SmartBear offers both fixed-seat and floating-seat licenses for Collaborator. Additionally it offers separate licenses for Simulink integration.
About Collaborator licenses
The following sections describe the license specifics of using Collaborator.
Collaborator licensing types
Fixed-seat licenses specify the maximum number of users, who can work with Collaborator. A user is a human being (not a machine) who was active in the past 30 days. If a user did not work with Collaborator during this period, Collaborator does not count this user as a license consumer. The fixed-seat licenses are most appropriate when most of users in your organization work with the product on a daily basis.
Floating-seat licenses specify the maximum allowed number of active concurrent users. A user is considered active if they are currently consuming a license. Floating-seat licenses are most appropriate when you have many users that will work with Collaborator occasionally.
In both cases, a user is a human being, not a machine or client software. If someone uses the Eclipse or Visual Studio client, stand-alone client and command-line client, all the usages are counted as one user (one seat).
Notes:
-
Only the Collaborator server is licensed. The Collaborator client software does not need licensing.
-
Collaborator does not support both fixed-seat and floating-seat licenses on the same server.
-
For information on when Collaborator increases the license counter, see below.
When you disable a user, Collaborator excludes that user from license usage calculations immediately. It logs off that user and does not allow them to log in.
-
Each license key is linked to the node ID of your Collaborator server, and gets carried over during server migration. Therefore, a new license key is not needed when migrating the server.
-
User authentication, sometimes referred to as a log in, is not necessarily tied to license consumption. As an example, the user can authenticate through the GUI client but not be consuming a license.
Collaborator License consumption
The below describes how Collaboratorfloating-seat license are consumed.
Collaborator WebUI- When a floating-seat user logs in to Collaborator via a web browser, a license is assigned to that individual.
- The license will remain assigned to the user for as long as there is a Collaborator tab open in the browser.
- The license will be returned to the pool once all Collaborator tabs are closed, and one hour has passed.
- The license will be returned to the pool immediately if the user clicks “Logout”.
- The command-line client only consumes a license when using the
ccollab admin wget
command. - The GUI client never consumes a license.
- The tray notifier never consumes a license.
- A license is consumed when the Collaborator review summary or diff viewer is open.
- Once a user leaves the Collaborator review summary or diff viewer windows, the license will be returned to the pool after one hour – provided they do not return to one of those screens.
- When Eclipse or Visual Studio is closed, the license is returned to the pool after one hour.
Exceeding license limit
How does Collaborator behave when you reached the license limit? If a user attempts to connect to Collaborator, the server refuses the login and displays an error message explaining that there are no available licenses left in the pool and asks the user to contact their Collaborator administrator. Additionally, Collaborator sends a notification message to the administrator stating that a user login was denied because the license limit has been reached.
Note: | A user login can include situations when a user returns back to Collaborator after some period of inactivity. In this case, Collaborator may not ask the user to enter their login credentials. However, the user will see an error message about reaching the license limit. |
One way to decrease the license consumption is to disable unneeded user accounts. Another way is to ask users who are not working with Collaborator currently to log off. The administrator can also log out these users manually.
The system administrator is always allowed to log in, even if the license limit has been reached. This allows you to fix licensing issues either by disabling users or by activating a new license key.
Monitor Collaborator license usage
There are several ways to keep track of licenses used:
-
You can view the current license usage number on the Users Administration screen. You can also manually disable or log out users, if you need to reclaim the licenses quickly.
-
You can also see the license usage number, the number of denied user logins, and optionally, the list of active floating-seat users on the Licensing screen.
-
You can see historical activity patterns on the System Status screen.
-
You can use JMX to monitor usage and licensing information.
How many Collaborator licenses do I need?
It is hard to give guidance because it varies quite a bit.
Generally the best advice is just try using Collaborator. There is a report on the User Administration page that tells you exactly how many fixed or floating seats you are using at the moment. Use this number to estimate the number of seats you will need and determine the license type.
Typically, a trial does not involve everyone, and typically the usage pattern is not exactly the same as when it will be deployed, so you will have to estimate. Still, you will be doing so with some real numbers.
Here are some additional pointers:
-
If you have developers in many time zones, floating-seat licenses are usually considered to be a better option.
-
If each user works with Collaborator daily, a fixed-seat license is typically the best option.
-
If you expect large spikes in usage – when perhaps everyone is online at once during a review crunch – you most likely will want fixed-seat licenses. Otherwise, you have to get enough floating seats to handle that peak usage.
About Simulink Integration Licenses
In order to review Simulink models, you should have Collaborator Enterprise edition license and obtain additional Simulink integration licenses.
Simulink Integration Licensing Types
Fixed-seat licenses specify the maximum number of users, who can review Simulink models. Fixed-seat Simulink Integration licenses should be manually assigned to the particular Collaborator users. Fixed-seat Simulink integration licenses can be re-assigned to another user only twice within 7 days.
Floating-seat licenses specify the maximum allowed number of active concurrent users, who can review Simulink models.
Simulink Integration License Consumption
Collaborator consumes Simulink integration licenses only when users actually review Simulink models.
- For fixed-seat licenses, Collaborator checks if a user has Simulink integration license assigned to them when a user opens the Simulink model in the Diff Viewer.
- For floating-seat licenses, Collaborator consumes a license while the Simulink model is opened in the Diff Viewer. Once a user closes the Diff Viewer, or opens another type of review material in it, the license will be returned to the pool after one hour – provided they do not open another Simulink model in the Diff Viewer. The license will be returned to the pool immediately if the user logs out.
Assigning fixed-seat Simulink integration licenses to Collaborator users
If you have floating-seat Simulink integration licenses, then all you need is to activate the license. If you have fixed-seat Simulink integration licenses, then you need to activate the license and to assign licenses to particular users.
-
Log in to Collaborator as a user with administrator permissions.
-
Select Admin from the top menu.
-
Select Licensing from the menu on the left.
-
Switch to the Simulink Integration tab.
-
In the Current License section, in the Users field, specify the login names of users who should be able to perform Simulink reviews and press Add.
The Active Simulink users list displays users who currently have Simulink integration licenses assigned. To revoke a license from a user, click icon in the user list.
![]() |
Fixed-seat Simulink integration licenses can be re-assigned to another user only twice within 7 days. |
Activate your license
License activation procedure is common for all types of licenses.
1. Get node ID
To get the license code, send the Node ID
attribute of your Collaborator server to your sales account manager at SmartBear:
-
Log in to Collaborator as a user with administrator permissions.
-
Select Admin from the top menu.
-
Select Licensing from the list on the left.
-
Switch to the Collaborator License tab or Simulink Integration tab depending on what license you want to activate.
-
In the Current License section on the right, find the
Node ID
value. Copy it and send to your sales account manager at SmartBear.
2. Enter license code
After you receive the license code from SmartBear, you need to activate the license on the Collaborator server (client Collaborator software does not require licensing):
-
Log in to Collaborator as a user with administrator permissions.
-
Select Admin from the top menu.
-
Select Licensing from the menu on the left.
-
Switch to the Collaborator License tab or Simulink Integration tab depending on what license you want to activate.
-
In the Configuration section, enter your company key in to the Company Key field and license code into the License Codes field.
-
Click Save to apply the changes.
If license was activated successfully, Collaborator will display your licensing information (the number of fixed and floating seats). In case of an error, Collaborator will displays the error message at the top of the page.
- For fixed-seat Simulink integration licenses, you will also need to assign licenses to particular users.
Update license code
You can receive updated licenses from the SmartBear server after your initial license setup. To do this, simply click Update from SmartBear in the Configuration box.
In order for this feature to work, your computer must have a functioning Internet connection, and proxies and firewalls in your network should allow connection to the Collaborator license server (URL https://licensing.codecollaborator.com, port 443).