Removing a user (freeing up a license entitlement)

You can lose/run out of entitlements if you leave 'old' users allocated to a license. This article explains how to free up entitlements on a license by removing old allocated users in the customer portal. 

You will need to be the license admin or owner to remove users.

• Client/Desktop tools (such as SQL Prompt, SQL Compare)
• Server tools (Redgate Monitor, SQL Backup, SmartAssembly)

Desktop (user) tools

You can activate a desktop tool on as many machines as you need, without running out of entitlements, as long as you log in with the same Redgate ID each time.

However, if you activate a license with a different email address it will use up another entitlement. For example, you may have a 3-user license. One entitlement is assigned to your Redgate ID, one is assigned to a user who has left the company and one is assigned to "Device ID" because you recently performed a manual activation on a machine that did not have an internet connection. You have now used up all the entitlements.

NOTE: user based licensing does not support tool versions prior to 2017 so if you're activating an old license the activation will also show like this in the customer portal: 

If another user now tries to activate the license, or you try to activate it from an email address other than your Redgate ID, it will cause the 'Failed to activate the license: All of the entitlements for serial xxx-xxx-xxxxxx-xxxx have already been claimed' error, even though there is really only one current user of the tool.

If this happens you will need to:

1. Go to the customer portal and login with your Redgate ID. 
2. Select Licenses and click on the license you need to remove a user from:
3. Remove the allocated user of the license by ticking the box next to their email and in the right hand corner, select Remove (if you're not a license owner or admin you will need to request that the license owner/admin does this).

Server tools

Users should not be added to server tools as this takes up the entitlements and will lead to the Failed to Activate License...All Entitlements Claimed when you attempt to activate . For server tools, you should only see a Device ID on the usage list after activating. It's important not to remove these entries.

To avoid these problems when using server tools, users should only be added to licenses as an admin. This allows them to see and manage the licenses in their Redgate account without taking up an entitlement.

1. Go to the customer portal and login with you Redgate ID. 
2. Remove any allocated users of the license that have an email address (you will need to request the license owner do this if you're not an owner). 
3. Ask the license owner to add your Redgate ID as an admin.