Subscriptions and licenses

Getting software produces several different things, and they are deliberately kept apart. Knowing which one you are looking at is the difference between “we paid for this” and “this robot may actually run it”.

Thing	What it is	Where you see it
Acquisition	Your account holds the product. One per product, per account.	Marketplace, My apps
Subscription	The commercial agreement behind it — the plan you pay on.	EntitleKit, Billing
License	A signed grant that says what may run, for whom, how many, and until when.	EntitleKit, Licenses
Assignment	One seat of a license, given to one terminal.	EntitleKit, on the license

An acquisition without a license is software you own but nothing may run yet. A license with no free seats is a license you cannot extend to another robot until you reclaim one.

Offers and what they commit you to

The terms come from the offer that applies to your account on the listing — the listing shows the one offer in force for you (a product may carry other offers managed on the publishing side). An offer states four things:

• Price and currency, or free.

• How it is licensed — free, perpetual, subscription, or approval-required.

• Who it is for — public, or restricted to named accounts.

• Whether an approval is needed before a license is issued, and who makes that decision. See When a license needs an approval.

Because the terms live on the offer, changing plans is a separate, explicit step: in EntitleKit you preview a commercial change and see exactly what it will cost and alter, then confirm it. Nothing changes on the preview.

Seats and assignments

An account-held license carries a quantity — the number of seats you bought. A seat is not in use until you assign it to a terminal.

• Assign a seat to give one robot the right to run the software.

• Unassign to take the seat back. It returns to the pool and can be given to another robot.

• You cannot assign more seats than the license carries. The platform refuses the extra assignment rather than quietly over-committing you.

Some licenses have no seat pool at all, because the robot itself holds the license. That model is described in How a robot gets licensed.

Validity, renewal and revocation

Every issued license carries a valid-from and valid-to. Before it lapses, renew it from EntitleKit to extend the window; the renewed license is re-signed and keeps the same seats and scope.

A license can also be revoked — by your own administrator, or by an outside authority that granted it. A revoked license stops conferring rights immediately, and its assignments stop with it. The record of the license and of the revocation is kept: history is never rewritten, and a correction is always a new entry rather than an edited one.

Who can do what

Viewing the catalog, acquiring software, assigning seats, approving requests, deploying to robots and managing billing are separate permissions. Your administrator can grant them independently, so a person who assigns seats every day does not need the authority to buy, and a billing manager does not need the authority to deploy. If an action is refused, the permission is what to ask for. A newly granted permission can take up to about a minute to take effect, so an action refused right after a grant is worth retrying.