Redgate licensing is user-based for client (desktop) tools, and server-based for server-hosted tools. In either case, you will lose entitlements or run out of entitlements if you needlessly leave 'old' users allocated to a user based license, or erroneously allocate users to a server based license. This article explains how to free up entitlements on a license for either a client or server-based tool, by removing allocated users on the Redgate customer portal.

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

Desktop (user based) tools

You can activate a desktop tool license 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, every time you activate a license with a different email address it will use up a license activation. 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 license 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: 

Please note: the number you see above is the Device ID and not the serial number. It's not possible to know where or who has activated from the device ID. 

If another user now tries to activate this 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. See Creating And Managing 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 you will need to request that the license owner or admin does this).

Server tools

Redgate Monitor, SQL Backup and SmartAssembly are licensed by server. For these tools, you should only see a device ID on the usage list. It's important not to remove these entries.

In the case of Redgate Monitor, assigning a user to a legacy serial-activated license consumes all the entitlements and will immediately lead to the Failed to Activate License...All Entitlements Claimed when you attempt to use the serial key. Assigning a user to a Redgate ID activated license consumes one entitlement per user, leading to 'missing' license entitlements that can't be used to license servers.

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

1. Go to the customer portal and login with you Redgate ID. See Creating And Managing Your Redgate ID.
2. Remove any allocated users of the license that have an email address (you will have to request the license owner do this if you're not the owner). Don't remove the Device ID entry.
3. Ask the license owner to add your Redgate ID as an owner or admin.