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Alteryx Designer Desktop Knowledge Base

Definitive answers from Designer Desktop experts.

The Ins and Outs of Alteryx Licensing

KylieF
Alteryx Community Team
Alteryx Community Team
Created

This article provides an overview of all things Alteryx licensing. This includes our prerequisites for installing and licensing Alteryx, an overview of different ways to activate, links to helpful guides and how to best administrate your keys once activated.

Prerequisites:

Before downloading Alteryx, be sure your machine meets our technical requirements.

Downloading Alteryx:

All installers for Alteryx can be found through the licensing portal.


The licensing portal provides users with an active license key access to all products purchased and all versions of that product that are currently supported. For new users we recommend downloading our latest version, which will be under the ‘New Versions’ tab. Should your company have a standardized version of Alteryx or an Alteryx Server, we recommend matching this version. Should they be on an older version, the user can access these installers through selecting the version under ‘Previous Versions’.

If you don’t see the version of Alteryx you need, please reach out to the Fulfillment Team and they can assist you directly.

Licensing Requirements:

We recommend insuring that our services are white-listed by your IT group to insure the smoothest possible activation and set up process. Provided below are our current white-listing requirements for a successful online activation.

On 2018.3 or newer:
The white-listing requirements are provided below.


Older versions then 2018.3:
White-listing requirements for versions older then 2018.3 will be different then all new versions. See your version’s licensing criteria here.

How to Activate Alteryx:

Online Activation:
Online activation refers to inputting your license key into Alteryx through either the activation window, that appears upon opening Alteryx for the first time, or through Options > Manage Licenses > Activate New License. This method of activation is best for most users, as it allows a simple activation, easy transfer of licenses between users and devices, provides the ability to activate and deactivate any product keys that are no longer being used, and allows for the easiest administration of the keys for administrators.

To activate online, you will need to insure your IT department has completed the white-listing criteria above. This allows for direct communication with our services and the administrator licensing portal.

For further information about online activation please see our Online Activation Guide.

Offline Activation:
Offline Activation allows for those users who have restricted networks and are unable to communicate with our services to still activate Alteryx. This method does require the ability to access http://licenses.alteryx.com through an internet browser.

An important note is that this activation type does restrict an administrator’s control over the keys after initial activation. Offline activated machines do not communicate with our licensing platform and the administrator licensing portal. This will result in users being unable to deactivate a key they are no longer using without assistance from the Fulfillment Team, and administrators being unable to easily remove and reassign licenses through the administrator portal.

For further information about online activation please see our Offline Activation Guide.

Command Line Activation/Silent Activation:
Command Line Activation allows a license key to be activated by command line. This activation method is optimal for administrators who would like to push a license to a large number of users. Users’ IT groups can also install and activate Alteryx in batch through a script. Alteryx services must be white-listed to use this activation type.

For these commands please see our Command Line Options.

Alteryx License Server Activation:
The Alteryx License Server, or ALS, is a secondary product Alteryx can provide administrators to better assist them with networking based restrictions and large scale deployments. This product hosts the licenses internally, and thus requires users to redirect their Designer or Server to this licensing service. This can be done by going to Options > Manage Licenses > Activate New License > Selecting ‘To Access Your License Server, Click Here’.

Please note the first time connecting to your companies’ ALS, Alteryx will need to be run as Administrator to input the License Server’s URL.

For further information about connecting the an ALS please see our Activating Through ALS Guide. To set up an ALS please see our ALS Administrator Guide.

Transferring Licenses:
License can be transferred between users through the method below. This method only applies to users who have completed an online activation, for offline license transfer, please reach out to our Fulfillment Team.

In Alteryx:

  1. Click Options > Manage Licenses.
  2. Select the check box for each license you want to deactivate.
  3. Click Deactivate License.
  4. Click OK to confirm the deactivation.

Once deactivated the key will be open for activation on a different device or by a different user.

Should the device no longer be accessible please see our Revoke a License Help Documentation for how to remove a key from a inactive user or no longer accessible device.

Licensing Portal:

The Licensing Portal is a web based portal that allows access to all the product installers and associated licenses. The portal provides two views: End User and Administrator. End User is the default view, which only provides access to the product installers on Home Tab. The License Administrator view has access to downloads, licenses, machines and users.

Here is a summary of each tab provided by the portal:

  • Home: Provides access to all downloads for products that have been purchased as well as the Offline Activation Upload. End Users will only see this tab.
  • Licenses: Provides a list of all products and license keys associated with your group, and will include expiration dates, total seats and available seats. This allows administrators to identify keys with available seats and current products they have purchased that can be distributed to users.
  • Machines: Contains a list of all devices associated with your license group. This does include all devices that are currently or have in the past activated a license key associated with this group. This view can be filtered by license key and email address to provide filtered lists containing current active users on a key, or locate a specific user to identify the key they are activated on, if any. Administrators can also revoke keys from inactive users or inaccessible devices from this tab.
  • Accounts & Users: Accounts provides administrators a view of all the license groups they are associated with. This is beneficial for large companies who have multiple license groups. The Users view allows administrators to update or change a user’s permissions to the portal, including restricting access or providing a user with administrator permissions.

Should you have any other questions or need guidance on how to complete a task in the portal, please see our Administrator Check List, which provides direct links to all guides on all your permissions and abilities.

Common Errors:

Provided below is a list of the most common errors a user might run into and their fixes.

An important note to keep in mind when running into an activation error is the type of key you have. Keys with dashes are compatible with version 11.8 and newer, keys without dashes are compatible with version 11.7 and older.

Unrecognized License Key: This error typically occurs when you try to use the wrong key in the wrong version.

Cannot Reach The Licensing Service: The device cannot communicate with our services, this error is common with users who have restrictions networks or proxies in place. The best solution to this would be to have your IT department white-list our services with the criteria under Licensing Requirements. If they are unable to do so please try an Offline Activation. Please note it is best have your IT department assist with adjusting your network settings before doing offline activation as license management will be easier.

No Available Seats: The key the user is activating on has no seats left, please have your administrator check the licensing portal to identify any users can be removed from the key.

Cannot Connect To License Server: This error is common for users who have accidentally opened the ALS License Manager instead of the default License Manager. The best way to move past this error is outlined in this Knowledge Base Article.

Your error not here? Got questions about licensing requirements? Just want to say hi?
Reach out to the Fulfillment Team with a screenshot of your error or any questions you might have and they’ll be able to get you back up and running!

Comments
bkn12001
5 - Atom

 

I am currently a student and a Macbook user. Since Alteryx is not compatible with Macbooks, I am using my school's virtual windows software called Anywhere to access the software. Unfortunately, I had previously downloaded the Alteryx software through Anywhere on my Windows Desktop. The software worked flawlessly and I was able to successfully log in with my license key. My school requires that downloaded software/applications be saved to the pdrive in order to access them again when logging in to Anywhere. 
 
Today, as a result, I had tried to reaccess Alteryx through Anywhere but it had uninstalled from my desktop. I re-downloaded Alteryx to my pdrive in Anywhere, but when I try to activate it with the same license key I originally used I get an error message saying "There are no available seats for this license key 
 
Please let me know if there is a way I could use the same or different license key to activate Alteryx
KylieF
Alteryx Community Team
Alteryx Community Team

Hi @bkn12001 

 

Since your license is a part of our AFG program, you'll need to reach out to our Fulfillment team at fulfillment@alteryx.com to retrieve it. They'll be best able to assist you!

AStasi
7 - Meteor

We're working though this issue with our rep, but we noticed that when the Alteryx Server Additional Capacity license was applied though the offline process, it would only use up 1 license seat. 

 

For example, if we had the following

  • 4 core primary node (controller, mongo, gallery)
  • 4 core worker node
    • When the additional capacity license was applied offline, we'd expect to have 2 seats taken from that license, but it appears to take only 1 seat in the license portal

Is there a different process for offline activation to specify the number of seats to use on a secondary node?  I know you can change the number of seats in the license portal, but it doesn't appear to have an option to reproduce a .bin file after you increase the seats.

 

Based on the documentation it sounds like the key should automatically detect the number of cores on the machine but it doesn't appear as that is what is happening though the offline activation process

AStasi
7 - Meteor

After talking to the fulfillment team.  

 

If you are using the new Alteryx Server Additional Capacity license on a multi-node instance AND you're activating offline, you'll need to work directly with the fulfillment team to modify your licenses.  

 

The offline activation cannot accommodate a license key that is multi-seat license.  It's possible it might work when just scaling up, but definitely didn't work when scaling horizontally.  Fulfillment was able to swap our key out for multiple keys to activate. 

 

Ideally the license portal would have a way to assign the number of seats to a node offline and then produce the bin file that is uploaded to the server.