how to view usage on a license server by user

Forum|Forum|5 years ago
October 14, 2020
2 replies
44960 views

Hello,

We are trying to see how many users were using PTC for the last year. I would like to get username and computer name. Our network license server is running on Windows OS. Any ideas/recommendations are appreciated.

Thank you

Leo

Licensing

B

BenLoosli

23-Emerald III

Which PTC product are you looking for information for?

Windchill captures the information in log files.

Creo captures the information in FlexLM logs.

Also this is NOT the group to be asking questions in. The menus allow you to select the product group for questions.

E

edujrl

Author

1-Visitor

Thank you, PTC Creo,

I am not sure if we have Windchill installed, if I install it now will I be able to see those records going back ?

I am sorry which group should I ask this questions at ?

Thanks again

B

BenLoosli

23-Emerald III

I moved his to the Creo System Administration area.

For Creo, there a couple of log files that are human readable that with some digging you can extract the information as to username and computer they logged in from. This information is a little cryptic as the makers of FlexNet sell a package (very expensive) that analyzes binary log files.

If you have some programming skills you could probably figured out the structure of the log files and extract the information. I know PTC has developed these tools, but not made available to their customers, for license assessments to be sure companies are not exceeding their licenses.

As for Windchill, it would only record Windchill usage AFTER it is installed, no back history.

DomenicLaritz

17-Peridot

For years we have used the product JTB FlexReport to monitor the utilization of our concurrent licenses.
I think the price/performance ratio of this software is excellent.
The corporation I work for chose the enterprise solution OpenLM some time ago.
OpenLM can do far more than I would need.
Of course, this is also reflected in the price. But since the costs are shared between different companies of the corporation, it doesn't really matter compared to JTB FlexReport.

D

davehaigh

13-Aquamarine

So we do have OpenLM, I just find it is a bit of information overload. It provides a level of information I don't really need to make a purchasing decision.

Plus I've not figured out how to have it email me daily tallies of usage.

Our low tech approach gives me all the data I need to keep an eye on the usage vs the number of licenses, to make sure we don't run into an issue of folks not being able to acquire licenses.

This isn't perfect. We have had very little usage of the advanced Simulate license over the last few years. So we reduced the number we bought of that license, to increase the number of Simulate Live licenses. Unknown to me, one of the advanced users of Simulate, started mentoring a bunch of young engineers earlier this year on the software, so the use of it suddenly ballooned. Meaning users were getting rejected because all of the available licenses were in use. I had to transfer a license from one of our other networks to resolve the issue.

The thing is, OpenLM or any other license tracker would not have been able to anticipate the increase usage of that feature any better than our low tech approach.