If you own one seat the options are quite easy, you use an email sign-in (the one supplied when ordering your license) for CircuitStudio on your main computer and can save a standalone license file to allow operation on a secondary computer (e.g. laptop or home computer). Multi-seat installations are not really any more complex, you just need to choose the method that bests suits your company's working practices.

Option 1 - Distributed Operation

This is really the same as the single license scenario. Each engineer has a license assigned to their sign-in email and they use their own license, no centralised administration required. When signed-in a user may see all the company's licenses but they just select their own assigned license to use (a one off task). The user can generate their own standalone license key to use on their secondary computer.

Option 2 - Centralised Administration

One nominated person is the 'license owner' and all licenses are assigned to their email sign-in. This person does not have to be an active user of the software, they can be, but their main role is to handle license distribution to the CAD engineers. The admin user generates the standalone license files (*.ALF) and distributes them, one to each CAD engineer. The engineer uses the license file to enable the software on their computer and can immediately start using the software.

The above works if the engineer does not need access to the online component Vault. If such access is required then the admin user can request that a given email address is given access to the online resources (just email us the details) and all engineers can use this same address for vault access. Alternatively each engineer can have their own email address given access.

Hints & Tips

Saving standalone licenses

Visit the license page (View | Start : My Account >> Licenses), highlight a license and use the Export Standalone License button to save the *.ALF file.

Vault access when using a standalone license

The online vault requires an email and password, these are set in File >> System Preferences : System : Account Management. Select the radio button to allow connection to on-demand services and complete the Account Sign In section and tick "Sign me in when I start CircuitStudio".

Changing license (email) assignments

The email address associated with a license (or group of licenses) can be changed, please email us at software@element14.com with the details of your change request. Typically these will take 2 to 3 business days to process.

Moving a license to a new computer

If a permanent move of a license to a new computer is required this is easily achieved by installing the software on the new computer. Use the same sign-in as before, visit the license page (View | Start : My Account >> Licenses) and choose Reactivate. This re-generates your license for your new computer, once complete you can start using the software and then uninstall from the old computer after you are confident your new installation is working.