ServiceDesk

Hi,

Can anyone clarify how the licensing works in SD7. Is the same as in Helpdesk 6?

I understand you only consume a license when you are 'editing' ro 'creating' and incident, but does the same still apply to logging a call from the winuser page?

Regards Steve

Only a worker consumes a license.  If you have the worker console open, you will consume a license.  If you have the winuser console open, it does not consume a license.

You can check your license count in SD7 any time by visiting this link, provided you view the link from the SMP/NS7 server:
http://yourhostname/Altiris/ServiceDesk/Licensing.asmx?op=GetLicenseCount

Does this answer your question?

Yip, thanks very much. Thats good to know.

With regards to the 'GetLicenseCount', it just seems to return a Soapbox page?

That normal?

Cheers Steve

I'm not sure what you mean by soapbox page.

Hi,

Ok i think this is what i'm after.

Please see this feature request KB 47012

https://kb.altiris.com/display/1/kb/article.asp?aid=47012&n=11&s=

We are trying to accurately determine how many licenses we need to purchase for Service Desk 7

A tool which could monitor the maximum amount of licenses used at any given time and then calculate an Average count. This would allow us to prove if we either need to purchase more licenses or less or in fact change the structure of our Helpdesk group and the way we log incidents ect....

Must be someone out there who has had similar requests?

regards Steve

What we did was determined the number of users who were typically active simultaneously in our old system, then added 2.  After Helpdesk became more ingrained in business process, we would hit the license cap.  If we hit the license cap, I would run the report showing current license use.  I would then walk to their desks and see if they were actually using it.  If not, I reminded them to close the browser when they're done.  If we hit the cap multiple times without any "inactive" workers consuming licenses, we added 2 licenses.  By this method we went from 8 to 12 licenses, where we sit today.

You can create a SQL table with columns for 'Timestamp' and 'LicenseCount' and then have a SQL INSERT statement or Stored Procedure that runs via schedule in SQL Server agent that inserts the timestamp and number of licenses in use at that time.

This is the INSERT statement I use to track this into a table called [Test_Altiris].[dbo].[historical_HD_license_count]:

USE altiris
INSERT INTO [Test_Altiris].[dbo].[historical_HD_license_count]([timestamp],[count])
SELECT getdate(),count(worker_name)
FROM HD_worker_view
WHERE worker_active_access ='1'

Here's a sample of the output:

id         timestamp                           count
----------- -----------------------                    -----------
1          2009-12-22 08:34:53.003   8
2          2009-12-22 08:35:03.677   7
3          2009-12-22 08:42:16.600   6

Then you can just run a report against that table to get the max count over a specific date/time range.

Thanks for your input guys,

Matzebru, would you use this sql query for Service Desk 7?

Symantec have quite a usefull tool used for Helpdesk 6 which i've listed below, however i cant seem to find anything for the new Service Desk 7

KB 48464

Steve

Sorry should have specified  - That query is for Helpdesk 6. I was never aware of the XML file in KB 48464. I guess I never looked for it since we've been using the query instead :) Thanks

Hi Matzebru,

Would you happen to have the sql query which can determine how many Helpdesk licenses are actually in use for Service Desk 7?

The query used in Helpdesk 6 doesn't apply as this used the HD_worker_view table.

I think in Service Desk 7 they use 'licensestatus' or 'licenseinuse' table

I'll look to use this query in a Automation policy, which would email me the results every 5 mins, so i can determine over a 1 week period what my peak usage is, as i think we need to buy more licenses than we currently have.

Thanks