This is one of the most popular questions we get asked and as you’d expect different systems may deal with this in different ways, so there’s not a one size fits all answer.
If your licences are allocated on a user basis, in other words a licence is linked directly to a person, then it really does depend on what you want and the value that the user places on the system.
Let me give you an example: ABC Co buy 1,000 licences to service the needs of their Microsoft Office users and one of those licences is allocated to John. When the system was first installed there was massive traction with many of the people eager to find out what the new system was all about. However, as time has gone by John, having gone through most of the courses hasn’t used the system for a while.
Now the issue here is how do you know that tomorrow, (let’s say this is over a weekend) John could be working at home on a big PowerPoint presentation that has links to important Spreadsheets. It just so happens that he’s come up with a problem with both PowerPoint and Excel and cannot resolve it easily. With access to the Portal and content he can dip in to find and get the answers he needs, fix the problem and be full of confidence for his meeting on Monday morning.
But, if you’d made the decision to remove John because he hasn’t used the system for a while then the result may very well have been different. The question that has to be answered is just how much does it cost you to keep that licence allocated to John against the possible cost of John running into a problem later in the year.
Ultimately, the choice is yours, however we would suggest that in most instances the cost per user is so small that it would be preferable to keep that licence allocated to him.
That said, if John doesn’t want it any more or it’s imperative that you free up that licence for another person then the answer is simple – you just remove him as a leaver as you can always reallocate another licence to him in the future.
