and 10 users who need to use it. The project they are working on has a very tight budget. Therefore, I want to attempt to ensure that no users consume a Term License. To provide flexibility using alerts, I can set the alert value to 1. In this case, I will be notified each time an entitlement is about to be used. I can then determine if that user should be using the application. However, the only way to ensure that only Perpetual license are used is allowing access by 5 specific users while removing entitlements from the 5 other users. This is possible using Users and Groups.
2. I have 20 MicroStation licenses for 25 users. These users work different shifts when an Administrator may not always be available, therefore I can’t continually monitor usage. When I am available, I only want to be notified if a user is about to consume more Perpetual licenses than we own, thus triggering a Term license. I can set the alert value for the number of entitlements on the contract so that all the licenses are available when needed. I am aware that this may result in a Term license and I have the budget in my project to cover this cost. Completing the project without delays is critical.
3. I have 10 MicroStation licenses. Two users are offline and have a checked-out license but there are still 20 users that need a license. I can set the alert value to 9 as the checked-out licenses count toward the usage pool.
*Please note: All these Companies had the Offline Usage option toggled ON, which means the users are signed in to record current usage. Even though an alert is presented to the user, they can decide to ignore the message and continue. Organizational policies need to be defined and communicated.
If Offline Usage is toggled OFF, user sign-in is only required once every 7 days, therefore usage data may not be current. This may lead to a Term license being consumed. It is the responsibility of the Administrator to understand the potential cost impact of this option and to configure it accordingly. By default, this option is toggled ON.
Bentley remains committed to allowing on-demand access to applications regardless of the available entitlements. Some Organizations only want their users to consume Perpetual licenses. The alert setting can be set at any value, from 1 to the true value of entitlements as stated on the contract, thus providing options for the Administrator. Once the alert is triggered, a business decision can be made on how to proceed by either allowing the user to enable a Term License or for the user to cancel activation.
*Please note: It is important that the proper ratio of users to licenses is established to manage Perpetual license usage. If you only have 5 licenses of MicroStation for 60 users, it will be a strain on the Administrator to continually allocate Perpetual licenses as well as avoid a Term license while creating a productive environment.
Additionally, alerting only works for those users running SES-based applications. In a mixed application environment, non SES-based applications will not apply to the alert settings.
Please reference the detailed Alert Configuration documentation for additional information.
Option 3 - License Check-out: Provides an offline license. While many users have Internet access, there are Organizations that restrict access due to security and privacy, government laws, remote locations, or other factors. The Administrator can check out a license for an individual user or group of users.
How do I check out a license?
*Please note: The fundamental mode of Subscription Entitlement Service requires a connection to the internet for user sign-in. If a checked-out license is not being used, once every 7 days that connection must be made as the authentication token for the CONNECTION Client will expire as a security measure.
Please reference the Single License Checkouts and Bulk License Checkouts help documents for additional information.
Once the Subscription Entitlement Service application is installed, users can sign in using the email address they used for Registration along with the password they created. If an Organization is Federated each user will sign in automatically using their Domain credentials.
*Please Note: If unable to enable an application through the CONNECTION Client sign-in, the Bentley Licensing Tool can be used to enable the application.
Step 5 - Be Productive!
Use you Bentley applications. For any questions on the functionality of your application, please see that Support group as you would for any other version of a Bentley product.
For any technical issues with this process, questions can be posted to the Communities Forum or a Service Request can be filed.