License allocation priority
License Vault allocates licenses in the following order:
Prepaid product-specific licenses.
Prepaid pack licenses.
Postpaid product-specific licenses
For example, if a user requests a license for PyCharm, License Vault follows these steps to find a suitable one:
Check if any prepaid PyCharm licenses are available.
Check if any prepaid All Products Pack licenses are available.
Check if any postpaid licenses for PyCharm are available.
At each step, if a license is found, it’s allocated to the user. If not, License Vault moves on to the next step. If no license is found at the last step, License Vault denies the license request.
Smart license allocation
Every time a user starts a new product, License Vault follows the steps outlined above to provide a license. This means that users who already hold one or more product-specific licenses can, at some point, receive a pack license. Smart license allocation helps avoid inefficient license consumption in these cases.
An example of smart license allocation
Here’s an example of how it works. Let’s say your License Vault has licenses for PyCharm, CLion, and the All Products Pack. One of the users runs PyCharm and obtains a PyCharm license, then runs CLion and obtains a CLion license. They now hold 2 product-specific licenses.
If the same user runs IntelliJ IDEA, they'll receive an All Products Pack license, because no product-specific licenses for IntelliJ IDEA are available in your License Vault. Now, this user no longer needs the PyCharm and CLion licenses – both products are available with the All Products Pack. So the two product-specific licenses are automatically released.
As a result, this user now holds only 1 license instead of 3, while other team members can pick up the PyCharm and CLion licenses.