Altium Designer provides a streamlined licensing system, enabling you to get licensed and up-and-running with your Altium Designer Software in a timely and efficient manner. The system offers various licensing types to meet, and suit, your licensing needs. This includes web-based, on-demand licensing. Tightly integrated with customer accounts through the Altium portal, web-based on-demand license management allows a license to be used on any computer without the need to move license files or activate on each machine. This provides a global floating license capability – within the geographic scope of your license and the conditions set out in the EULA – without needing to implement your own server.

For answers to some of the most commonly asked questions in relation to the Altium Designer Licensing System, be sure to take a look at the Licensing System - FAQs page.

License Types

The Altium Designer licensing system features three distinct license types:

• On-Demand – client-side license acquisition is administered by an Altium managed server. There are two 'modes' when using a seat of an On-Demand license:

On-Demand – a seat of an On-Demand license acquired by any client computer, only while you are signed in to your account. When you sign out, the seat is released so that another user can acquire it.

Roaming – a seat of an On-Demand license acquired for a specified time. In this mode, you can sign out and work offline, in essence roaming freely with your acquired seat.

• Standalone – client-side license acquisition is managed by the user themself through use of a licensing file (*.alf). This file can be saved, copied and backed-up as required. The .alf file is reusable on a home computer (in accordance with the EULA) simply by copying the file to a specific folder on that computer and then adding the file as part of Standalone License Configuration.

• Private Server – client-side license acquisition is administered by a user-managed server. Your administrator sets up a Private License Server to access and use Private Server licenses. Once the license is in use on the server, that server will then serve the license to local computers. Users on the local network do not need to sign in to their Altium accounts to acquire the seats from the Private License Server.

License Availability, Selection and Configuration

Main articles: Using an On-Demand License, Using a Standalone License, Using a Private Server License

License configuration and selection is performed from Altium Designer's My Account page (DXP»My Account). This is 'command central' for obtaining a license. Sign-in to your Altium account and view and select On-Demand licenses available to you. Add a Standalone license file. Or, connect to your Private License Server and use a seat from any of the associated Private Server licenses made available to you by your network administrator.

Whether using an On-Demand license, Standalone license, or Private Server license, the Available Licenses region of the page will automatically present the specific licenses available to you. Choose the license that you want to use and then click on the applicable command, depending on how you want to use that license.

The My Account page is your interface to all things licensing. After signing in, you can be up and running with an On-Demand license in a
couple of clicks!

License Attributes

Your Altium Designer license defines the conditions under which your right to use the software can be exercised and has the following key attributes:

• Start and End dates or duration

• The Permission set of a given license defines which features of the software the license owner can use. Permission sets are associated with software major versions.

• The License usage contractually defines the environment in which, and the purpose for which, the license can be used.

• The License type defines the relationship between the license and the hardware on which the right to use the software can be exercised.

• The User count determines the number of seats on the license that may be in use at any one time.

Browser-Based License Management & Reporting

Main article: Altium Account Manager

To complement Altium Designer's licensing system, browser-based license management and reporting is provided, courtesy of the Altium Account Manager. Access the Account Manager from myaccount.altium.com, then sign-in using your Altium Account credentials.

The browser-based Altium Account Manager.

The Account Manager allows you to firmly control how the licenses you purchase are assigned within your organization and lets you view license activity. Use of the Account Manager includes:

• Defining Users associated with the account – essentially a database of people who will be using the licensed seats of the software.

• Defining Groups – allowing you to further organize your users according to, for example, the particular section of the company in which they are involved, or the design team they are in.

• Managing your On-Demand licenses – with the ability to allocate a license to a specific group or groups, and specify how many seats of that license are effectively shared across the groups to which it is allocated. Group-specific attributes such as whether or not roaming with the license is possible and the maximum roaming period, can also be defined.

• Obtaining statistics for a nominated license – showing weekly or monthly usage graphs and on which day the maximum number of concurrent seats for the license were used.

Use the Altium Account Manager to define who can use the licenses for your organization, then view statistics of their actual use, on a weekly or monthly basis.