Need multiple licences for same app in Testing & Production environments?

[jase]

I'll give you a moment to roll your eyes and let out a collective sigh at a licencing question 😉 (licencing drives me nuts).

Let's say we have a user called Bob. He's a lovely chap and supports [-insert your favourite sports team here-] 😊, so you'd like him too. He is going to use just one model driven app. Now, Bob is going to use the app when its live, but he's going to help out testing it first. Bob is not licenced under a per user licence, but will use the app under a per app licence.

So, for Bob to test the app in our Testing environment, and then use it in the live Production environment, will we be able to use just one licence for Bob, or do we have to purchase/use up two?

Thanks.

[AhmedSalih]

@jase , what is the type of your Development Environment? Developer, Sandbox, or Production?

[jase]

We have 3 environments which are all Production: Development, Testing, Production.

Feel free to point out we're doing it wrong!

[AhmedSalih]

@jase , What I meant is the Type, for the Developer type you don't need a license for the users, but for the Sandbox and Production, you do.

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[jase]

I think we are talking about the same thing (I've attached an image from the admin centre).

[AhmedSalih]

@jase, All your Environment are Production type:

Bob 😀 will need Per User license to access that app on those three environment, per app license won't be sufficient.

[jase]

Thanks @AhmedSalih . In that case, would you suggest we do things differently in future with regards to the environment types? Should only the live/production be of type Production and the others Sandbox?

[LinnZawWin]

@jase 

That'll be an ideal scenario to have the live/production as Production and the others as Sandbox. If you need to refresh the Dev/Testing environment from another environment or restore from the back, you can only restore to the sandbox environments.

You can change the type of your existing environments from Production to Sandbox.

Anyway, switching your Testing environment to sandbox still would not solve Bob's licencing problem. You will still need to buy x2 "Per app plan" for him to access the app in both environments if he is going to access the app concurrently (e.g. test the new version of the app in the Testing environment while using the live version of the app in Production as part of his day-to-day job).

But if the app is a brand new app and he is only going to test for the initial phase and not anymore after going live (unlike the scenario above), you may get away with one Per app plan. As mentioned in this thread, you can temporarily share the app in the Testing environment, unshare the app after the testing to free up the license and use it for production. 

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@ChrisPiasecki wrote:

The Per app license is assigned upom sharing an app with a user. To free up the license, you would need to unshare apps in that environment for a user.

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[jase]

Thank you for your help @LinnZawWin, and for your previous answers @AhmedSalih .

It is much appreciated. 

[LinnZawWin]

@jase I am glad to know that our responses are helpful to you.

If any of the responses from the community members solved your problem, can you please mark it as a solution to close this thread? That will be useful for others in the community who come across this thread to identify the solution easily.