Subscription Entitlement Ideas

In my company we have impossible alerts for license usage limits. We have 3 perpetual licenses, 3 users and it warns us that we are going to exceed the use of licenses..... The answer is let's look at web analytics. Thank you

We have a system of dedicated computers set up to remote into to restrict usage, but with the 10 minute usage interval there are occasions where overages will occur based on the number of licenses we have. A setting to now allow term license usage would be the most effective way to prevent the quarterly term license invoices.

Yes please!! Our company has been struggling with open access Bentley licensing policies for years. We require all of our users to check-out licenses on an internally managed spreadsheet and immediately close the software when alerted of a potential overage, but we still somehow generate the occasional quarterly invoice. The overage is almost always some brief interval of less than an hour. Very frustrating!

Bentley licensing policies are an administrative burden on our accounting department, our software administrator, and our engineering staff. Administrators should be the only people authorized to generate purchases for the business. A simple administrator approval requirement would solve these problems.

There is a fix. Bentley just doesn't promote it at all. The fix is far from hard but it also substantially less intuitive. You will not stumble upon it accidentally. But, once implemented correctly, it works. BE SURE AND NOT ALLOW OFFLINE USAGE. Or, you guessed it, you will be charged.

As a small to mid-sized business, we appreciate the flexibility that open licensing provides however we are very averse to unplanned costs. We would like the flexibility to have many more users installed with Bentley software but when the concurrent total is hit, we would also like the ability to deny additional users access. The current notification system does not allow us to create this kind of wall. I understand that some businesses need to take advantage of the term license model but for those of us who do not want that, Bentley should allow us to place a block.

with so many votes one must wonder if the monetary gain of this practice outweights the loss of trust and reputation that comes with all those suprise bills

Dear Bentley Support,

I'm really sad to read those all of comments below. Is it really so difficult to add a tool/option for administrator to decide who or whether could open application with exceed usage?

This practice needs to be stopped with a simple lockout without a secondary Admin authorization when licenses are not available. This is a very unfair practice to subject your client to.

Having a switch in the system that do NOT allow users to go beyond the license is a must for proper resources management and it should be very easy to implement. Being in a public organization where everything has to be budgeted and approved, the surprise billings will cause issues.

This seems to be the most logical approach.

The end user should not be permitted to make company financial decisions.

Present us with the choice to lock out completely, or administrator password to accept the over-usage.

The lack of being able to restrict users from exceeding licenses is an extremely predatory practice. The majority of our users do not and should not have the authority to, in essence, purchase a license for a quarter for use for 10 minutes.

I just got a bill for $783 for ONE overage day. I had to spend hours with support/billing to get the fee waived. AND, it wasn't even our fault - we had everything set correctly to notify us if we are attempting to open the software and therer are no licenses left. Our notification history was empty. So, the software let someone open it even though we had it set to give the notification. AWFUL policy.

this post has been since 2020 and there has been no solution till now, it's not normal to issue invoices overused for unused licenses and managing large companies isn't easy, all other software providers have restrictions not opening the app if the users number is exceeded

Agree 110%. There software model is horrible for companies. We have practically no control. Why not just give us the simple option to limit the licenses to what we purchased like every other software platform!

We have been tracking our overages, and they do not align with the Bentley counts. So we keep receiving bills to pay for Term Licences. I have requested the ability to lock it, and have not received any real feedback except for "Our large clients like the abiltiy to go over their license allocation to meet deadlines". I can tell you the two hours work we apparently go over per quarter is not worth $500/hour. It is very frustrating.

Maybe a class action lawsuit is in order?

This is truly a pain in our ass. I'm sick of asking bentley to solve it and the silence is the only answer. In my understanding there can be an effective way to prevent it, without missing the philosophy of CSS. And it might be as easy as sending via email an "authorization check" to those designed company responsibles. If the license is needed, authorization can be accepted in just one click, and the charge justifiably done.

Not to mention the helpless situation when you HAVE TO use applications not supporting the oversuse alert, leaving the final user completely blind.

And the top of my patience was when I got a bill for an overage which took place for less than 10 minutes. Just in case you miss it. Be aware of that my friends!!!

Benltley is showing an unxcusable bad faith with all this issue. I wonder if they will consider refunding all my time wasted in placed SR claiming for unjustified charges.

Lets get this resolved please. Not hard because you can't, you just don't want to. Its like leaving out a bowl of Candy on your porch at Halloween, and expect kids to read the sign you wrote that says "only take 1", then you send the parents an invoice for the whole bowl! REALLY Bentely, stop this practice, very unprofessional.

What is the reason the admin is not replying and fixing this problem. Please can anyone tell me? I'm sick of calling bentley every quarter. With every time someone else working there. Please fix your rubbish license alert and create some kind of hard stop.

Please consider a hard stop option for firm administrators so if they pay for one license and a second one opens due to a mistake, issue shutting a program down, or an update, that the third session will be locked out. Overage fees are really bad news for small consultants. I've been using Intergraph and Microstation since 1987 but will have to stop drafting sooner than I planned to if these charges keep popping up. I keep a back up machine and laptop with the programs in case a machine crashes or there is no power. I never intentionally use more sessions than I am permitted to.