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Adobe License Manager

FAQ

Adobe License Manager (ALM) software automates the tracking of Adobe desktop software licenses and enables businesses to proactively manage and administer volume product licenses while minimizing the resource and cost burden associated with manual license management.

General information

What benefits does ALM offer my organization?

ALM is designed to relieve many of the burdens of software license management by focusing on the management of the software entitlement, rather than the applications. Its tools and reports provide complete visibility over your organization’s installed Adobe licenses (for e-license enabled products), and it alerts administrators to key licensing events. By automating these core tasks, ALM eliminates the need for system administrators to manually track licenses or reconcile against purchases, freeing them for higher value activities and helping your organization keep operational costs down.

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What kind of information does ALM provide about my organization’s Adobe licenses?

ALM delivers near real-time information about the licenses of ALM-enabled products that have been downloaded by end users and where they reside. You can easily see how many licenses are available and when you need to purchase additional licenses. Administrators also have the ability to export the information to be incorporated into other applications such as asset repository and analytical tools.

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What happens when my license pool runs out?

All organizations are granted—at no additional charge initially—overdraft licenses, which allow organizations to install and use all capabilities of the software when it’s needed and acquire full license rights on a reasonable schedule (as determined by Adobe).

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What are the key licensing events to which ALM will alert me?

ALM automatically alerts IT managers and other designated administrators to instances of low license counts, end-user downloads of overdraft licenses, and times when your pool runs out of permanent and overdraft e-licenses.

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When do users need to download an e-license?

With ALM, users simply download an e-license from their organization’s stored pool of licenses at any time during the first 30 days of using the Adobe application. Once the e-license has been downloaded it remains on that machine as long as the user needs it, so there is never a need to reconnect to the pool of licenses.

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What happens to an e-license if a user changes/upgrades computers or no longer needs the application?

Even though the license remains on that user’s machine, the license is not tied to that machine. The user can return the e-license to the license pool at any time by simply selecting an option from a menu in the application. When software is removed, users are instructed to return the e-license first.

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How does ALM affect the experience end users have with the software?

ALM has been designed to have minimal impact on the overall user experience. In addition, system administrators have the option to make ALM completely invisible to end users, and it has no adverse effect on their experience with Adobe products. You can decide how much of the e-license download process is exposed to the end user in order to make it consistent with existing company practices and policies.

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With ALM, what kind of control do I have over my organization’s e-license usage?

When deploying ALM in-house, IT administrators can establish specific license controls by designating which users and/or computers can download e-licenses for specific ALM-enabled Adobe desktop software titles.

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Who sets up e-licenses for a new order?

You must set up e-licenses for all new orders of ALM-enabled products. You set up e-licenses for your orders via the Adobe Licensing Web site (LWS). E-licenses are set up by the Ship To for the orders. New orders awaiting e-license setup are visible under the Ship To account only for that order. E-licenses cannot be setup for an order by the End User.

The process is tied to the way companies purchase software. The premise is that a multi-site company may not want to manage e-licenses the same way across all sites. Adobe does not make any assumptions or decisions regarding the hosting model. The choice is left to the Ship To user.

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How do I set up e-licenses for my order?

E-licenses must be set up in the Adobe Licensing Web site (LWS) for all new orders of ALM-enabled product (Acrobat 8 for Windows only as of late 2006). This process is mandatory. It is no longer possible to deploy AOO software with just an installer -- on media or via ESD –- and a serial number. Without setting up e-licenses for an order, deployment of your software will not succeed.

Follow these steps to setup e-license for your order:

  1. Log into the Adobe Licensing Website at https://licensing.adobe.com.
  2. Click “Setup e-licenses for new orders”.
  3. Decide whether to enable or disable electronic license management. (By default, electronic license management is enabled. If you disable e-license management, you must download and deploy the Client License Setup file that disables ALM in the product.)
  4. Choose where to host your pool of e-licenses:
    BASIC:
    - Choose Serial Number-Only. (Zero configuration required. E-licenses are hosted at Adobe in a completely anonymous way using only the serial number. This hosting method works for most customers.)
    ADVANCED:
    - Adobe-hosted: E-licenses are hosted at Adobe with custom settings such as capturing machine name in licensing reports. (Enables administrators to know where each e-license is downloaded.)
    - In-house: Install the Adobe License Server Tools software to manage your pool of e-licenses inside the company firewall.
  5. Download the Client License Setup file corresponding to the advanced hosting method you selected.

After you download your custom Client License Setup file, you must configure Acrobat 8 for deployment. (Customers do not need to configure anything when choosing to manage their e-licenses using the Serial Number-Only method, the most basic.)

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Do I get to decide where to host my pool of licenses?

You can choose to host your license pool on your own server (using Adobe License Server software, available at no cost to all volume license customers), or let Adobe hold it for you in our centralized, Internet-available system. You can even divide your license pool in two, holding some licenses in-house and hosting some at Adobe. When hosting licenses at Adobe, you can also select the tracking and reporting functionality that best suits your company’s business and privacy needs.

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When users start up Acrobat 8, they are seeing the error: "An e-license cannot be downloaded". What's going wrong?

Prior to the release of Acrobat 8, Adobe products could be deployed with just the installer files and a valid serial number. With the ALM electronic licensing embedded into Acrobat 8, the process now requires a different approach. In order to deploy Acrobat 8, you must setup e-licenses for each order in the Adobe Licensing Web site (LWS). When, and only when, this setup is complete, a deployment of the product with the installer and a serial number is possible, depending on the Hosting Option you selected for the e-licenses. By selecting the Serial Number Only e-license hosting method, you can continue to deploy Acrobat 8 with just the installer files and serial number, once your e-licenses have been setup through LWS.

If you are seeing the “An e-license cannot be downloaded” error, the chances are that either the e-license setup has not been completed, it has been completed incorrectly, or the installation package being used does not match the options selected during license setup.

To setup the e-licenses for your volume licensing order, log into LWS with your user name and password. After logging in, choose the task "Setup e-licenses for new orders". Then simply follow the prompts and documentation found online.

If you have setup the e-licenses and are still seeing this error, it is likely that you made selections that require the deployment of a customized client setup file. The error is occurring because you have either no, or the wrong, customized client setup file. For complete details on managing e-licenses, please read this document which explains how to deploy the product with a client setup file..

If you have already setup your e-licenses with options that require a customized client setup file, and subsequently decide you would prefer to use the simpler Serial Number Only option, please contact your local Adobe Customer Support representative and they will help reconfigure your preference in LWS.

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Can I deploy Acrobat 8 without ALM?

Adobe is offering a one-year transition period, starting in November 2006, during which you may opt out of e-licensing. To do so for new orders, log into the Adobe Licensing Web Site with your user name and password. After logging in, choose the task "Setup e-licenses for new orders". Follow the prompts until you are offered the choice of managing your licenses electronically: pick "Disable e-licensing" and ALM is switched off. From the following page, download the customized client setup file¸ and prepare your installation package in accordance with this documentation.

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If I host my e-licenses in-house, does any information get transmitted to Adobe?

When you host e-licenses in-house, no information is ever transmitted to Adobe. In-house ALM software embedded in Adobe applications does not connect outside your firewall.

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If I host my e-licenses at Adobe, does any information get transmitted to Adobe?

In cases where the license pool is hosted at Adobe, IT administrators specify what information is transmitted to Adobe. Administrators set options on the users’ machines either to make the e-license request anonymous or to include the Host ID of the machine requesting the e-license.

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What information does ALM make available to administrators for further reporting or inclusion in other systems?

ALM enables administrators to export license activity reports including information about the type of license downloaded (permanent or overdraft) and the machine that it was downloaded to (the machine name or Host ID is included only if the administrator set up the account to allow such information to be sent to Adobe and saved on Adobe’s database). The exported report can be manipulated with reporting tools, as well as imported into your organization’s centralized asset repository.

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What does Adobe do with the information about the e-licenses my organization has downloaded?

Any information Adobe receives about the e-licenses your organization downloads is used for customer service and support, and then only upon your request. It is never used for sales or marketing purposes.

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What does ALM cost?

ALM is being incorporated into Adobe desktop applications as a standard feature at no additional cost to customers who purchase ALM-enabled software through any of Adobe’s volume licensing programs, regardless of where your pool of e-licenses are hosted. An overdraft license allotment is always included in every new order whenever you designate where your license pool is hosted.

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We already use discovery and inventory tools in our company. How does ALM compare to such tools?

ALM has been specifically designed to simplify and automate the management of software licenses for Adobe desktop products, tracking each entitlement as an electronic license. Discovery and inventory tools typically collect information about the files installed on a computer hard disk that may represent a specific version of an application, independent from any license right.

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What about standards for software asset management? Does Adobe support any industry standard for this purpose?

Adobe fully endorses the new industry standard for software asset management processes (ISO 19770-1). We believe it is an excellent step in the right direction that will help companies adopt best practices for managing software assets. Unfortunately, the new standard only defines the processes that a company should follow to satisfy corporate governance requirements and ensure effective support for IT service management overall. A new standard (ISO 19770-2) has been proposed to enable software and tools vendors to effectively define a reliable way to identify and discover applications, but such a standard is not expected to be completed until 2010 at the earliest. In addition, it is unclear whether the proposed standard will include any information about the actual software entitlement (the license) that a company acquires when buying software applications.

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Which platforms will ALM support?

Initially, ALM software will be available on Windows® platform. Additional platforms will be considered as Adobe desktop applications expand beyond these operating systems.

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Why is Adobe not offering ALM on the Mac platform?

Adobe is taking a phased approach to the ALM rollout to ensure that the solution works well on each platform and is optimized for the needs of each environment. We plan to make it available on the Mac platform in the future.

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Will the ALM implementation on the Mac platform be any different than what you’re delivering for Windows?

Adobe will deliver the same capabilities for ALM on both Windows and Mac OS; however, it will be adapted to the look and feel and technical implementation of each specific operating environment.

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Which Adobe applications will include ALM?

Adobe will incorporate ALM into its most popular desktop applications as new versions are announced, enabling organizations to track and manage their Adobe software licenses consistently. ALM capabilities will evolve over time, delivering increasing value and service to all our customers.

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When can I expect ALM to begin shipping in my Adobe products?

The first Adobe desktop product featuring ALM is expected to ship in late 2006.

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Recent ALM enhancements

When my users first start Acrobat 8, they are unable to download an e-license and are placed into a 30-day trial. Do the enhancements fix this problem?

Yes. Once Acrobat 8 is installed with a valid volume licensing Serial Number, any user that has Internet access will be able to download an e-license from your default Serial Number Only pool. You may track and manage the e-license download activity by accessing the Serial Number Only Activity Report, available on the Adobe Licensing Web site.

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I have selected an e-license Hosting Model other than Serial Number Only, but my users are unable to download an e-license? Do the enhancements fix this problem?

The enhancements will ensure that your end users can obtain an e-license and access their software. The problems they have experienced to this point are related to a misconfiguration of the installation package: although you have selected another Hosting Model, the installed copy of Acrobat 8 is attempting to download an e-license from a pool stored in a Serial Number Only pool at Adobe. The enhancements will permit your user to obtain an e-license. However, you should refer to the Configuration Acrobat 8 with ALM guide to fully configure your installation package if you wish to use a Hosting Model other than Serial Number Only.

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I have chosen to disable e-licensing, but my end users are still experiencing failed attempts to download an e-license? Do the enhancements fix this problem?

The enhancements will ensure that your end users can access their software by downloading an e-license.  The problems they have experienced to this point are related to a misconfiguration of the installation package: although you have opted to disable e-licensing, the installed copy of Acrobat 8 is attempting to download an e-license from a pool stored in a Serial Number Only pool at Adobe.  The enhancements will permit your user to obtain an e-license.  However, you should refer to the Configuration Acrobat 8 with ALM guide to fully configure your installation package if you wish to have ALM disabled for your users.

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I have a user who previously had a trial version of Acrobat, and is now unable to use Acrobat 8 in the 30 day trial period, as they have no time remaining. Do the enhancements fix this problem?

Most likely, yes. As any e-license request that includes a valid Serial Number will be automatically granted an e-license from a Serial Number Only pool, all Internet-connected users will be able to download a valid e-license at any time.

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Some of my users’ computers are not connected to the Internet? Do the enhancements fix this problem?

No. The enhancements make it easy to download an e-license from a Serial Number Only pool hosted at Adobe, but do require a live Internet connection. In order to serve your disconnected users, you will need to either (1) Install an In-House Adobe License server, and deliver e-licenses to users across your internal network; or (2) Disable e-licensing, either for just the subset of users that is disconnected, or for all users in your environment.

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E-license pool notifications have been getting delivered to not only me but to every individual who has made an order, causing confusion among users who are not normally involved in licensing issues. Do the enhancements fix this problem?

Yes. Alerts regarding e-license pool status have been disabled until further notice. Please check the Serial Number Only Activity Report on the Licensing Web Site frequently to track and manage your e-licensing activity.

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