Defining and counting users

3 minute read

To get a better understanding of how CloudBees determines and counts users, it is important to start with the exact language from the CloudBees Subscription and Services Agreement:

User means an individual authorized by Customer to log into and use the CloudBees subscribed Products directly or an individual authorized by Customer to perform code commits into a source control management system triggering jobs in or reporting results through CloudBees Products. The licensed User quantity is the total number of unique Users of the Products calculated over the course of the entire Subscription Term.

Here are some key points to consider:

  • An “individual” is a specific person, not a role. So if a person is replaced in their role by another person, this is 2 individuals.

    • Example: If a team of 20 people starts a project and then is replaced by 20 new people, this is 40 individuals.

  • CloudBees counts individual persons during the Subscription Term, calculated on an annual basis.

  • A person authorized to log in does not need to have actually ever logged into the software to be counted as a User.

  • A person who commits code to a Source Code Management (SCM) system where that commit directly or indirectly results in the triggering of a job in CloudBees software.

    • Even if the SCM repository uses a service account to trigger a behavior, this refers to the person who is responsible for the actual code commit, not the mechanism by which the trigger occurred.

    • GIT, currently the most popular source code management (SCM) system, allows a collection of commits to be submitted (pushed) to the SCM at one time. Each commit here is counted separately.

    • An SCM commit user does not need an actual account in CloudBees. Many developers never need to log in to the Web UI.

How to count users for CloudBees CI

There are distinct methods for determining user counts in CloudBees CI for both new and existing customers.

New or Prospective Customers

If you are a new or prospective customer here is how to estimate the number users you will need:

  1. Count the number of users with commit permissions in any Source Code Management system that you intend to integrate with CloudBees CI, specifically those source code repositories that will have builds triggered from those commits.

  2. Count the number of users who will exclusively login in directly to CloudBees CI via the UI or API. These users may include administrators, end users or those users logging in to simply view build results or other reports. Do not include users already counted as commit users.

  3. Estimate your rate of attrition for the proposed term year, and the number of new hires that will backfill those employees. A user is a named person, new hires will require their own license.

  4. Estimate the expected growth of your login and commit users for the proposed term year. Be sure to create enough headroom in your user count to accommodate onboarding new teams onto CloudBees CI as well as any additional new hires.

The total of the above is the estimated user count.

Existing Customers

If you are an existing CloudBees CI customer, or are a current CJP customer looking to generate a reliable count of users before converting to CloudBees CI follow these steps:

  1. CloudBees provides a User Activity Monitoring (UAM) tool to help customers count active CloudBees CI users. To create the most consistent results, the UAM tool should be installed at the start of the subscription term.

  2. Follow the instructions in Counting and monitoring user licenses with User Activity Monitoring and be sure to install the UAM tool (provided as a Jenkins plugin) on each controller under management.

  3. If the plugin has not been installed and active for at least 2 months prior to counting, use the estimation approach described in the section above for new or prospective customers. To find the date when the plugin was activated, see the User Activity Dashboard on each controller.

  4. If you have multiple CloudBees CI controllers, follow the instructions provided for reporting for large-scale installations using scripts. This section provides directions on collecting the reports from multiple controllers. Use the provided scripts to create the consolidated view of activity across all instances.

  5. Provide the file /out/aggregated-user-activity.json and /out/aggregated-user-activity-summary.json to your CloudBees Customer Success Manager or send it to csm-help@cloudbees.com.

  6. At the same time UAM results are shared with the CSM, be sure to include updated estimates of new users for the current subscription term. These users could be new hires, backfills due to attrition or the onboarding of new teams.