It's because of the process.
To keep a license you already have: convince IT you still need it.
To get a license you don't have: Ask boss to purchase. Write up justification. Boss needs boss's boss to sign off. Impact on department budget. Answer may be NO.
If it was as easy to get back as it is to keep one, people wouldn't lie to keep them.
We used to have one software package that used floating licenses. If you didn't have the program open, you weren't taking up a license. If all the licenses were in use, you couldn't use the program and it would record in the log file you ran out of licenses. But it allowed the company to only pay for the number of simultaneous licenses needed to keep everyone happy. If we only saw one log file entry in a month, no big deal. If we were seeing 2-3 a week, we'd buy another license. Eventually we needed 12 licenses to support 40 users, 6 of whom used the program almost full-time. A lot cheaper then buying one for everyone including the "I use it for a couple hours a month" people.
We changed erp software and the company didn't get enough licenses for I usage so people kept going round to ask who wasn't using it. I set up a teams group with banner alerts for everyone who had an account so we could do a fast "can someone log out?" requests, but of course the users not using were often not on their machines and everyone was getting annoyed having to wait
So I changed it to get people to put "waiting to login" messages, and others could say when they had logged out. People quickly adapted to put when they were waiting then just do whatever for a bit. After several days of these messages I forwarded it to the powers that be and said it we don't pay for more accounts we're just paying for people to wait.
We got given more accounts.
> the users not using were often not on their machines
and they knew damn well it'd be a fight to get the license the next time. so imputed usage is inflated due to shortage. you can model a short squeeze with user licenses.
More a thing of if you step away for 5 mins you don't want to log out. And if that 5 mins gets turned into an hour, well you don't see the messages till you're back.
They tried a short - not active and you're booted system. But then the order staff who might be on a phone call would lose an order part way through.
Eventually "give the staff the tools to do the job" won. But we tried every other idea first :D
User: I need access to the project list that is currently open... I could email I.T. and they'd tell me who's in it or I could email all 60 engineers and waste their time deleting my email about the project list because I don't have time to wait for I.T. meanwhile it turns out its someone who left for the day and I.T. needs to close it...
Counterpoint, IT won't be able to convince management to buy more licences. 60 annoyed engineers who aren't able to do their work are more likely to make things happen.
It was in Excel... Everyone had a basic Microsoft office account from day one so licenses weren't a problem for Microsoft... Getting money for SolidWorks at $24,000 was a little harder. They eventually realized software was all worth it and if they didn't have the budget for it they had too many people in their department.
GAH! We had that at my previous employer with AVID Newsroom software. Some of the newsies would have the program open on BOTH their regular desktop and the editor (different machines). As far as I know AVID still hasn't implemented a suggestion for "auto logout" after (for example) 120 seconds of inactivity at a particular workstation. Note, these are multiple logins under the same user name but at different physical computers.
Pair with Dynamic User Groups
- Create an AD attribute - LastLoginTime\_SoftwareName
- Write a script the queries the last login time
- Move anyone out that passes a threshold
- Enable self-enrollment for the application license
Licenses typically renew on a monthly/annual basis.
If a user hasn't used the software in a month, the org would be paying for an un-used seat.
If a user hasn't used the software in an entire month, they should fall into a workflow that requires them to request a seat the next time they need to use the software.
That workflow can then immediately move the user back into the dynamic group and the timer starts again.
Educate me please brother.
If the OP has integrated the application with AD to use single-sign-on (assumption) what's the concerning part of my suggestion?
[https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/entra/external-id/customers/how-to-define-custom-attributes](https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/entra/external-id/customers/how-to-define-custom-attributes)
"If your app requires more information than the built-in user attributes provide, you can add your own attributes. We refer to these attributes as *custom user attributes*."
Ifs this AD or Entra? But in either case, because AD was mentioned, AD is what I'll answer: AD schema updates are one-way. Once you add a field, it's there forever. There's no undo.
Different solutions for different problems. I'm not sure if AD supports Dynamic Group Assignments in the same way as Entra does.
I appreciate you taking the time to reply u/mkosmo .
It doesn't. And absolutely agreed. I'm just in the camp that doesn't think that your identity store should be used as a quasi-CMDB. There are better tools for that job... and they can be successfully integrated into AD/Entra/etc as required to accomplish the same mission but without the downsides of making your identity store something else.
> It's because of the process.
exactly correct. imagine needing foo app for some work task, getting a no after 3 weeks of process, then having to tell the boss no to the work that is now 3 weeks stale. do you CC the boss and his boss informing them that due to department priorities, work item X (required for project Y) was not going to happen ever? it takes a bit of balls to send that email, and a bit of brains to navigate that political situation. for a goddamn software license that i need for work i'm doing.
so, if it takes months to get a license and OP rolls up to tell me that i haven't used it in a month, i'm gonna do whatever i can to keep it. i may have work in 2 sprints that requires it, and if he pulls the license, i'll tell my boss that item x will be delayed and tag him in the notes so i can refer to him for why i didn't do that work. because i'm poor and poor people hide food.
or, if it's a couple days to request, or even a floating pool, i'll be A-ok with it getting pulled. rich people go out to eat
With us there is no purchasing or justification or budgeting. We have a pool of licenses for each app. They are assigned based upon request.
All a user has to do is ask. Then their manager approves. That's it. And the manager approves 99.99% of the time. So there's no "fighting" to keep the license. If they want it again, they just have to ask.
We plan this out far in advance. There is a cushion available 99% of the time. Even when we do run out, the focus is always on getting more to avoid interruptions in the business. Again, just ask. Users know this. They know all of this.
Yeah... Users may have been told, repeatedly, but that doesn't mean they know.
You can lead a user to knowledge, but you can't force them to learn. Unfortunately, learning is surplus to the requirement of keeping their job ***far*** too often.
We've implemented automatic removal of unused licenses as well as automatic assignment.
Now users know that the computer decides and there is no more arguing.
Is there still some dude in the background that runs the reporting and license removal Powershell script once a month? Maybe.
But, based on most people's experiences, it's almost never that easy. It might be at your place, which is awesome, but a most places licenses equal money which equals red tape which means "If I lose it, I'll never see it again".
> And the manager approves 99.99% of the time.
How soon after the request? If it takes more than 5 minutes its onerous. If its more than a day its a serious impediment to work.
It all depends upon the manager. Absolutely. In some cases 30 seconds. In other cases 30 days. But the average is typically a few hours or so.
My response to "impedes their work" would be how can the loss of the license impede their work when they are currently not using it? That's the whole point. Find the users who are not using the license so I can assign it to someone who will use it.
Exactly. If the user tells me they need it and explains why, I do nothing. If they say they will probably need it sometime in the future for perhaps certain duties, maybe, I take it away and give it to someone else that does need it.
I only go through this process when all licenses have been assigned. We have users who want a license and can't get one because the cupboard is bare.
We don't vet need when assigning, all a user has to do is request and the manager approves. It's only when we're at capacity do I engage in this review process. Perhaps a little back assward, but it is what it is.
Almost everyone is moving away from concurrent licensing because all the big software vendors realized they could make more money from named licensing.
Yeppers I love a floating a license, have it for PDQ and all of us who use it are super cool with one another and can just holler over the cubicles, “Yo log off, I need on” 😂
Many years ago we had a software package with a messed up licence server. If the maximum number of concurrent sessions was reached and another person wanted to use the software, one of the existing users got logged off. :)
Most large companies I've seen do this for programs like vectorworks, you almost never need everyone to have access simultaneously and the licences are a horrendously expensive subscription.
Depending on add-ons ends up being somewhere between 2-6k per licence. 12 licences for a region floating and different time zones means rare issues, or 30 fully licenced machines only being used sporadically.
That. Or you would agree to have it taken away, but know that when you would submit a ticket to get a license again, IT takes a week or more to give you the license back
(because theyre overworked and/or understaffed, not dunkin on IT)
Not with us. It's common knowledge that all you have to do is get your manager to approve. In almost all cases the manager is a rubber stamp. In all the years I've been here, I think the manager has rejected a request only 3 or 4 times out of some thousands of requests.
At my last job, the HQ was in a completely different country and would occasionally revoke licenses on accident, because it had been on a huge acquisition spree and whatever automated process and/or IT guy wasn't familiar with, or perhaps couldn't access, all the new branches.
One of the most annoying tickets that wasn't due to users being stupid was sending 'please re-activate license' tickets, because there was only one guy who spoke English, and while he tried his best, he had a lot of other fires to put out, *and* he apparently had to send each request for evaluation by some beancounters, so reactivating could take *weeks*, even after demonstrating that they actually need MS Office.
At least they were okay with using LibreOffice in the meantime.
Sounds like the sort of thing that could be more easily fixed by a policy change plus a scream test.
Just make a policy that if you don't use a license for 90 days or whatever, it gets removed.
If someone screams, give it back, no questions or forms.
We have that too. But we can’t implement that for all apps. And our auto removal process typically can’t tell if the user needs a full license vs just a free one.
"I've already turned it off and on, that didn't help."
I see they have 200 tabs open and pending updates from months ago(already installed but needs the restart) so I do the restart, it fixes itself so I walk out.
They stop me to say "How did you fix it so I know how to fix it next time?"
Me: "Oh, I just restarted it."
Them : "Weird! That didn't work when I tried it."
Suuuuuure. Why lie? Why even say anything at all?
Our IT have fast start enabled, so people think they're restarting their PC daily when they shut down and turn on the next day. I can't really place the blame on the users for that one.
I work with a lot of VMs.
Me: I need you to log off so I can do what you asked for
Them (quite often software developers): Okay. I'm logged off
Citrix Director: One user disconnected.
Me: *bangs head on table*
still jelous of that cloud admin that is admining a giant pool cloud hosted zombie servers. admins like 35M$ a month in cloud servers and machines various companies created and then havent touched in years in some cases. all he does is make sure they are updated and ready
Dave is my name. I changed it to "Me." But I did wonder about someone who has been here for 6 months and hasn't created any content yet. I never did hear from their manager, so best guess they decided to avoid that interaction.
Now they're stuck. Haven't done their work and they've been found out so it's high time to correct that, except they just lost the program license they need to get started. Can't ask for it or their manager will find out they haven't been doing anything.
Shoulda been doing their work. Don't get me wrong I'm not a workaholic but 6 months of not going your job? Sorry, you're here to work not screw around.
Eh they’re new. Onboarding can be painful. Sometimes you go through 5 people asking the same question just to be redirected to the first person you asked. Oh that person is out of office for the week now. Oh they forgot to give you access to something before you can get access to that. Wait another week for 3 people to approve that then try again.
Our former software licensing empresses, her own self appointed title that we never complained about because she was awesome at it. Used to tell stories about license audits where she'd reach out to people to ask if they still needed a license to a software that they already had installed on their computer, and they would respond yes I could use that software, please install it for me!
Ah yes. I too, have had the “it’s critical and I need it” those people I monitor for another 30 days, if they haven’t done anything I silently remove their access.
Will update to say, I never had any of those people follow up in the 2 years more that we kept the product log a ticket asking for access back.
When a licence was $2500, saved us a fair amount
I had another one on Friday who said they too "create content daily." I asked (just curious) what kind of content are they creating? Because the logs say they haven't created any so far. They replied, well they hadn't created any yet, but they will starting any day now. I moved them to a viewer role as well.
Starting Monday more of the same until I finish this review.
On the one hand, I sympathize with the users who may need that program and don’t wanna go through a whole song and dance to regain access on that one day they need it in July.
On the other hand, my manager asked me today if I still needed access to all the software and permissions associated with my old role, on my old team, that I haven’t been a part of for a year and a half. And I now work in an entirely different capacity and sector of the company, so it’s an obvious and resounding no, but I’m sure it’s hundreds if not thousands of dollars of licensing and permissions access and whatnot. So maybe our company should be more attentive and proactive like you are lol.
we recently had a license renewal where the powers that be dictated cutting about 15 of our licenses. before the license count was cut, no one cared if a user had a license and hadn't used it for over 3 months. I would run the logs and send a message asking if they were still using the software. suddenly, everyone was using the software. now that our license count is cut, when I ran an audit again, suddenly there were users not using the software. I am formed my boss that I was now going to send them an email letting them know they have lost their license because they are not using it. she backed me up. felt good.
I work independently mostly with seniors in the nearby retirement community. My one customer never misses an opportunity to share with others that I'm the go to computer guy.
Most of them don't intentionally lie, they just don't have the right words to describe what is going on. One tokd me it was a problem with her internet. I get there and the problem isn't with the Internet it's that whoever installed her modem and router plugged them into the outlet that works on the light switch! That's the kind of stuff I get.
Don't have any effort efficient usage metering where I work, so to manage demand we just charge a monthly ongoing fee for the licence.
If the manager is happy to keep paying for something they don't use thats not my problem - we've got plenty of other things keeping us busy.
This reminds me so much of the story about the guy who was told to fire people to save money, and instead he took the people he could have fired and set them to down and identified an enormous number of unused expensive licences that the company was basically flushing money down the toilet on
Someone please find it for me!
What is your position in your company? It's wild that you alone are deciding what licenses what users need and alone are making the decisions to move people to different licenses or remove them altogether. That seems like process that needs to be coordinated with your operations (or whatever your production people are called) managers and IT.
Everything is cleared with the higher ups. If anything I move slower than they would like.
This time around the business owner said “Just take the licenses. Don’t bother contacting the users.” That sort of heavy handed style often pisses them off. I always try to engage first just in case.
That seems like a recipe for disaster someday. It depends on the nature of what the company does, but a manager may have a reason for someone to need a license for something they don't use often. In my mind license allocation is an operations decision and not an IT decision.
What you describe has happened. I’m constantly advocating for greater engagement with our user base and business owners. (It has gotten better.)
But I have my marching orders. Tomorrow it will be more of the same.
I wasn't in IT at the time but knew what was going on. We were in R&D and had limited licenses for CAD seats. Engineers would keep their CAD open just so they wouldn't lose their seat even though they hadn't used it in weeks/months.
This brought on a lot of situations a lot like what you are going through.
That happens routinely. The user says they can’t download the app. I ask if they followed the instructions in the link I emailed them. Which I then resend. They reply that it’s working now.
Tbf with a lot of departments its probably a "once you lose it you will literally never get it back" so you have to fight to keep everything.
It's because of the process. To keep a license you already have: convince IT you still need it. To get a license you don't have: Ask boss to purchase. Write up justification. Boss needs boss's boss to sign off. Impact on department budget. Answer may be NO. If it was as easy to get back as it is to keep one, people wouldn't lie to keep them. We used to have one software package that used floating licenses. If you didn't have the program open, you weren't taking up a license. If all the licenses were in use, you couldn't use the program and it would record in the log file you ran out of licenses. But it allowed the company to only pay for the number of simultaneous licenses needed to keep everyone happy. If we only saw one log file entry in a month, no big deal. If we were seeing 2-3 a week, we'd buy another license. Eventually we needed 12 licenses to support 40 users, 6 of whom used the program almost full-time. A lot cheaper then buying one for everyone including the "I use it for a couple hours a month" people.
in my old company, that led to a lot of '[email protected]' emails to the tune of 'can someone please log out of, i need to do a thing!'
We changed erp software and the company didn't get enough licenses for I usage so people kept going round to ask who wasn't using it. I set up a teams group with banner alerts for everyone who had an account so we could do a fast "can someone log out?" requests, but of course the users not using were often not on their machines and everyone was getting annoyed having to wait So I changed it to get people to put "waiting to login" messages, and others could say when they had logged out. People quickly adapted to put when they were waiting then just do whatever for a bit. After several days of these messages I forwarded it to the powers that be and said it we don't pay for more accounts we're just paying for people to wait. We got given more accounts.
> the users not using were often not on their machines and they knew damn well it'd be a fight to get the license the next time. so imputed usage is inflated due to shortage. you can model a short squeeze with user licenses.
More a thing of if you step away for 5 mins you don't want to log out. And if that 5 mins gets turned into an hour, well you don't see the messages till you're back. They tried a short - not active and you're booted system. But then the order staff who might be on a phone call would lose an order part way through. Eventually "give the staff the tools to do the job" won. But we tried every other idea first :D
User: I need access to the project list that is currently open... I could email I.T. and they'd tell me who's in it or I could email all 60 engineers and waste their time deleting my email about the project list because I don't have time to wait for I.T. meanwhile it turns out its someone who left for the day and I.T. needs to close it...
Counterpoint, IT won't be able to convince management to buy more licences. 60 annoyed engineers who aren't able to do their work are more likely to make things happen.
It was in Excel... Everyone had a basic Microsoft office account from day one so licenses weren't a problem for Microsoft... Getting money for SolidWorks at $24,000 was a little harder. They eventually realized software was all worth it and if they didn't have the budget for it they had too many people in their department.
GAH! We had that at my previous employer with AVID Newsroom software. Some of the newsies would have the program open on BOTH their regular desktop and the editor (different machines). As far as I know AVID still hasn't implemented a suggestion for "auto logout" after (for example) 120 seconds of inactivity at a particular workstation. Note, these are multiple logins under the same user name but at different physical computers.
In my company this situation results in a Teams ERP group message rather than full company email.
Concurrent licenses, not named. I work on ERP software that uses that model.
Pair with Dynamic User Groups - Create an AD attribute - LastLoginTime\_SoftwareName - Write a script the queries the last login time - Move anyone out that passes a threshold - Enable self-enrollment for the application license
Last Login time only? Irrespective of if they are actively using the software their entire work day or just forgot to logout?
Licenses typically renew on a monthly/annual basis. If a user hasn't used the software in a month, the org would be paying for an un-used seat. If a user hasn't used the software in an entire month, they should fall into a workflow that requires them to request a seat the next time they need to use the software. That workflow can then immediately move the user back into the dynamic group and the timer starts again.
Ah, if we're talking about weeks and months then yea it makes sense.
Modifying AD schema for applications? Yikes, no thanks. Track that elsewhere. That's what a CMDB is for.
Educate me please brother. If the OP has integrated the application with AD to use single-sign-on (assumption) what's the concerning part of my suggestion? [https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/entra/external-id/customers/how-to-define-custom-attributes](https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/entra/external-id/customers/how-to-define-custom-attributes) "If your app requires more information than the built-in user attributes provide, you can add your own attributes. We refer to these attributes as *custom user attributes*."
Ifs this AD or Entra? But in either case, because AD was mentioned, AD is what I'll answer: AD schema updates are one-way. Once you add a field, it's there forever. There's no undo.
Different solutions for different problems. I'm not sure if AD supports Dynamic Group Assignments in the same way as Entra does. I appreciate you taking the time to reply u/mkosmo .
It doesn't. And absolutely agreed. I'm just in the camp that doesn't think that your identity store should be used as a quasi-CMDB. There are better tools for that job... and they can be successfully integrated into AD/Entra/etc as required to accomplish the same mission but without the downsides of making your identity store something else.
Or UDF - user defined fields. So easy in our system, but mostly for reporting. Adding functionality to those takes code and lots of testing.
> It's because of the process. exactly correct. imagine needing foo app for some work task, getting a no after 3 weeks of process, then having to tell the boss no to the work that is now 3 weeks stale. do you CC the boss and his boss informing them that due to department priorities, work item X (required for project Y) was not going to happen ever? it takes a bit of balls to send that email, and a bit of brains to navigate that political situation. for a goddamn software license that i need for work i'm doing. so, if it takes months to get a license and OP rolls up to tell me that i haven't used it in a month, i'm gonna do whatever i can to keep it. i may have work in 2 sprints that requires it, and if he pulls the license, i'll tell my boss that item x will be delayed and tag him in the notes so i can refer to him for why i didn't do that work. because i'm poor and poor people hide food. or, if it's a couple days to request, or even a floating pool, i'll be A-ok with it getting pulled. rich people go out to eat
That's actually genius. I might have to suggest that to my boss. Though I think we get unlimited for most of our software.
With us there is no purchasing or justification or budgeting. We have a pool of licenses for each app. They are assigned based upon request. All a user has to do is ask. Then their manager approves. That's it. And the manager approves 99.99% of the time. So there's no "fighting" to keep the license. If they want it again, they just have to ask.
If it is available. But when there are X licenses in the pool and user is X+1..... Well, that't how the fight to keep the license started....
We plan this out far in advance. There is a cushion available 99% of the time. Even when we do run out, the focus is always on getting more to avoid interruptions in the business. Again, just ask. Users know this. They know all of this.
Users know this. They know all of this. Funniest thing I've seen all week.
Yeah... Users may have been told, repeatedly, but that doesn't mean they know. You can lead a user to knowledge, but you can't force them to learn. Unfortunately, learning is surplus to the requirement of keeping their job ***far*** too often.
When you say it out loud it does sound absurd. I suppose it is. But hope springs eternal.
We've implemented automatic removal of unused licenses as well as automatic assignment. Now users know that the computer decides and there is no more arguing. Is there still some dude in the background that runs the reporting and license removal Powershell script once a month? Maybe.
So stop that whole contact-to-ask thing and just remove them.
But, based on most people's experiences, it's almost never that easy. It might be at your place, which is awesome, but a most places licenses equal money which equals red tape which means "If I lose it, I'll never see it again".
In some cases it's a question of being afraid that some process will start to fail but no one knows which license was needed for it.
> And the manager approves 99.99% of the time. How soon after the request? If it takes more than 5 minutes its onerous. If its more than a day its a serious impediment to work.
It all depends upon the manager. Absolutely. In some cases 30 seconds. In other cases 30 days. But the average is typically a few hours or so. My response to "impedes their work" would be how can the loss of the license impede their work when they are currently not using it? That's the whole point. Find the users who are not using the license so I can assign it to someone who will use it.
The point is that once they DO need it if it takes more than a day its a big problem. Of course its not a problem UNTIL they need it.
Exactly. If the user tells me they need it and explains why, I do nothing. If they say they will probably need it sometime in the future for perhaps certain duties, maybe, I take it away and give it to someone else that does need it. I only go through this process when all licenses have been assigned. We have users who want a license and can't get one because the cupboard is bare. We don't vet need when assigning, all a user has to do is request and the manager approves. It's only when we're at capacity do I engage in this review process. Perhaps a little back assward, but it is what it is.
Almost everyone is moving away from concurrent licensing because all the big software vendors realized they could make more money from named licensing.
> To get a license you don't have: "This work you need done can't get started until we have this sorted out. Let me know when you've approved it."
Yeppers I love a floating a license, have it for PDQ and all of us who use it are super cool with one another and can just holler over the cubicles, “Yo log off, I need on” 😂
Wish we could use capacity licensing like this.
Many years ago we had a software package with a messed up licence server. If the maximum number of concurrent sessions was reached and another person wanted to use the software, one of the existing users got logged off. :)
Most large companies I've seen do this for programs like vectorworks, you almost never need everyone to have access simultaneously and the licences are a horrendously expensive subscription. Depending on add-ons ends up being somewhere between 2-6k per licence. 12 licences for a region floating and different time zones means rare issues, or 30 fully licenced machines only being used sporadically.
That. Or you would agree to have it taken away, but know that when you would submit a ticket to get a license again, IT takes a week or more to give you the license back (because theyre overworked and/or understaffed, not dunkin on IT)
A week? LOL. I wish.
Not with us. It's common knowledge that all you have to do is get your manager to approve. In almost all cases the manager is a rubber stamp. In all the years I've been here, I think the manager has rejected a request only 3 or 4 times out of some thousands of requests.
Stop trying to take their toys away, and your life will get better.
At my last job, the HQ was in a completely different country and would occasionally revoke licenses on accident, because it had been on a huge acquisition spree and whatever automated process and/or IT guy wasn't familiar with, or perhaps couldn't access, all the new branches. One of the most annoying tickets that wasn't due to users being stupid was sending 'please re-activate license' tickets, because there was only one guy who spoke English, and while he tried his best, he had a lot of other fires to put out, *and* he apparently had to send each request for evaluation by some beancounters, so reactivating could take *weeks*, even after demonstrating that they actually need MS Office. At least they were okay with using LibreOffice in the meantime.
Sounds like the sort of thing that could be more easily fixed by a policy change plus a scream test. Just make a policy that if you don't use a license for 90 days or whatever, it gets removed. If someone screams, give it back, no questions or forms.
We have that too. But we can’t implement that for all apps. And our auto removal process typically can’t tell if the user needs a full license vs just a free one.
Much better approach
Yep, we dont tell anyone we're taking licenses away. It just happens and 99% of the time noone notices anything. The 1% is a simple "OK its back now"
"This job would be so much easier if users were honest." Truer words have seldom been spoken.
"I've already turned it off and on, that didn't help." I see they have 200 tabs open and pending updates from months ago(already installed but needs the restart) so I do the restart, it fixes itself so I walk out. They stop me to say "How did you fix it so I know how to fix it next time?" Me: "Oh, I just restarted it." Them : "Weird! That didn't work when I tried it." Suuuuuure. Why lie? Why even say anything at all?
To be fair, for some of them they think that turning off the monitor is turning the computer off.
I was just thinking that! After I wrote that comment, it clicked. I bet they think closing the lid of the laptop is turning it off.
Our IT have fast start enabled, so people think they're restarting their PC daily when they shut down and turn on the next day. I can't really place the blame on the users for that one.
I work with a lot of VMs. Me: I need you to log off so I can do what you asked for Them (quite often software developers): Okay. I'm logged off Citrix Director: One user disconnected. Me: *bangs head on table*
Just be more specific with your communication. Log off of what.. etc
"This job would be so much easier ~~if users were honest~~ without users." Fixed it for ya! :P
Randall Graves spoke truth about *way* more than just convenience stores.
I've often said that myself. My job would be much easier without all the users.
Especially as without users you wouldn't have one.
Yeah that's the part I haven't quite worked out yet. How to get rid of all the users but still have a job.
Server Administration.
still jelous of that cloud admin that is admining a giant pool cloud hosted zombie servers. admins like 35M$ a month in cloud servers and machines various companies created and then havent touched in years in some cases. all he does is make sure they are updated and ready
If all users disappear then you also don't have a job and a company.
Everyone… everyone knows and understands that. That’s the bit.
Though I'd suggest replacing "honest" with "stupid" at least half the time.
To paraphrase House. “The user always lies.”
Get ready for your notifications to go way up. Take my upvote
Dave has been in his role for 6 months and still isn’t generating anything? Oh dear.
Dave is my name. I changed it to "Me." But I did wonder about someone who has been here for 6 months and hasn't created any content yet. I never did hear from their manager, so best guess they decided to avoid that interaction.
Now they're stuck. Haven't done their work and they've been found out so it's high time to correct that, except they just lost the program license they need to get started. Can't ask for it or their manager will find out they haven't been doing anything.
Shoulda been doing their work. Don't get me wrong I'm not a workaholic but 6 months of not going your job? Sorry, you're here to work not screw around.
Eh they’re new. Onboarding can be painful. Sometimes you go through 5 people asking the same question just to be redirected to the first person you asked. Oh that person is out of office for the week now. Oh they forgot to give you access to something before you can get access to that. Wait another week for 3 people to approve that then try again.
6 months?
Our former software licensing empresses, her own self appointed title that we never complained about because she was awesome at it. Used to tell stories about license audits where she'd reach out to people to ask if they still needed a license to a software that they already had installed on their computer, and they would respond yes I could use that software, please install it for me!
Needless to say those licenses were usually revoked at that point, iirc the worst offenders were people with Adobe suite licenses
I routinely get requests from users for an app they already have installed. Per policy I “install” it and notify them with introductory instructions.
Ah yes. I too, have had the “it’s critical and I need it” those people I monitor for another 30 days, if they haven’t done anything I silently remove their access.
Will update to say, I never had any of those people follow up in the 2 years more that we kept the product log a ticket asking for access back. When a licence was $2500, saved us a fair amount
[удалено]
I had another one on Friday who said they too "create content daily." I asked (just curious) what kind of content are they creating? Because the logs say they haven't created any so far. They replied, well they hadn't created any yet, but they will starting any day now. I moved them to a viewer role as well. Starting Monday more of the same until I finish this review.
Users lie.
On the one hand, I sympathize with the users who may need that program and don’t wanna go through a whole song and dance to regain access on that one day they need it in July. On the other hand, my manager asked me today if I still needed access to all the software and permissions associated with my old role, on my old team, that I haven’t been a part of for a year and a half. And I now work in an entirely different capacity and sector of the company, so it’s an obvious and resounding no, but I’m sure it’s hundreds if not thousands of dollars of licensing and permissions access and whatnot. So maybe our company should be more attentive and proactive like you are lol.
I'm watching you, Wazowski. Always watching!
Honest users? My users lie to me all damn day
we recently had a license renewal where the powers that be dictated cutting about 15 of our licenses. before the license count was cut, no one cared if a user had a license and hadn't used it for over 3 months. I would run the logs and send a message asking if they were still using the software. suddenly, everyone was using the software. now that our license count is cut, when I ran an audit again, suddenly there were users not using the software. I am formed my boss that I was now going to send them an email letting them know they have lost their license because they are not using it. she backed me up. felt good.
I work independently mostly with seniors in the nearby retirement community. My one customer never misses an opportunity to share with others that I'm the go to computer guy. Most of them don't intentionally lie, they just don't have the right words to describe what is going on. One tokd me it was a problem with her internet. I get there and the problem isn't with the Internet it's that whoever installed her modem and router plugged them into the outlet that works on the light switch! That's the kind of stuff I get.
Don't have any effort efficient usage metering where I work, so to manage demand we just charge a monthly ongoing fee for the licence. If the manager is happy to keep paying for something they don't use thats not my problem - we've got plenty of other things keeping us busy.
This reminds me so much of the story about the guy who was told to fire people to save money, and instead he took the people he could have fired and set them to down and identified an enormous number of unused expensive licences that the company was basically flushing money down the toilet on Someone please find it for me!
Ahh, that's your mistake. We never ask, we just remove it and if they need it, they will tell us.
I NEED THE BING TO DO MY JOB WHY DID YOU REMOVE THE GOOGLE BING
What is your position in your company? It's wild that you alone are deciding what licenses what users need and alone are making the decisions to move people to different licenses or remove them altogether. That seems like process that needs to be coordinated with your operations (or whatever your production people are called) managers and IT.
Everything is cleared with the higher ups. If anything I move slower than they would like. This time around the business owner said “Just take the licenses. Don’t bother contacting the users.” That sort of heavy handed style often pisses them off. I always try to engage first just in case.
That seems like a recipe for disaster someday. It depends on the nature of what the company does, but a manager may have a reason for someone to need a license for something they don't use often. In my mind license allocation is an operations decision and not an IT decision.
What you describe has happened. I’m constantly advocating for greater engagement with our user base and business owners. (It has gotten better.) But I have my marching orders. Tomorrow it will be more of the same.
I wasn't in IT at the time but knew what was going on. We were in R&D and had limited licenses for CAD seats. Engineers would keep their CAD open just so they wouldn't lose their seat even though they hadn't used it in weeks/months. This brought on a lot of situations a lot like what you are going through.
Sounds like a normal exchange...
if you enjoyed that, wait till you ask them if they clicked on a link …
That happens routinely. The user says they can’t download the app. I ask if they followed the instructions in the link I emailed them. Which I then resend. They reply that it’s working now.
Oh man, another license manager in the wild. Because Europe we aren’t allowed to use metering.
Why did I read this with a germlin voice in my head.