Thursday 19 July 2012

Dolphin Floating Licenses : how do they work , and how can I get them ?

Dolphin sells individual licenses, per module per user, the licenses are attached to the specific user login , and even when that person is not currently logged in, their license cannot be used by another user.

If you are in Australia, or New Zealand however , we also sell a floating license option in these regions, which allows you to buy a lower number of licenses for our 'user' modules , and 'float' them across multiple users. 


This is how it works .... 

Lets say you have 4 estimators working for you, 2 work for you full time, and 2 work part time.

Assuming you also wanted to login occasionally to see what's happening with the Quotes, you would need 5 licenses for our estimating module under our standard licensing structure.

The licensing would then cost you 5 fully priced licenses , in a situation where you would only need to have 3 people actually logged in, at any given time during a working day.

In our floating license structure , you could purchase 2 licenses for the full time employees, and only 1 license to 'float' between yourself and the 2 part time estimators.

Each time one of the estimating staff logged out of the system, their license would become 'available' for the next person to use when they logged in.

This option allows you to control the rights of your staff, in addition to sharing the license - since each person will still have their own login , configured for their own rights and access to the system.

It also means that if you had 2 people sharing one license, you can assign supervisor rights to one person, and restrict the second person's access without the need to purchase an extra module.

What's the difference in cost ? 

Floating licenses cost 33% more than the standard licenses. Which sounds more expensive, but when you work out the actual difference in cost, your monthly licensing can end up lower, if you buy the right amount of floating licenses.


You also need to consider that a floating license allows an endless number of active users to share a license, each with their own uniquely configured login details and rights, which is why the extra cost is associated with this option. 

To show you the difference in cost for floating licenses, lets take our example of 5 standard licenses vs 3 floating licenses.

Lets assume the Estimating License costs $20* per user .

* The prices indicated are for example purposes and do not reflect the actual cost of the software or monthly licensing. 

For 5 standard licenses , you would then need to pay $100*per month.

Adding 33% onto the license cost - one Estimating Floating license would cost $26.60*

For 3 Floating licenses , you would need to pay a total  $ 79.80* per month.

This is a savings of $20.20* per month. On one module. You could make a similar savings on our other user modules,  namely -  Production, CRM and Reports. 

With some careful planning , you could  switch to floating modules, and actually decrease your overall monthly licensing bill.

Is there a catch? 

All users cannot login at the same time. Which may work for you if you have shift staff, or part time staff that are not onsite at the same time.

Floating licensing doesn't work for everyone, some people prefer to have the exact number of licenses for the people that need to login.

To show you what we mean, lets continue with our example above , if you bought 4 floating licenses, instead of 5 standard licenses , you would pay $106.40 per month , instead of $100. In that instance, it would work out more cost effective to simply buy the 5 standard licenses.

The change applies at company level.  You can have floating licenses, but it applies across your company for all modules. We do not offer the option, for example , of floating your estimating modules, while keeping your production licenses standard.

Is there a cost involved with changing ? 

Except for a possible increase to the licensing, which may not apply of you also decrease the number of modules at the same time; there is no additional cost involved with making this change to your licensing.

We do not charge service fees, or admin fees to make this change.

You can change to a floating license model any time you choose, you can also switch back to standard licenses at any point.

What's the 6 month rule? 

The 6 month rule applies where you change your mind about dropping any licenses - in the context of changing to floating licenses , it will affect you if you also drop the number of modules you have when you change to floating licenses

To continue with our example above , if you dropped from 5 standard licenses to 3 floating licenses then you would have 6 months to change your mind and go back up to 5 licenses , without incurring any activation costs. After 6 months , if you wanted to add more estimating licenses , you would be charged the full activation cost for each module you wanted to add back on. 

How do I know, or how can I check if I have floating licenses after I have asked and paid for it?

You can check if you have floating licenses by going to the Tools Tab, select Manage License (only Administrator and Supervisor Logins have access to the Tools tab, so if you cannot see it , you don't have those rights assigned to your login) ; 


On the screen that opens up , you will see an indicator called Floating License, which will be marked as True or False. 


Floating Licenses in South Africa

We currently do not sell or support floating licenses in Southern Africa. 

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