Introductory Knowledge Landing Page

CONNECTION Client​ / Bentley License Tool​ Landing Page

 

The Bentley Licensing Tool provides activation functions and information for products utilizing Subscription Entitlement Service. It is installed with the CONNECTION Client.  This document describes the capabilities and user experience of this tool starting with the 26.0.x.x release of CONNECTION Client.

• Opening the Bentley Licensing Tool
• Navigating the Licensing Tool
• The Entitlements Tab
• Activate License
• Checkout License
• Importing a License
• Configuring Proxy Settings
• Configuring Error Logging Settings
• Support tools
•    Health check tool
•    Refresh and Reset Policy
•    Gather Diagnostic Logs
• Submitting Feedback and Feature Requests

We welcome your feedback and suggestions.  Please visit the Bentley License Client Ideas portal to post your own suggestions or vote on other suggestions from others in the Community.

Opening the Bentley Licensing Tool

Option 1 - from CONNECTION Client

Using the 'License Client' item in the CONNECTION Client left navigation menu:

 

 

Option 2 - from the Windows Start or Search

1. Open the Windows Start menu.

2. Type "Bentley Licensing".

3. Select Bentley Licensing Tool from the search results that appear.

 

 

Option 3 - from the file location

Open the executable directly from the file location, which by default is: C:\Program Files\Common Files\Bentley Shared\CONNECTION Client\LicService\NewLicenseTool.exe 

 

 

Navigating the Licensing Tool

Upon opening the Licensing Tool, you will be presented with your list of local product entitlements and a navigation bar on the left side of the window.

     

In addition to the Entitlements tab, the navigation includes

• Version: Licensing tool version
• Username: This field shows the Bentley login associated with the product.
• Log Viewer: Displays the usage data logged on the machine and allows logs to be sent manually
• Support: Tools and information that will be helpful if support is needed.
• Change Feature Level: Opens the tool that allows feature levels to be chosen. This is only used for certain applications.
• CONNECTION Client: Launches CONNECTION Client 
• Help: Navigates to help for the Licensing tool
• Feedback: Navigates to the feedback portal for the Licensing Tool
• Settings: More advanced settings such as Proxy Server configuration, Error logging configuration and Appearance settings.

The Entitlements Tab

When the Bentley Licensing Tool opens it displays the Entitlements tab. If the CONNECTION Client is signed in, a Bentley login will appear in the upper left corner. Products appear in the Entitlements list if they have communicated with Bentley before. i.e. products that have ever been started on the machine before, and not only the entitlements the user has. They will communicate the following information:

• Application: This is the name of the product, and Feature string is there is one for the product, using Subscription Entitlement Service. Products using SELECTserver will not appear in this list.
• License Type: This field indicates the kind of license that is available to the user.  Examples include:
   Commercial – The product is recognized and available for use on the organizational account.
   Trial – The product is not recognized on the organizational account and is utilizing a trial period defined by the product (usually 7 days) if still available.
   Evaluation – The product is utilizing a 30-day evaluation license assigned by an administrator.
• Offline Use: By default, products will function for a limited time (i.e. usually 7 days) if a user is not signed in. This ensures that products are still accessible during a temporary network outage. However, administrators can disable this feature on a product basis as a preventative for unexpected usage. A No value means you must be signed into CONNECTION Client to use the product.
• Access: This field shows whether the product is permitted. A number of values may appear here, including:
   Allowed – The product is permitted and is activated.
   Denied – The product is not permitted and will either open with limited functionality or not at all.
   Offline – The product is permitted but is not signed in.

      Each license listed has an option button that provides more information about that license and additional actions that can be taken.

• Offline Access Until: If the "Allowed Offline" is set to on, the date indicates the last day the product is allowed to operate without logging in to the CONNECTION Client again. After this date, you must log in. Successful login to CONNECTION Client resets the offline access timer for the next 7 days.
• Alerting Setting: This field will show you whether license alerts are enabled or disabled for the application. The following values may appear here:
   Alert – The product checks for other active users of the same product before opening. A license alert will be displayed if a configurable threshold of active licenses is exceeded.
   Disabled – The product opens without checking for other active users.
• Last Started Status: This field indicates the statues of the product the last time it was started.  That status may not be indicative of what the status will be the next time, but it may be helpful information in certain situations when support is needed.
•  

      Actions that can be taken include checking out a license of that product or removing the license from the list if that product is no longer needed on the machine.

       

Activate License

      To "pre-activate" or add licenses to the list before running the product, use the Activate Products button in the Entitlement tab.

     

      Use the Select Products field to find the products you want to activate and choose them from the search results. Use the version dropdown to pick the released version you want to activate or type in the version number.

     

      When ready, hit the Activate button.  When the activation is complete, there will be a summary page with the result and the new entitlements will show up in the License list.

     

Checkout License

Product licenses can be locked to the computer if it is anticipated that the machine will be disconnected from Bentley Cloud services for an extended period. This results in a license usage for that user and machine to be logged for the duration of the checkout.

To check a license out for the machine, select the products you want to check out from the Entitlements tab and hit the Check out License button. 

Alternatively, you can find Check out License in the option menu on an individual application license in the list.

To check out a license:

In the Check out a License form, you will be asked to verify the product, feature string (if required), the version to check out and the expiration date.  

• Product: This is the name of the product and feature string using Subscription Entitlement Service. 
• Version: This is the name of the version of the product you're using.  If you've used the product before, the last version used will be pre-populated in the field.  If the field is empty, you can drop down the field to see a list of released versions of that product or you can type in the version you're using. 
• Number Available: This will reflect the total number of licenses that were made available for checkout
  • This field is NOT dynamically updated as licenses are checked out
  • If user has an assigned Practitioner license, the quantity will reflect 1 (user would be checking out their Practitioner license which is limited to one machine at a time)
• Expiration date: This is the date that the checkout will expire.  Set this value to extend the checkout for the duration you expect to be disconnected from Bentley Cloud services.

You can add more products by searching in the Select Products field and clicking on the product name in the search results.

• If a product is not listed, it may be unavailable for checkout because of your organization's licensing configurations.  Reach out to you license administrator if you have questions.

      Once all of the information for the checkout is correct, click the Check Out button. Successful checkouts will be shown in a summary page.

 

 

To check in (return) a license:

To return a license prior to the expiration date, select the option button in the Entitlements page, and click the Check in License button.

 

 

     

 

Importing a License

Licenses can be checked out from the Entitlement Management site on behalf of a user and saved as a file. The Licensing Tool provides two options to import checked out license files: Import Policy File or Import Policy from Folder

Option 1: To import a file, select "Import Policy File..." from the File menu, and select either a .belic file or a zip archive containing .belic files (generated from a bulk checkout). If there are multiple .belic files in the zip file, the import will search for the current machine name in the .belic file names to decide which license file to import.

Option 2: To import from a folder, select "Import Policy Folder...: from the File menu. Use the browse dialog to choose the folder where the checked-out license files are stored. Again, if there are multiple .belic files in the fold, the import will search for the current machine name in the .belic file names to decide which license file to import. This folder does not need to be a local file system folder; it can be on a shared network drive.

 

 

 

Configuring Proxy Settings

Licensing Tool Proxy settings let you configure communication of Bentley products, including CONNECTION Client and the Licensing Tool, utilizing system proxy settings as configured in the Internet Options control panel or manually configured proxy settings.

1. Select Settings from the Navigation menu and drop down the Proxy Configuration section.

1. It's recommend to use the "Use System Proxy Settings". For server or test environments where proxy settings must be manually configured, choose the "Use Custom Proxy Settings" radio button instead.

2. If specifying custom proxy settings, enter the computer name of the proxy server. If a port must be specified, append the server name with a colon (:) and the port number (i.e. ProxyServer:8080). To determine what proxy settings (if any) are in use, please refer to the following wiki, specifically the section titled "Determine whether a proxy server is in use."

Note: PAC files are not supported in custom proxy settings.  If you need to use a PAC file, please apply that in the System proxy settings.

3. If user authentication is required as well, select the second checkbox, and enter user credentials.

4. Click the Test Proxy Configuration button to confirm proper configuration.

5. If the configuration test is successful, click the Save button to save changes.

Configuring Error Logging Settings

Subscription Entitlement Service provides diagnostic logging to assist with troubleshooting efforts. By default, the Bentley Licensing Tool maintains a detailed rolling log that is sufficient for most troubleshooting, but configuration options can optionally be configured using the following steps within the Bentley Licensing Tool:

1. Select Settings from the Navigation menu and use the arrow to drop down Error Logging section.

2. The Minimum Log Level shows the level of detail to capture. Trace is the default selection which captures all diagnostic information. Each selection below Trace captures less diagnostic information. Lower levels allow diagnostic information to be captured over a greater time span before the oldest diagnostic data is deleted.

3. Client Logging and API Logging are disabled by default. Enable them to capture additional diagnostic information for each Subscription Entitlement Service application.

 

Support Tools

      Health Check Tool

      The Health Check Tool gives Bentley Support valuable information about the current state of CONNECTION Client, Licensing Tool and the machine's connection to Bentley Cloud services. Click the Run Health Check button to initiate a run. All the tests being run will be displayed.  To easily retrieve the results to send to Bentley Support, use the Copy Results button. 

        

     

Refresh Policy and Reset Policy

       Refresh Policy and Reset Policy are available from the Support menu.

Refresh allows the user to manually request a refresh of product entitlements either because they've expired or have changed due to administrator changes.  This typically isn't necessary as entitlements are refreshed automatically every 4 hours.  Refresh does require that a user be signed in to CONNECTION Client.

Resetting the policy will empty your entitlements tab and will force a new policy next time an application is used. This option is useful for license troubleshooting or for clearing old licenses.

Click the "Yes I am sure" button to proceed.

      Gather Diagnostic Logs

      Use the Download Logs button in Support to gather all the logs that may be necessary to diagnose and troubleshoot issues.

     

      The following wiki explains how to gather diagnostic logs via the Bentley Log Collector.

Submitting Feedback and Feature Requests

To access the Bentley Licensing Tool Feedback Portal, select Feedback from the Navigation menu.