How ActivTrak Licensing Works

ActivTrak licenses are assigned on a per-user, per-computer, and per-domain basis, but what does all of this mean?

Once the ActivTrak Agent is installed, user tracking is automatic. Any user that logs into a computer where the Agent is installed will automatically be tracked and counted against user licensing quantities.

For example, if there are 5 employees (users) that need to be tracked, 5 licenses are needed. Now, let's say, Eva, one of the employees, signs into a guest profile on Bob’s computer that also has an ActivTrak Agent installed. Since Eva accessed a different user profile than Bob's, this is going to appear as a new user on the ActivTrak dashboard, which will create a 6th user and place the account over the original 5-license limit.

The reason a new user was created, taking up another license, is due to the fact that a new user profile was accessed on Bob's machine. New user profiles, on machines that are not domain connected, will count as a new user within ActivTrak.

Each computer shown in the image above is a stand-alone machine (not domain connected) which is why the Agent is not recognizing Eva and thus adds her as a new user. If you do not have Active Directory, Azure, or a similar environment, but want to track Eva's activity on Bob's device,  an additional license would need to be purchased. If two profiles for the same user exist within ActivTrak, an alias can be created to view the combined data in reports and dashboards. Please note that creating an alias will not reduce the license count. To learn more about reclaiming licenses, click here. 

You can also merge users when a user moves from one device to another. For example, if Eva’s laptop died and the company issued her a new one, that user/license can be merged with the new computer’s user/license to ensure her data is continuous across historical and future activity reports and dashboards. Learn how to merge users here.

Domain Connected:

Now let's say that the machines in the example above are domain-connected, and Eva accessed Bob's computer using her user profile credentials. This would not raise the user count in ActivTrak. If an organization uses Active Directory, Azure, or a similar environment, and all of their computers are bound to it (meaning regardless of which machine they access the same user profile is being used) this will count as a single user, keeping the original license quantity unaffected.

What if licenses are exceeded on my ActivTrak account?

Our paid plans include a 14-day grace period to make adjustments and avoid penalties or charges to the account. The grace period resets when the user count is less than or equal to the purchased license limit. The current user count/license limit can be found in the upper-right-hand corner of ActivTrak when you are logged into the account. The example below shows an account that has purchased 26 licenses, but is currently tracking 28 users and exceeding their limit:

An account Admin will need to either remove users and/or purchase additional licenses within the 14-day grace period. If no action is taken by the end of the grace period, data will still continue to be collected, but all App access users will be blocked from accessing the data and reports until license counts are rebalanced.

Free accounts do not include a grace period and will lose access to data and reports as soon as their 3 free licenses are exceeded. An account Admin will need to either remove users or upgrade to one of our paid plans. For more information about our paid plans and pricing, click here.

Learn More:

• Reclaiming Licenses
• How to Merge Users
• Create and Change Aliases
• ActivTrak Subscription Differences