Contents
Licensing and Compliance
This topic introduces the concepts, terminology, and procedures relevant to the Genesys licensing system. It also discusses the legal concepts and responsibilities for the licensed use of Genesys products.
Introduction
For Genesys products, Licensing is a broad subject and includes several areas:
- Licensing terminology
- Legal definitions and responsibilities for licensed use of Genesys products
- License controls
- Usage reporting for licensed products
- Compliance activities
Past versions of this Guide have focused solely on deployment and management of Flexera license controls. In this topic, additional information is provided on the broader obligations of licensing, and how tools such as license controls and usage reporting are part of the overall licensing environment.
Licensing Terminology
In the Genesys business environment, the term "Licensing" can refer to a number of things. To ensure smooth implementation and problem-solving, it is important to be clear and consistent when discussing licensing topics. The definitions below are a guide to how these terms are used at Genesys and in this Guide.
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Term |
Definition |
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Compliance |
Ensuring that customers are using product according to product licensing terms and conditions, and investigating and resolving any potential violations. |
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Entitlement |
The customer’s entitlement consists of software licenses purchased and actively maintained under a Genesys Maintenance and Support Agreement. Entitlement consists of sellable items, license types, unit of measure, and period of ownership, all of which are noted on the Maintenance and Support Agreement. Understanding customer entitlement is a key part of Genesys technical licensing, usage reporting, and maintenance contracts. |
|
FlexNet Publisher, |
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License, |
The legal/contractual right to use a specific Genesys software product according to the applicable license terms and conditions granted by Genesys (NOT technical licenses). |
|
License Controls |
Tools that restrict or control use of a Genesys product by setting limits on maximum quantity in use or deployment parameters. Genesys uses FlexNet Publisher for this. |
|
License File |
A software file containing product information and a specific quantity of technical licenses required to run the Genesys products purchased. Each customer using products that require technical licenses is provided a license file by the Genesys Licensing team for use with the FlexNet Publisher system. |
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Technical License, License Key |
Refers only to the technical licenses (license keys in general industry terms) provided in a license file that enable specific quantities of a software product or component to be used. Note: A Genesys product that uses technical licenses may require one or more technical license types to enable the product to function. Many Genesys products do not require technical licenses at all. |
|
Usage Reporting |
Compliance tools that report actual usage of licensed products (expressed by sellable items), based on information generated from the products themselves. |
Legal Definitions and Responsibilities
Genesys customers, like most software customers today, do not actually purchase the software itself (in other words, the actual source code and right to use or modify as they wish). Instead, they are granted the right to use the software on their own premises by way of a purchased software license, or hosted by Genesys on a rental basis, such as the Genesys Engage cloud offerings. The goal is for the vendor to be paid fairly for all use of Genesys software and intellectual property at all times, while allowing customers to enjoy the maximum benefit from the software licenses purchased.
Software Licenses
For premise customers, a software license is a legal contract granting the purchaser the right to use the software product according to the particular terms of the license.
At Genesys, the terms of a software license are determined by several things:
- The overall contract executed between Genesys and the customer (generally the Genesys Master Software Licensing and Services Agreement, “MSLSA”). This contains the broader terms and definitions of Genesys licensing and points to other documentation that describes the details for various product licenses.
- The order placed by the customer indicates the product sellable items purchased and unit of measure purchased.
- The software maintenance agreement renewed annually with Genesys for ongoing product maintenance and support.
- Other sources of product detail regarding licensing that may be found on the Genesys customer Care Compliance website. This may include migration and other information that describes entitlement changes over time.
Note that software licenses allow for use as designed and documented, but will not allow the user to modify the actual software code itself. This is specified in the MSLSA.
It is the responsibility of Genesys partners and customers to understand and comply with all contractual licensing terms and conditions, and report and correct any deficiencies or violations. The Genesys Compliance team is a resource for additional information on license compliance.
Cloud Offerings
For Genesys Engage cloud customers, the software is not licensed, use of the software is purchased as a service. Cloud offerings may include different units of measure and time units (ex. subscription vs. pay-per-actual-use), but the key difference is that customers usually do not receive the actual software, they simply access and use software instances that are hosted in the Genesys environment. So for pure Genesys Engage cloud offerings, there are no licenses issued and no license compliance tools required. In a hybrid cloud offering, customers may use some software on their premises, and some on the Genesys Engage cloud. In those hybrid scenarios, the software installed and used on the customer premises is subject to the same software license terms and conditions as any other software purchased from Genesys.
License Controls
License controls are systems and processes that provide a technical method of enabling use of a licensed software product and/or preventing use of products beyond the entitled quantity. The point of license control systems is to make it technically impossible (short of expert hacking) for a user to use more of the product than their license entitles them to use, by controlling key software components. Typically this has been done via the use of software license keys, although hardware methods such as dongles are still used by some.
License keys can be provided different ways. The most common ways include:
- a single key to a single point of use, common with products installed on a single desktop computer, verified during the installation process. An example would be desktop OS installation.
- a request to central server(s) that store all the keys and grants them to applications on demand. This is more typical in enterprise software environments, and sometimes now in licensed mobile applications.
At Genesys, license keys were introduced in the early version 7 product releases, and applied to most of the core Genesys products. Like other software vendors, Genesys uses the license controls to limit use of certain components to the quantity required by the product licenses purchased by customers.
Some third-party products Genesys resells may also require license keys, but typically these are proprietary and are provided by the third party through the Genesys Licensing team.
Genesys license controls use Flexera's FlexNet Publisher system, which has been the leading product of its type for many years. FlexNet Publisher uses the central server model, in which Genesys provides the customer a central license server to install, and a valid license file containing license keys. Each Genesys application requests license keys either on startup or in real time operation as needed.
The deployment and management procedures for FlexNet Publisher are provided in Technical Licensing Requirements of Genesys Products section of this guide.