How to Increase or Decrease the Number of Licenses in Your Group That You're Billed For

or

Scenarios: 

• "I would like to understand the relationship between licences and group members."
• How to assign licences to members.
• How to increase or decrease the number of licences you are billed for each billing cycle.

Transcript

	[Beatriz] Hello everyone. I’m your host Beatriz for this vodcast, and today I’m joined by Aaron and Noelle.
	[Aaron] Hi there! [Noelle] Hello!
	[Beatriz] So Aaron, our objective today is to discuss the relationship between XPunch licences and members, is that correct?
	[Aaron] That’s right. We want to look at a group’s balance between licenses and members as that dynamic changes over time when people come and go within the group.
	[Noelle] So, this video is for XPunch group administrators and managers that want to maintain their group members, licences assigned to those group members, and the available pool of licenses in the group.
	[Beatriz] Now you said something interesting there Noelle. You said “pool of licenses.” What do you mean by that?
	[Noelle] Yes. XPunch has corporate level features that allow administrators to create and assign various levels of permission to group members. At the highest level are the group administrators.
	[Aaron] Only administrators see the “Billing & Licenses” tab in the menu.
	[Noelle] And, only administrators can adjust the number of licenses that are available in XPunch. No one else.
	The reality is, Beatriz, many administrators do not want to have to deal with the day-to-day changes that occur in their group as members come and go. Many administrators only visit XPunch any time they want to address a payment source issue, or modify the pool of licenses that are available to their managers to use.
	[Beatriz] Oh! I understand. I’m going to try and be intuitive here, but I’m guessing that managers can assign and unassign those licenses to members that come and go.
	[Noelle] That’s right Beatriz. So often, administrators will say. “Okay, our members usually fluctuate between… say… forty and fifty at any given time. So, I’m just going to set the number at fifty."
	[Aaron] This leaves a pool of fifty licences for their managers to assign and unassign to members.
	[Beatriz] Now, of course, I imagine one of the administrators could come in at any time and readjust the number of licenses that are in the pool. I’ve seen this concept of subscriptions to licences before. They have them in products like Microsoft Office and Google Workspace.
	[Aaron] Yes! You’re absolutely right about that. Microsoft and Google work on the same principle. You have this pool of licenses that the credit card holder assigns to their group, but they’re often not the ones assigning and unassigning those licenses to their members.
	[Beatriz] So, Noelle, it’s entirely possible that at any given time there are some licenses that aren’t assigned to anyone that are being billed for.
	[Noelle] Yes, that can happen. It depends on the administrator’s approach. If they want to have a sort of “hands off” approach, then they’ll just assign the maximum number of licenses they think their group will ever need and walk away until one of their managers says either, “Okay, we need more licenses…”
	[Aaron] “…or we need fewer licenses.”
	[Noelle] Right. Now other administrators—especially in smaller organizations—they take more of a “hands on” approach, usually because they’re more involved with the day-to-day operations of the group. So, in scenarios like that, they will immediately ensure that the number of licenses they’re paying for match the number of active members in the group.
	[Beatriz] Okay. Can I just ask you something? Could you walk me through the whole lifecycle of, say, a brand-new group getting set up and then members come and go?
	[Aaron] Sure. We can do a “speed demonstration” of this.
	[Beatriz] Okay. I’ve done one of these before with you. So, for our listeners out there, I just want to remind you that you can pause or slow down the video if we’re going too fast for you. You can also turn subtitles on.
	[Noelle] I want to also remind our listeners that XPunch is a continually evolving product and so what you see in your XPunch group’s interface may be different from what you see on screen here today. But, the feature is there. It may look different, or it may be in a different location—but it’s there.
	[Beatriz] So, Aaron, I have this brand-new group. I’m the administrator. I have nine employees at the time I create the group.
	[Aaron] Okay. So, including you, that makes this a group of ten people.
	[Noelle] That means you’re going to want to have a total of ten licenses available to use in your pool of licenses.
	[Beatriz] Alright. Let’s go buy some licenses.
	[Aaron] Since you’re the administrator, you see the “Billing & Licenses” tab. Head over there and buy some licenses.
	[Beatriz] Now, wait a moment. I see I already have some licenses.
	[Aaron] It’s possible that you already have some complimentary licenses, yes. I see you have three.
	[Beatriz] So, I only need to buy seven licenses?
	[Noelle] That’s right.
	[Beatriz] Okay. So, I’m going to purchase seven “Basic” licenses.
	[Beatriz] Yes, I know where to go and what to do to add new members to the group. I just go over to the “Configuration” page and select the “Members” card. And, thanks to the magic of time-lapse photography, I’m going to quickly create nine members.
	[Aaron] You’re goooood, Beatriz.
	[Beatriz] I know. Now, as I’m creating these members, I’m going to assign them a license: either the complimentary ones, or the ones that I just purchased. I just want to say that Gregory is my proverbial “right-hand man.” He is my manager and handles all of the day-to-day stuff for me, and so when I was creating his profile, I assigned him the permission set called “Manager.”
	[Noelle] There you go. You’ve now got a group with ten licenses and ten members.
	[Aaron] And, I just want to point out that Gregory will be able to assign and unassign licenses to people, but he won’t be able to touch how many licenses are in the group’s pool of licenses. If you want to modify that, you will have to do that—or another administrator.
	[Beatriz] Hypothetically, if I wanted to, I could identify other people as administrators, right?
	[Noelle] Yes. If you have a business partner that should be able to handle things like billing and invoices from XPunch, you can go into that person’s profile and set their status as administrator. We recommend doing this because it provides a “fall-back” person for whenever you’re ill or on vacation or forget your password. That person can take over and get things back on track in the group.
	[Aaron] But, I think we’re getting off track in the conversation.
	[Beatriz] Okay. Let me see. I’m trying to think of a scenario… Oh yes! Let’s say that I have a member leave the group. What do I do? Let’s say that Gregory, my manager, handles this.
	[Aaron] Okay, so if it’s Gregory the manager, then he will simply want to “archive” the member.
	[Beatriz] What is that? What is “archive?”
	[Noelle] Archiving a member does a few things. Namely, it puts the member “out of sight,” and at the same time, archiving a member will “free up” the licence that person had and return it to the ”available” licences pool.
	[Aaron] So, you now have a group of ten licenses and nine people.
	[Beatriz] So, there’s a license that I’m still paying for but that no one is using, right?
	[Noelle] That’s right. Now what you want to do with that license is up to you.
	[Aaron] You, as the administrator (not Gregory) could come in and lower the number of licenses in the group by “1” if you wanted to.
	[Noelle] Or, you could just leave it if you expect that you’ll be replacing the member that left soon and let Gregory handle that.
	[Beatriz] Oh, I see. I’m starting to understand how this works now. Alright, so we are indeed expecting someone to replace the member that just left. What do I do?
	[Aaron] Gregory just creates a new member and assigns that member one of the “available,” licenses from the available-license pool.
	[Beatriz] Okay. Let’s have him do that. Gregory… create a new member and assign that member a license!
	[Noelle] Voila. He did it.
	[Beatriz] Can we do this again? In this scenario, I have two members that leave and I know that I’m not going to be replacing them. Now, I understand that XPunch’s mission statement is to offer its product at as low cost as is possible… but, let’s say I don’t want to continue paying for those two “available” licenses. What do I do?
	[Aaron] You as the administrator can go in and reduce the quantity of available licenses in your monthly subscription by returning to the “Billing & Licenses” page.
	[Noelle] Select an active subscription and choose the “Adjust quantity” option from the overflow menu item.
	[Beatriz] That’s it? It’s that easy?
	[Aaron] Yup. Now, there are some other features that we’re not mentioning since this is just a basic overview.
	[Noelle] Yes, there are things like the ability to assign and unassign licenses to members right at the moment that you adjust the quantity. But, I think we’ll let you figure that out on your own.
	[Beatriz] Now, I don’t think we need to do this in the video, but say I suddenly hire five people. I’m guessing that I just increase the number of available licenses and I create members and assign them to those licenses, is that right?
	[Aaron] That’s right.
	[Noelle] Personally, I like to create the members first, and then increase the quantity, assigning those new licenses to the new members as I go… but that’s just me.
	[Aaron] To each their own. [laughter]
	[Beatriz] Yes, I think I’ll be able to figure this out by intuition alone. But, I would like to summarize what we’ve accomplished here. We just saw that the number of licenses in a group doesn’t fluctuate based on how many active members there are in a group. Instead, the two operate independently in some aspects to allow for a manager to take care of day-to-day business without giving that manager access to critical functions like deciding how many licenses our group pays for each month. We saw how to create members and assign them licenses, and we saw how to archive members, which automatically returns the member’s license back to the pool of available licenses in the group. We also saw how to adjust the total quantity of licenses in a group. Now, does that about sum it up?
	[Aaron] I think so. And, I just want to mention, that XPunch clearly indicates how many licenses are being used and how many are available. Thank you for watching.
	[Noelle] Bye everyone!

	Beatriz	Aaron	Noelle
	[Beatriz] Hello everyone. I’m your host Beatriz for this vodcast, and today I’m joined by Aaron and Noelle.
		[Aaron] Hi there!	[Noelle] Hello!
	[Beatriz] So Aaron, our objective today is to discuss the relationship between XPunch licences and members, is that correct?
		[Aaron] That’s right. We want to look at a group’s balance between licenses and members as that dynamic changes over time when people come and go within the group.
			[Noelle] So, this video is for XPunch group administrators and managers that want to maintain their group members, licences assigned to those group members, and the available pool of licenses in the group.
	[Beatriz] Now you said something interesting there Noelle. You said “pool of licenses.” What do you mean by that?
			[Noelle] Yes. XPunch has corporate level features that allow administrators to create and assign various levels of permission to group members. At the highest level are the group administrators.
		[Aaron] Only administrators see the “Billing & Licenses” tab in the menu.
			[Noelle] And, only administrators can adjust the number of licenses that are available in XPunch. No one else.
		The reality is, Beatriz, many administrators do not want to have to deal with the day-to-day changes that occur in their group as members come and go. Many administrators only visit XPunch any time they want to address a payment source issue, or modify the pool of licenses that are available to their managers to use.
	[Beatriz] Oh! I understand. I’m going to try and be intuitive here, but I’m guessing that managers can assign and unassign those licenses to members that come and go.
			[Noelle] That’s right Beatriz. So often, administrators will say. “Okay, our members usually fluctuate between… say… forty and fifty at any given time. So, I’m just going to set the number at fifty."
		[Aaron] This leaves a pool of fifty licences for their managers to assign and unassign to members.
	[Beatriz] Now, of course, I imagine one of the administrators could come in at any time and readjust the number of licenses that are in the pool. I’ve seen this concept of subscriptions to licences before. They have them in products like Microsoft Office and Google Workspace.
		[Aaron] Yes! You’re absolutely right about that. Microsoft and Google work on the same principle. You have this pool of licenses that the credit card holder assigns to their group, but they’re often not the ones assigning and unassigning those licenses to their members.
	[Beatriz] So, Noelle, it’s entirely possible that at any given time there are some licenses that aren’t assigned to anyone that are being billed for.
			[Noelle] Yes, that can happen. It depends on the administrator’s approach. If they want to have a sort of “hands off” approach, then they’ll just assign the maximum number of licenses they think their group will ever need and walk away until one of their managers says either, “Okay, we need more licenses…”
		[Aaron] “…or we need fewer licenses.”
			[Noelle] Right. Now other administrators—especially in smaller organizations—they take more of a “hands on” approach, usually because they’re more involved with the day-to-day operations of the group. So, in scenarios like that, they will immediately ensure that the number of licenses they’re paying for match the number of active members in the group.
	[Beatriz] Okay. Can I just ask you something? Could you walk me through the whole lifecycle of, say, a brand-new group getting set up and then members come and go?
		[Aaron] Sure. We can do a “speed demonstration” of this.
	[Beatriz] Okay. I’ve done one of these before with you. So, for our listeners out there, I just want to remind you that you can pause or slow down the video if we’re going too fast for you. You can also turn subtitles on.
			[Noelle] I want to also remind our listeners that XPunch is a continually evolving product and so what you see in your XPunch group’s interface may be different from what you see on screen here today. But, the feature is there. It may look different, or it may be in a different location—but it’s there.
	[Beatriz] So, Aaron, I have this brand-new group. I’m the administrator. I have nine employees at the time I create the group.
		[Aaron] Okay. So, including you, that makes this a group of ten people.
			[Noelle] That means you’re going to want to have a total of ten licenses available to use in your pool of licenses.
	[Beatriz] Alright. Let’s go buy some licenses.
		[Aaron] Since you’re the administrator, you see the “Billing & Licenses” tab. Head over there and buy some licenses.
	[Beatriz] Now, wait a moment. I see I already have some licenses.
		[Aaron] It’s possible that you already have some complimentary licenses, yes. I see you have three.
	[Beatriz] So, I only need to buy seven licenses?
			[Noelle] That’s right.
	[Beatriz] Okay. So, I’m going to purchase seven “Basic” licenses.
		[Aaron] In this brand-new group of yours, you’ll also want some members as well.
	[Beatriz] Yes, I know where to go and what to do to add new members to the group. I just go over to the “Configuration” page and select the “Members” card. And, thanks to the magic of time-lapse photography, I’m going to quickly create nine members.
		[Aaron] You’re goooood, Beatriz.
	[Beatriz] I know. Now, as I’m creating these members, I’m going to assign them a license: either the complimentary ones, or the ones that I just purchased. I just want to say that Gregory is my proverbial “right-hand man.” He is my manager and handles all of the day-to-day stuff for me, and so when I was creating his profile, I assigned him the permission set called “Manager.”
			[Noelle] There you go. You’ve now got a group with ten licenses and ten members.
		[Aaron] And, I just want to point out that Gregory will be able to assign and unassign licenses to people, but he won’t be able to touch how many licenses are in the group’s pool of licenses. If you want to modify that, you will have to do that—or another administrator.
	[Beatriz] Hypothetically, if I wanted to, I could identify other people as administrators, right?
			[Noelle] Yes. If you have a business partner that should be able to handle things like billing and invoices from XPunch, you can go into that person’s profile and set their status as administrator. We recommend doing this because it provides a “fall-back” person for whenever you’re ill or on vacation or forget your password. That person can take over and get things back on track in the group.
		[Aaron] But, I think we’re getting off track in the conversation.
	[Beatriz] Okay. Let me see. I’m trying to think of a scenario… Oh yes! Let’s say that I have a member leave the group. What do I do? Let’s say that Gregory, my manager, handles this.
		[Aaron] Okay, so if it’s Gregory the manager, then he will simply want to “archive” the member.
	[Beatriz] What is that? What is “archive?”
			[Noelle] Archiving a member does a few things. Namely, it puts the member “out of sight,” and at the same time, archiving a member will “free up” the licence that person had and return it to the ”available” licences pool.
		[Aaron] So, you now have a group of ten licenses and nine people.
	[Beatriz] So, there’s a license that I’m still paying for but that no one is using, right?
			[Noelle] That’s right. Now what you want to do with that license is up to you.
		[Aaron] You, as the administrator (not Gregory) could come in and lower the number of licenses in the group by “1” if you wanted to.
			[Noelle] Or, you could just leave it if you expect that you’ll be replacing the member that left soon and let Gregory handle that.
	[Beatriz] Oh, I see. I’m starting to understand how this works now. Alright, so we are indeed expecting someone to replace the member that just left. What do I do?
		[Aaron] Gregory just creates a new member and assigns that member one of the “available,” licenses from the available-license pool.
	[Beatriz] Okay. Let’s have him do that. Gregory… create a new member and assign that member a license!
			[Noelle] Voila. He did it.
	[Beatriz] Can we do this again? In this scenario, I have two members that leave and I know that I’m not going to be replacing them. Now, I understand that XPunch’s mission statement is to offer its product at as low cost as is possible… but, let’s say I don’t want to continue paying for those two “available” licenses. What do I do?
		[Aaron] You as the administrator can go in and reduce the quantity of available licenses in your monthly subscription by returning to the “Billing & Licenses” page.
			[Noelle] Select an active subscription and choose the “Adjust quantity” option from the overflow menu item.
	[Beatriz] That’s it? It’s that easy?
		[Aaron] Yup. Now, there are some other features that we’re not mentioning since this is just a basic overview.
			[Noelle] Yes, there are things like the ability to assign and unassign licenses to members right at the moment that you adjust the quantity. But, I think we’ll let you figure that out on your own.
	[Beatriz] Now, I don’t think we need to do this in the video, but say I suddenly hire five people. I’m guessing that I just increase the number of available licenses and I create members and assign them to those licenses, is that right?
		[Aaron] That’s right.
			[Noelle] Personally, I like to create the members first, and then increase the quantity, assigning those new licenses to the new members as I go… but that’s just me.
		[Aaron] To each their own. [laughter]
	[Beatriz] Yes, I think I’ll be able to figure this out by intuition alone. But, I would like to summarize what we’ve accomplished here. We just saw that the number of licenses in a group doesn’t fluctuate based on how many active members there are in a group. Instead, the two operate independently in some aspects to allow for a manager to take care of day-to-day business without giving that manager access to critical functions like deciding how many licenses our group pays for each month. We saw how to create members and assign them licenses, and we saw how to archive members, which automatically returns the member’s license back to the pool of available licenses in the group. We also saw how to adjust the total quantity of licenses in a group. Now, does that about sum it up?
		[Aaron] I think so. And, I just want to mention, that XPunch clearly indicates how many licenses are being used and how many are available. Thank you for watching.
			[Noelle] Bye everyone!