License modes

OLCS can operate in three different modes but they cannot be mixed on a single Connect system. The three modes are: Basic, User and Click Charge.

The Basic, unlicensed mode:

  • allows non-interactive job submission.
  • is free to use.
  • confirms job transmission with a message in the Notification Area (also called the "system tray").

The User and Click Charge modes are licensed modes in which:

  • interactive job submission is possible.
  • the user’s default browser is launched to display web content produced by a Connect server.
  • the Connect Send database is filled with domain, workstation ID, document information and page count information.

When a license is exceeded, Connect Send functions in unlicensed (Basic) mode.

Note:   Whilst Workflow is running in the 30 day trial period, OLCS will behave as if it was licensed.

Basic mode

Basic mode is free to use. This is the default mode. An OL Connect Send license is NOT required.
This Basic (or Unlicensed mode allows users to push documents to Connect Send. They will receive a pop-up message in the Notification Area confirming whether the job was received or not, but the printer driver will not request another web page, so no web interaction is possible.
Workflow will not save any information in the database (see Job Processor plugin).

User mode

User mode requires either a license limiting jobs submissions to specific domains (or subdomains) or a license that allows job submission from any domain, but from a limited amount of users (Enterprise).

The restricted (sub)domain licenses can be restricted to a specific number of users (10, 25, 50, 100, 200 or similar) or they can be unlimited.

The non restricted (sub)domain licenses are limited to 1000 users (Enterprise).

Whilst (sub)domains might need their own (sub)domain/user license, multiple (sub)domains/users licenses can be added to a single Connect system, allowing job submissions from multiple domains.

The restricted (sub)domain user mode license is actually bound to the world wide unique combination of (sub)domain, machine name and user name.

Note: Prior to OLCS version 1.8 user-based licenses did not count the number of users initiating print jobs from a single machine\system. This was changed in version 1.8, to more accurately count individual users.

For each incoming job, the domain name, the machine name and the user name (Unique User Slot Identifier or UUSI) are combined and matched against the license. The following checks are done:

  1. If the UUSI already exists, the job is accepted.
  2. If the UUSI does not exist then,
    • If one is available, this new UUSI will be added and the number of free user slots reduced. The job will be accepted.
    • If one is not free, the system will check to see if there is any UUSI that has not been used during the last 30 days. If found, it will be replaced by the new user and the job will be accepted.
    • If one is not available, it will still be accepted, but only in unlicensed mode. The end user will get a message indicating that the job was received in unlicensed mode.

No page count checking is done for this mode.

Click Charge mode

Where the domain and the number of users is unknown at the point of sales – for example a public service driven by users creating their own accounts via the web for onboarding documents -, the Click Charge license can be used. It allows any number of domains and users to submit jobs into the Connect system, providing credits are available.

  1. This mode enables the Printer Driver to request a web page (which could include a preview of the document) from Connect. For each job that is received, the Job Processor plugin records key data in the database.
  2. One click equals one page (any size) of the submitted print job. The number of copies (if used) is recorded in the database, but not used for click calculations.
  3. The click charge for all incoming jobs is counted upon receipt, but if a job fails for any reason, then the click count is restored as if the job was not received.
  4. Each incoming job is checked to see if the number of pages will result in remaining credits. If so, the job will be accepted, otherwise it will be treated as "unlicensed" and no credits expended.
  5. All jobs from any IP, user, domain or machine will be allowed, if there are credits available.
  6. New Click Charge licenses are added to Connect. Each new Click Charge buy will be reflected by an additional entry in the license file itself, indicating the newly purchased credit amount. The license check algorithm sums up all entries.

    Example: A customer purchases a click charge license on 1st January 2016 with a credit of 100,000 pages. At the end of March, they determine that their remaining credits (20,000) won’t be sufficient for some big jobs they are expecting and so they purchase another 100,000 credits. The issue date of the new credits is 1st June 2016. The new credit balance will be 120,000.

When running in licensed Click Charge mode, the number of available credits will be written to the Workflow log.

Incoming print jobs and the license

Each incoming print job is checked against the license to determine if it can be handled in licensed mode or in unlicensed mode (see License modes ). Here are some examples to clarify this.

Scenario 1

OLCS is licensed in Click Charge mode with 10,000 pages. They have already used 9,870 credits, so 130 are left.

  • Case 1: A job comes in with 40 pages. This job can be handled in LICENSED mode, so this is a "licensed job".
  • Case 2: A job comes in with 243 pages. This is more than 130. This job is handled in UNLICENSED mode (reduced metadata and no database entries). This is an "unlicensed job".

Scenario 2

Perpetual license with domain = "some.phantasy.com" and number of licensed users = 100.

  • Case 1: A job comes in from the domain “some.phantasy.com” and from a machine named "KATERKARLO". The domain is right and this is the first job, so KATERKARLO is added to the UUSI and handled in LICENSED mode.
  • Case 2: Meanwhile many, many users have printed from that domain, so all 100 UUSI’s (Unique User Slot Identifiers) are full (100 different machine names are in the list). A user sends a job from a machine named "MICKEYMOUSE". This machine name is NOT in the list. Connect checks the existing UUSI’s to see which one has not sent a print job for the longest amount of time. Let us say, this machine has the name "DAISYDUCK".
    • Option 1: DAISYDUCK hasn’t sent a print job in the last 12 days. Since this is less than 30 days the UUSI cannot be released and so the incoming job from MICKEYMOUSE is processed in UNLICENSED mode.
    • Option 2: DAISYDUCK hasn’t sent a print job in the last 42 days. Since this is more than 30 days the UUSI will be released and so the incoming job from MICKEYMOUSE is processed in LICENSED mode.
  • Case 3: A job comes in from domain "starship.enterprise.it". This domain is not licensed, so this job is considered an “unlicensed job” and will be processed in UNLICENSED mode.