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Hi,

I would like to share a piece of information on a term which you may have heard of more than once in the world of business software. It is none other than "license".

In software industry, a software license can be defined as an agreement that gives an individual, a company or an organization permission to use a software application. The same applies to IFS. A license is required in order to use IFS Applications.

When you are dealing with customers, it is highly probable that you have encountered several types of licensing. Let me give a brief idea on types of licensing in IFS applications.📝


💡There there are 4 types of licenses.

1. Full User
2. Limited Task User (LTU)
3. Additional Task User (ATU)
4. Custom Task User (CTU)


Let’s understand what those are a little bit more. 🔎

1.Full User License

  • This is the most common license consumed by majority of users

An F1 user will consume one full user license if :
🔹The user is a registered F1 user and is active.
🔹The F1 user is granted access to at least one permission set, that is not a Technical permission set (FND_RUNTIME) and not an LTU (Limited Task User) permission set.

Exception: exceeded LTU(LTU limit) license will count as Full User license. 📈



2.Limited Task User (LTU)

 

  • LTU is a license limiting the functionality.
  • A user can consume this license instead of a Full User License.
  • An LTU license is bound to a permission set.

An F1 user will consume one limited user license (LTU) “X” if :
🔹The user is a registered F1 user and is active
🔹The F1 user is granted access to permission set “X” and not to any other permission sets (Excluding FND_RUNTIME or other LTU permission sets).



3.Additional Task User (ATU)

 

 

  • An ATU license is bound to a predefined permission set delivered by IFS.

An F1 user will consume one additional task user (ATU) license, “X”, if :
🔹The user is a registered F1 user and is active
🔹The F1 user is granted access to permission set “X”.
🔹This is a license that is additional to the Full User license. So that a Full User, by default, would not get an ATU licensed functionality.

Business Scenario: This type of limited license is used to control number of users allowed for built in third party tools or other extension to IFS.Currently it's used for Oracle Autovue document viewer, Bing Map and Fndmig Excel Plugin.



4.Custom Task User (CTU)

 

 

  • This license is used when we want to control usage of IFS Applications where the user is not a Foundation1 User.
  • The license consumption is calculated using a specific view, instead of counting F1 users.

A user will consume one custom task user (CTU) license, "X", if:
🔹The user is having access to specific functionality in IFS Applications that require a custom task user license which is defined by the CTU it self

Business Scenario: Normally this type of user license is PD maintained. These are licenses that are not delivered within full user licenses. Eg: time clock, shop order workbench and data warehouse collection.

I hope this information would be useful. See you soon with another post.

/Mino

 

We plan to go live in May of 2020 and we have a number of users who will only be using IFS to enter and approve purchase requisitions.  Is there or could there be a CTU license developes for these users?

We plan to go live in May of 2020 and we have a number of users who will only be using IFS to enter and approve purchase requisitions.  Is there or could there be a CTU license developes for these users?

You will need a LTU license for this. LTU is based on permission set which needs to be created once and will then be read only after the creation of the corresponding license by IFS.

Bernd, thank you for your response.  Which party is responsible for creating the permission set for the LTU license?  Is that something that we as the customer would create and submit for approval to IFS or does IFS create that based on our requirements?

Bernd, thank you for your response.  Which party is responsible for creating the permission set for the LTU license?  Is that something that we as the customer would create and submit for approval to IFS or does IFS create that based on our requirements?

That’s correct, customer creates the permission set, exports it and then send it to the corresponding IFS colleague and we will create a new license file with the LTU permission set included.

 

Beforehand the customer needs to clarify the license change with IFS sales to get the necessary information for IFS internal ready to create the new license file.

Chris,
I can help you with that.

  1. Create a dedicated permission set in your system controlling access to the approval of Purchase Requisitions.
  2. Test it well. Make sure that this permission set includes all access required (except FND_RUNTIME). In other words the user who is going to use this LTU license should be only granted this permission set and FND_RUNTIME, nothing else.
  3. Create the case with IFS (it will go to me :grinning: ) and I will take it from there.

Mateusz Klos

I think it is worth reiterating that for an LTU the permission set needs to be pretty much set in stone before sending to IFS/implementing as an LTU.  Adjusting an agreed-upon LTU permission set at a later time will invalidate the license and will require going through the certification process again.

As I understand it (maybe someone from IFS can confirm?) the LTU must also be fairly limited in scope.  I’m not sure how IFS quantifies what is really ‘limited' in this sense, but for example I don’t believe that you can create a permission set with access to the majority of your system and try to implement that as an LTU.

Nick

An important clarification about CTU licenses is that they can also be required in addition to a Full Use license.  For example, a user who uses multiple areas of IFS as well as something like Shop Floor Workbench or who is a Timeclock user, will consume both a Full Use license and a CTU license.

The key is to recognize that a Full Use license doesn’t by itself allow for use of CTU functions.

Nick

I think it is worth reiterating that for an LTU the permission set needs to be pretty much set in stone before sending to IFS/implementing as an LTU.  Adjusting an agreed-upon LTU permission set at a later time will invalidate the license and will require going through the certification process again.

As I understand it (maybe someone from IFS can confirm?) the LTU must also be fairly limited in scope.  I’m not sure how IFS quantifies what is really ‘limited' in this sense, but for example I don’t believe that you can create a permission set with access to the majority of your system and try to implement that as an LTU.

Nick


Hi Nick,

This LTU licence is used when a Full User license is not accepted by the customer due to very limited use of IFS Applications for some users. 

The license is connected to a Sales Part that is defined and owned by Sales. So Each LTU is a separate Sales Part and should be mapped to a permission set. In LTU the permission set is created by the IFS project and should cover only the parts corresponding to the sales part.

Yes.. you are spot on. IFS would not create permission set with access to the majority our system as a LTU. 

Can someone guide us that these licences have a fixed price from IFS or it varies in countries? If so, does IFS provide specific price for each country? Does it depend upon the number of users? I am really confused and my IFS provider is unable to help us.

Hi, 

I am new to this community. I would like to check if there is such a thing as concurrent user license in IFS and if so, what would the license cost be like? I am in discussion with client on IFS implementation and was quizzed on this.

Can someone guide us that these licences have a fixed price from IFS or it varies in countries? If so, does IFS provide specific price for each country? Does it depend upon the number of users? I am really confused and my IFS provider is unable to help us.

 

It goes from the agreement between the parties. Important cost factors are the type of access, hosting maintenance and number of users.

Hi, 

I am new to this community. I would like to check if there is such a thing as concurrent user license in IFS and if so, what would the license cost be like? I am in discussion with client on IFS implementation and was quizzed on this.


As far as i know, only the owner gets simultaneous access to the IEE. Mobile is possible.

If a LTU is created with an “over allocation of access” (but not as excessive as a “majority” of our system), is it possible to deny specific users to part of the LTU grants.


Example:  If my LTU contains read access to Inventory Parts, Sales Parts, and Safety Incidents.  Can I  assign the LTU to two different groups and deny access to Safety Incidents to one of those groups?​​​​

 

A follow up question; Is there a minimum quantity of seats when defining a LTU?  Could I purchase just one seat of a configuration?

 

If a LTU is created with an “over allocation of access” (but not as excessive as a “majority” of our system), is it possible to deny specific users to part of the LTU grants.


Example:  If my LTU contains read access to Inventory Parts, Sales Parts, and Safety Incidents.  Can I  assign the LTU to two different groups and deny access to Safety Incidents to one of those groups?​​​​

 

A follow up question; Is there a minimum quantity of seats when defining a LTU?  Could I purchase just one seat of a configuration?

 

Hi @dabele ,

 

 @dabele ,

First check, when you deny access to Safety incidents.. does that includes any presentation objects, projections, or any permission grant set structure. For example, If that Safety Incidents, includes any related presentation object, and you change it.. there is a probability that your LTU gets invalid. If so, it’s better you can request an LTU for that requirement only. Then you can separately handle grants to Safety Incidents.

Regarding the follow up question, I'm not so clear on what it is you're asking about?..
but if you are asking about minimum LTU user limit? There is a maximum limit, but no minimum limit. 
Or if your question is about minimum number of permission sets you can use for LTU? If so, it’s based on the requirement. 

but if the question is about any other, please let me know :relaxed:

 

@Minoshini Fonseka 

I  have some questions about LTU and CTU. 

  1. As IFS customer, can I request many LTU account for my company ? As far as I know, one customer just requests one LTU account.
  2. Can One LTU account include many different permission sets? And the permissions sets are Read only permission, or  Read & Write access Permission  ?
  3. Is CTU only used for shop order workbench and data warehouse collection? And is there any other using scenarios for CTU? 
  4. Can CTU combine many different permission sets? 

   

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