Recipient Licensing?

[adam_mc]

Do I require Cognos Recipient Licenses for external to Cognos users to receive an e-mailed PDF output of a Cognos Report?

Also, is there any difference if I save the Cognos PDF output to the file system, and then systematically distribute the PDF file completely outside of Cognos?

Any help would be appreciated.
Thanks in advance,
Adam.

[Suraj]

AFAIK, there is no cognos recipient licenses for PDF output.
Cognos recipient license is for Active report recipients only.

But it's always to double check with IBM. You never know when they change licenses.

[mgibson]

It was explained to me a couple of years ago by IBM clearly that licensing is required where content is personalised.  For example, if you burst a report that included content that was specific to the addressee, then they each need a license - however if all recipients receive an identical attachment then they do not need to be licensed.

[MFGF]

AFAIK, there is no cognos recipient licenses for PDF output.
Cognos recipient license is for Active report recipients only.

But it's always to double check with IBM. You never know when they change licenses.

I can confirm this is not correct. Recipient licenses are required for any sort of personalised output (HTML/PDF/Excel/Active Report etc) that is being delivered directly to a user by your Cognos instance. The grey area is in what constitutes "personalised" and what constitutes "generic".

Any outputs delivered to the filesystem and delivered to users via a mechanism outside of Cognos will not warrant a recipient license since Cognos is not delivering the output to the user.

MF.

[Suraj]

I can confirm this is not correct. Recipient licenses are required for any sort of personalised output (HTML/PDF/Excel/Active Report etc) that is being delivered directly to a user by your Cognos instance. The grey area is in what constitutes "personalised" and what constitutes "generic".

Any outputs delivered to the filesystem and delivered to users via a mechanism outside of Cognos will not warrant a recipient license since Cognos is not delivering the output to the user.

MF.

I see.
We have had all consumers with ability to email output to themselves in a PVU system.
Does that mean they don't have license to do that?

[adam_mc]

I can confirm this is not correct. Recipient licenses are required for any sort of personalised output (HTML/PDF/Excel/Active Report etc) that is being delivered directly to a user by your Cognos instance. The grey area is in what constitutes "personalised" and what constitutes "generic".

Any outputs delivered to the filesystem and delivered to users via a mechanism outside of Cognos will not warrant a recipient license since Cognos is not delivering the output to the user.

MF.

So, if I understand this correctly, I can send the same PDF report to many recipients (e.g. each salesman receives every salesmans report) without any recipient licenses.
However, the minute I try and burst the same report (so that a salesman receives only his own report), then I need to provide recipient license to all the salesmen.

Although, if I put all the reports on a share directory, then have some outside application e-mail those same report, I am back to no longer needing licenses.

Very unusual licensing structure!

[mgibson]

That's IBM for you!

To answer Suraj's question, if you have licensed the Consumer role on a PVU basis (as we have) then anyone can have bursted, personalised content emailed to them.  In fact, we have the Enhanced Consumer role licenses by PVU which means any of our thousands of employees can receives active reports, use the mobile app, etc.

Mick

[Suraj]

Well that's a difference right there or at least lack of details.
MF mentions anyone who Cognos can email needs recipient license.
There is no recipient license that we can buy until the active reports came in that has the 'Enhanced consumers' option and many companies that don't use active reports don't even bother to upgrade to PVU based enhanced consumers license due to the cost.
Previously, it's either Consumers or one of the studios or combination of them for users.

However, almost all companies that I worked with allow Consumers to be able to email report outputs to themselves as some reports take long time to run and they don't want to wait.
That means those consumers are using recipient license (as per MFGF) but there is no such thing except for active reports that is not what the OP is asking about.
What am I missing?

MFGF, do you have a link to that information?

[MFGF]

Hi,

Taking a step back to give a higher view:

There are two license models IBM use - PVU based licensing and Named User licensing.

With PVU based licensing, it's the server that is licensed (based on the power of its CPUs), and you can cram as many consumers/recipients etc in as the server will support. Generally this model is more cost effective for higher numbers of users - normally greater than 100. So you could have a server with a PVU-based Remote Recipient license (for example), and that would allow you to send whatever output you like to whomever you like - the license would cover all sent outputs.

With Named User licensing, it's the users who are licensed, not the server. In this situation, each user (normally) requires a license of some sort. For example, if you wanted Cognos to generate personalised output and email it automatically to someone, that person would require (at least) a Remote Recipient license. If you wanted Cognos to generate "generic" output and email it automatically to someone, the IBM licensing model says that person would not require a license since the output is not personalised for them. Here is where there is a big grey area, though. What constitutes "personalised" and what constitutes "generic"? There is nothing in the IBM licensing docs that absolutely quantifies this, so I'd imagine it's really up to the auditors to decide during any Software License Review.

Consumers emailing report outputs to themselves is fine. A consumer must already have a Consumer license, and this permits a person to not only view and run reports through Cognos Connection, but also to receive report outputs via email/printer etc (apart from Active Reports). Licenses are cumulative. The cheapest (and most restrictive) license is a Remote Recipient. It does not allow users to connect to the Cognos server at all - simply to receive personalised report outputs via some delivery mechanism (email, to their local printer etc). A Consumer license allows this too, plus the ability to log in to Cognos Connection and view/execute reports there. All of the authoring licenses permit Consumer capabilities (and therefore Remote Recipient too) plus the ability to use the appropriate authoring studio. And so on...

The IBM license documentation can be found here:

http://www-03.ibm.com/software/sla/sladb.nsf/lilookup/15E2936DBA696ECA85257B87004C261B?opendocument&li_select=52190664C3112B6685257B87004C2614

Cheers!

MF.

PS - any views expressed here are my own personal opinions, and in no way represent any official statement from either my employer or IBM or any other body, company, association or sentient being. :)

[Suraj]

MF, yes I am aware of named vs PVU.
In fact, we went through a ridiculous 6 month audit trail few years ago and it was a big mess mostly because the vendor whom IBM sent to audit us didn't have enough knowledge of IBM license.

I guess the confusion was on the recipient license since IBM doesn't call it a recipient license except in the context of active reports.
IBM licensing does have some grey areas.

However, after all the discussion, let's go back to OP's question.
Since he didn't specify whether he has PVU or named but I ass-u-me that he has PVU if it's a recent install as IBM kinda forces you to go towards PVU license. Also, it's cheaper than buying individual consumer license unless the company is very small.
OP mentioned PDF so definitely not talking about active reports.

Regardless of licensing model, if the report outputs are in a shared drive, those PDF can be treated as independent files.
In fact, that's the whole idea of saving outputs in network folders so users don't even have to use Cognos at all.

I'm not sure what personalized report mean either.

[MFGF]

MF, yes I am aware of named vs PVU.
n fact, we went through a ridiculous 6 month audit trail few years ago and it was a big mess mostly because the vendor whom IBM sent to audit us didn't have enough knowledge of IBM license.

I guess the confusion was on the recipient license since IBM doesn't call it a recipient license except in the context of active reports.
IBM licensing does have some grey areas.

Oh dear. That sounds like an, um, "interesting" experience! :) Six months? Really? Wow! Must have been LOTS of fun! :)

There are/were three "recipient" type licenses available under the "old" licensing scheme...

IBM Cognos BI Remote Recipient - can only receive outputs remotely via email/printer etc. Cannot log in to Cognos Connection.
This role is aimed at customers with users who have users that need to receive personalized reports generated in an automated fashion by Cognos  BI, and access those reports via a mechanism outside either Cognos Connection portal, Business Insight Dashboards or outside Cognos Office (e.g. by email). The Remote Recipient role is typically sold using a PVU/Processor-licensing approach where Cognos BI is typically being used as a high volume automated report production engine. It provides rights to:

•   Generate, distribute and access reports where such reports have been customized or otherwise personalized for individual users and distributed directly to the user by a delivery mechanism outside of the Cognos Connection Portal.
•   Note: This license does not provide the rights to generate, distribute or consume  "Active Report" content

IBM Cognos BI Recipient - can log in to Cognos Connection and view saved outputs plus can receive outputs remotely (except for Active Reports).
This role is aimed at casual users who will need to view scheduled reports through the Cognos Connection Portal interfaces, it provides rights to:
•   Access through Cognos Connection Portal solely to select reports, view reports and set personal preferences (for languages, time zones etc).
•   Note: This license does not provide the rights to generate, distribute or consume  "Active Report" content

IBM Cognos Active Report Recipient - you guessed it - can view active reports.
This role is aimed at customers who wish to distribute active report outputs to users who will not log on to Cognos BI directly.  These users may also receive personalized report outputs other than acive reports.  This role provides the the right to:

•   Receive and consume reports which have been customized or otherwise personalized for individual users and distributed directly to the user by a delivery mechanism outside of the Cognos Connection Portal.
•   Receive and consume active report outputs distributed directly to the user by a delivery mechanism outside of the Cognos Connection Portal.


The "New" Remote Recipient license now rolls the BI Remote Recipient and Active Report Recipient licenses together. This is fairly recent and co-incides with the new streamlined licensing model where there are just three named user licenses - BI Architect, BI User and Remote Recipient.
MF.

[adam_mc]

As the original poster, I'll confirm that we have Named User Licenses.

Currently, we have a small Cognos footprint and the cost to potentially add 300+ Recipient Licenses (or a corresponding set of PVU licenses) is likely prohibitive (or at least an extremely unpleasant one to have with my CFO).

So, assuming my understanding of this discussion, it looks like we will have to go down the path of saving all these outputs (PDFs) to a file share and then have an auxiliary, outside of Cognos, application perform the distribution of those PDFs.

Thanks for everyone's input!
Adam.

[sparks555]

As the original poster, I'll confirm that we have Named User Licenses.

Currently, we have a small Cognos footprint and the cost to potentially add 300+ Recipient Licenses (or a corresponding set of PVU licenses) is likely prohibitive (or at least an extremely unpleasant one to have with my CFO).

So, assuming my understanding of this discussion, it looks like we will have to go down the path of saving all these outputs (PDFs) to a file share and then have an auxiliary, outside of Cognos, application perform the distribution of those PDFs.

Thanks for everyone's input!
Adam.

Was your assumption correct? Was in confirmed with IBM? Did you ever have an IBM audit since then and passed?

[MFGF]

Was your assumption correct? Was in confirmed with IBM? Did you ever have an IBM audit since then and passed?

Things have moved on quite a lot since these posts back in 2014. The equivalent license now would be an Information Distribution license, which allows users to receive personalised content and to log in to the portal and view saved report outputs. However, the same premise exists for determining when a license is required for distribution of content from the Cognos instance. The rule is still that a license is required if the Cognos instance is delivering personalised content directly to a user. The way to know whether the content is personalised or not is determined by the bursting feature. If a report is being delivered without using bursting, it is not considered as being personalised, and no license is required by the person receiving it. However, if a report is being delivered using bursting, it is considered as a personalised report, and the person receiving it requires a license (usually an Information Distribution license). If content is not being delivered directly to a user, then that user does not require a license (eg report outputs are saved to a folder on the file system, and users then manually pick them up, or some other process distributes them to the users). Then it's a question of which is more cost-effective - buying Information Distribution licenses or developing and maintaining your own method of distributing the saved report outputs.

I have heard talk that the Information Distribution license is going to be replaced by an Analytics Viewer license, which permits more capabilities. It will be interesting to see what that brings :)

As always, check with your IBM Account Manager for official clarification on licensing questions. These thoughts are my own interpretation of IBM's licensing policy, and nobody should ever take the word of a muppet without checking for accuracy :)

Cheers!

MF.