This Reseller Team Licensing guide is split in to 12 chapters.
Please note that chapters 2, 4 and 6 are of crucial importance in ensuring that your client/End User receives their licenses correctly. Whilst chapter 12 provides information that you may wish to send to your End User after their purchase.
Before making a purchase, please ensure that you read this guidance and request to be made a Reseller Team Owner.
1. ABOUT TEAM LICENSING
Our team licensing system enables the purchase of single or multiple licenses in one transaction. A reseller can buy and manage those licenses all from one account then allocate them to their clients without the client ever having access to any invoices or payment details.
As a reseller, you will be the Reseller Team Owner - the person who manages the account.
The Reseller Team Owner has teams (clients). Each team is made up of Team Members who use the plugins as part of that team. A Team can consist of just one member or thousands. The Reseller Team Owner can have limitless multiple teams (clients) on one account and can purchase, allocate, revoke and reallocate the licenses as they wish.
The Reseller Team Owner can (and must) also make one of the Team Members within each team a Team Manager. A Team Manager can also revoke and reallocate licenses in the team however, they cannot make purchases or manage multiple teams.
The Reseller Team Owner can demote someone from Team Manager back to Team Member at any time.
Summary of Team Licensing permissions for Reseller Teams:
Reseller Team Owner (Reseller - Admin of the account and of multiple company End User teams on that account) – Purchasing and managing multiple End User teams • Naming their End User teams and allocating licenses by inviting a Team Manager and team members • Renewing/Extending teams • Adding additional seats to a Team Pro rata.
Team Manager – (Manager of Team only – not a user of a license) – Naming their teams • Allocating licenses by inviting new team members • Revoking licenses e.g. when someone leaves the company • Reallocating licenses • Making someone a Team Leader • Revoking Team Leader Status • Making themselves a Team Member so that they also have a license on that team • Cannot manage multiple teams • Does not have purchasing permissions or access to payment information • Toggling plugin data collection options (on or off).
Team Leader - Use of allocated license within a team • If Team Management not yet allocated, making themselves a Team Manager • Allocating licenses by inviting new team members • Revoking licenses e.g. when someone leaves the company • Reallocating licenses• Cannot Lead multiple teams • Does not have purchasing permissions or access to payment information • Toggling plugin data collection options (on or off).
Team Member - Use of allocated license within a team only • Does not have purchasing permissions, access to payment information or any other permissions.
2. BECOMING A RESELLER TEAM OWNER
As a reseller, in order to begin purchasing licenses you will need to become a Reseller Team Owner with an email address that you will use for administration.
If you would like to be a Reseller Team Owner, you will need to sign up for the Free Trial with an email address that isn’t already using an active subscription. If you already have an account with no active purchased subscription then this is okay.
As a Reseller you are only going to be an admin of the teams you buy, you won’t actually be using the software yourself. This means that once you purchase a team, you won’t add yourself to the team as a member. If you do this by accident, you can revoke the license.
So, to become a Reseller Team Owner please do the following:
Create an Astute Graphics account by signing up for the Free Trial with an email address that isn’t already subscribed to an active subscription
Once signed up to the Free Trial, contact us with the account email address
We will give this account Reseller Team Owner permissions and reply with confirmation
You are then ready to purchase the team licenses for your End User.
(Please note that if you have already taken the above steps since July 2020, you won't need to do it again).
3. USING THE TEAM LICENSING SYSTEM AS A RESELLER TEAM OWNER
When you are granted Reseller Team Owner status, your dashboard view will change from this…
To this…
When the Teams symbol shows, you are ready to begin purchasing licenses.
PLEASE NOTE: All licenses purchased in one transaction will expire on the same day, this purchase constitutes a team. If you purchase more licenses later, you can either:
Add additional licenses at a pro-rata rate to an existing team
Create an entirely new team
You can purchase as many teams as you wish on one account, you should name each team to enable you to differentiate between each one.
To purchase Team licenses, go to the Teams section of your account dashboard and click Buy licenses.
Next, select the country of your billing address.
You’ll be prompted to add your billing postcode, and you can then click the Confirm billing location button.
If you make a mistake, you can click to edit.
Now use the + and - keys to select the number of licenses that you wish to purchase.
You can use the + key to add as many licenses to the team as you like, then click the Continue to checkout button.
Now enter your company address details and continue to payment. If you have a VAT number/Sales Tax ID, please select Add VAT number and add it before completing to avoid being charged VAT - see Do I have to pay VAT?
Next, you will be prompted to enter your card details before clicking to pay.
We accept major debit and credit cards from customers in every country, these include:
• MasterCard
• Visa
• American Express
PayPal, Google Pay and Apple Pay are also available as a payment option at checkout (the latter only if you are already signed up to Apple Pay).
As Team License purchases do not auto-renew, your payment card is not stored in the system.
After paying you will receive confirmation that your payment was accepted.
Receipts will show at the right of the Teams page under Team receipts.
For any teams purchased prior to July 2022, these receipts will show at the right of the Teams page under Archived Team receipts.
To download and save receipts
• For Team receipts, click on Link then save the invoice in PDF format by selecting File > Print > Save to PDF after opening the link.
• For Archived Team receipts, click on PDF and it will download.
Once your purchase is complete, you can click Manage to begin inviting End Users to become Team Members in the purchased team.
4. INVITING END USERS TO BECOME TEAM MEMBERS IN THEIR TEAM
To get started with sending invites, you should go to the Teams page and select Manage, there you will see the following options:
Add yourself to the team in your case this option is to be ignored. Clicking this will add you as a Team Member and issue one of the licenses to you, but as a reseller you do not want to do this.
The Send Invite option allows you to invite a Team Member by entering their email address. To send an invite, click in the Email address field, enter the email address of the invitee and click Send Invite.
You will notice that because none of the licenses have been allocated yet, the license allocation is showing as 0.
The person you invite should be the person who will be Managing the team. You should first invite them as a Team Member > then (when they accept) promote them to Team Manager. Please scroll down to PROMOTING A TEAM MEMBER TO TEAM MANAGER for full guidance on this.
When you enter the email address and click Send Invite, an account is now created for the invitee (unless they have already created one through a Free Trial), and you will see notification that the invitee has been sent an invite email.
In the example below, 7 licenses have been purchased and the Reseller Team Owner has sent 1 invite. The invite has yet to be accepted and the status is showing as Pending.
You can see that because 1 of these licenses has now been allocated, the license allocation is 1/7.
Once the End User/invitee has accepted their invite, the status will change to indicate that the invitee is now a Team Member.
You now need to Promote that Team Member to a Team Manager so that they have admin permissions on their team. Please scroll down to PROMOTING A TEAM MEMBER TO TEAM MANAGER for full guidance on this.
5. HOW AN END USER/INVITEE ACCEPTS A TEAM MEMBER INVITE
Please note that if the invitee is already a member of another team, it will not be possible to invite them to a new team without ensuring that they are removed from their existing team first.
After you have sent your invite to a Team Member, the invitee will receive an email notifying them that they have been invited to the team.
The invitee should click on Accept Invite in the email.
If the invited Team Member is not logged in, they’ll be prompted to login to the website.
If the invited Team Member is already logged in, they’ll be taken straight to their dashboard where they will see the invite.
In the event that this person was invited by mistake, they can click on Decline Invite. Otherwise, the Team Member invitee should click on Accept Invite to be issued with their license.
The invitee is now a Team Member. They should now go to the Downloads page where they can Download the installer. To get started they can follow the guide to Installing and activating your plugins.
We allow installation and activation on up to two computers used exclusively by the same person. For example: If that person has a machine only they work on in the office, and their own machine at home, they can install and activate on both machines (this applies to both Windows and/or Mac OS computers, be they desktop, laptop, tablet, etc).
Important
Our Software is SaaS software. Every user will need to sign into their astutegraphics.com account via the Astute Manager software which is installed locally (Windows and/or macOS). The plugin(s) are installed on request via the Astute Manager along with associated licensing information. It’s necessary to have direct internet access (not behind a proxy), and establish a secure connection with https://account.astutegraphics.com/ to download, activate, update and regularly maintain activation status. It is highly recommended to have the Astute Manager loaded in the menu bar/task bar at all times to ensure that you are not inconvenienced with temporary license inactivity.
6. PROMOTING A TEAM MEMBER TO TEAM MANAGER
Now that the invitee/End User has accepted, you must remember to promote them to a Team Manager. When you promote them, the license allocation is then removed and they become a Team Manager, but not a user of the license. It’s strongly recommended that you do this as soon as possible.
Click on Promote and then select Make Team Manager.
You’ll be asked if you’re sure you want to promote the user, and after selecting Confirm, you’ll see confirmation that this user now has permission to manage that team.
If you have selected an incorrect Team Manager, or if you need to change them. You can do this at any time by clicking on Demote.
Once you have added the Team Manager, you will notice that the number of licenses allocated reduces (in this case from 1/7 to 0/7). This is because a Team Manager doesn’t have access to the use of a license themselves.
Now the Team Manager is free to send invites to the other members of the team. Once the invitees have accepted, they will show as Members.
Note that in the example shown below, although there are only 7 licenses allocated to 7 Team Members, the team has 8 members. Again, this is because the Team Manager is only an admin and they don’t have access to the use of a license themselves.
If they wish to use a license, they can change their own permissions to Team Leader, they will then have access to use of a license.
7. MANAGING & UNDERSTANDING TEAMS AS A RESELLER TEAM OWNER
As soon as you have sent the invite/s to Team Member/s, name the Team. This will ensure that you can easily keep track of which companies your End User teams belong to.
To name a team, select Manage next to the team > click the pencil symbol next to Team Name > Type the chosen team name into the field below > click on the file symbol to save it.
The given name will now show in the Team Name field at the top of the page. This name can be edited at any time. Please note that the Team Manager can also rename the team.
Under Updates Until you will see the expiry date of the licenses. Subscriptions run for 12 months and Team Licenses do not auto-renew, so when the expiry date is reached, the subscription will require renewing for your End User/s to continue using the plugins.
On the example shown below, at this point the Reseller Team Owner has purchased 7 licenses and invited and promoted the Team Manager. All licenses (no matter what date they are allocated) will expire on the date given under Receiving Updates until and so it’s advisable that the Team Manager invites the other Team Members as soon as possible.
Additional Team Members are invited in the same way, by the allocated Team Manager going to the Invite Team Member field and entering the email address of the invitee.
As a Reseller Team Owner, you can also send the other invites if you so wish.
Additionally, the Team Manager can also make one of the Team Members a Team Leader. This person will then become an additional administrator of their team whilst retaining use of their license.
A Team Leader has some of the functionality of the Team Manager.
A Team Manager can demote the Team Leader back to just a Team Member at any time.
Invitees who haven’t yet accepted their invitation will show as Pending.
Once invitees have accepted the invite, their status will change to Team Member.
8. THE TEAM MANAGER ACCOUNT
When a Team Manager logs into their account they will see the Teams option on the left hand side of their dashboard.
They have permissions to name their teams, allocate, revoke and reallocate licenses within their team and make someone (including themselves) a Team Leader. They are also able to toggle the data collection options on or off or their team (more about this under DATA COLLECTION).
They cannot purchase licenses or view receipts. And they do not have use of a license themselves.
For more information on how the Team Licensing works for the Team Manager, see the Revoking and Reallocating Licenses as Team Manager section of INFORMATION FOR TEAM MANAGERS & TEAM LEADERS.
9. THE TEAM LEADER ACCOUNT
When a Team Leader logs into their account they will see the Teams option on the left hand side of their dashboard.
They have permissions to allocate, revoke and reallocate licenses within their team if they so wish. They are also able to toggle the data collection options on or off for their team (more about this under DATA COLLECTION).
They have access to a license but they cannot purchase licenses or view receipts.
10. BUYING ADDITIONAL LICENSES, RENEWING TEAMS & CREATING NEW TEAMS
Licenses purchased for the same company but on a different day to a previous purchase can either be purchased pro-rata on the existing team, or an entirely new team can be purchased.
Purchasing additional pro-rata licenses on an existing team
To add seats/Licenses:
Select Teams from the dashboard (you will see the option to Add seats).
Click Add seats.
(Please note, for any expired teams or those approaching expiry you may also see an Extend license option - if you see this for the team that you wish to add seats to, please select Extend license instead and then add additional seat/s as part of that process ).
For however many additional licenses you add, you will be charged the cost of that license only for the remaining days before the entire team expires (at which point you’ll be invited to renew all licenses on the team).
You can add as many additional licenses as you wish
Next, when you are sure that you have selected the correct number of additional seats, select Continue to payment.
You will then be prompted to enter your card details and click the Pay button.
Renewing a team
Select Teams from the dashboard.
Select the Extend license option next to the team you wish to renew.
Select the number of seats (licenses) required as part of the renewal.
Next, when you are sure that you have selected the correct number of additional seats, select Continue to payment.
You will then be prompted to enter your card details and click the Pay button.
Please see How do I extend a Team License for a further 12 months as a Reseller Team Owner? for further advice.
Purchasing an entirely new team
• log in to your Reseller Team Owner account
• Select Teams from the dashboard
• Click on Buy Licenses.
As Reseller Team Owner you can have as many teams as you wish. And there is no limit to the number of members that you can have on one team.
The Teams can be given any name at all and these names can be edited at any time.
11. DATA COLLECTION
Please note that we collect data to assist us with future product development and to understand how our service is used. None of the data we collect will be passed to third parties.
Only Team Managers and Team Leaders can control the plugin data collection settings.
Underneath the Invite Team Member/All licenses allocated section, Team Managers and Team Leaders have additional options that Reseller Team Owners don’t have. These options allow them to toggle the opted in or opted out status.
You can provide this and all other Team Management information to your client/End User by sending them all the information provided in the INFORMATION FOR TEAM MANAGERS & TEAM LEADERS section below.
Alternatively, you can link them to https://astutegraphics.com/support/resellers/my-license-was-provided-by-a-reseller-how-does-this-work
12. INFORMATION FOR TEAM MANAGERS, TEAM LEADERS, & TEAM MEMBERS
As you have purchased your licenses through a Reseller, the Reseller is the Team Owner and they should have invited at least 1 person within your company to become a Team Member of your purchased Team. Once the invitee has accepted that invite, the Reseller Team Owner can then provide that Team Member with Team Manager permissions.
If no one in your company has yet received an invite from the Reseller, please send the Reseller the following request:
We recently purchased a Team of Astute Graphics licenses from you. In order to use our licenses, we require you to send a Team Member invite and then promote them to Team Manager. Please can you:
1. Invite a Team Member
2. When that Team Member accepts the invite, promote them to Team Manager
3. The Team Manager can then invite other Team Members
Once you have a Team Manager set up, the Team Manager can begin adding other Team Members by sending invites.
The Send Invite option allows you to invite a Team Member by entering their email address. To send an invite:
Go to Teams.
Click Manage.
Click in the Email address field, enter the email address of the invitee and click Send Invite.
When you click Send Invite, an account is now created for the invitee (unless they have already created one through a Free Trial) and you will see notification that the invitee has been sent an invite email.
Once the invitee has accepted their invite, the status will change to indicate that the invitee is now a Member.
(Please note that if the invitee is already a member of another team, it will not be possible to invite them to a new team without ensuring that they are removed from their existing team first).
After you have sent your invite to a Team Member, the invitee will receive an email notifying them that they have been invited to the team. The invitee should click on Accept Invite in the email. If the invited Team Member is not logged in, they’ll now be prompted to login to the website.
If the invited Team Member is already logged in, they’ll be taken straight to their dashboard where they will see the invite.
In the event that this person was invited by mistake, they can click on Decline Invite. Otherwise, the Team Member invitee should click on Accept Invite to be issued with their license.
The invitee is now a Team Member. They should now go to the Downloads page where they can Download the installer. To get started they can follow the guide to Installing and activating your plugins.
Important
Our Software is SaaS software. Every user will need to sign into their astutegraphics.com account via the Astute Manager software which is installed locally (Windows and/or macOS). The plugin(s) are installed on request via the Astute Manager along with associated licensing information. It’s necessary to have direct internet access (not behind a proxy), and establish a secure connection with https://account.astutegraphics.com/ to download, activate, update and regularly maintain activation status. It is highly recommended to have the Astute Manager loaded in the menu bar/task bar at all times to ensure that you are not inconvenienced with temporary license inactivity.
Revoking and Reallocating Licenses as Team Manager
As Team Manager, if you wish to revoke a Team Member license (for example if that member is leaving the company) this can be done quite easily.
Just log into your account > go to Teams > then select Manage.
Now click on the bin symbol next to the Team Member.
You will be asked if you’re sure that you wish to remove the user from the team and revoke the license.
After confirming, a message will show that the member has been removed and you will see that there is now one less license allocated. You are now able to send a Team Invite for that license to someone else if you wish.
Meanwhile, if the Demoted Team Member logs into their account, they will see that their Team license has been removed and their dashboard will now show the option to Subscribe if they wish to start using the Astute Graphics tools again. This account is no longer linked to the team.
If you wish, you can promote one of the Team Members to a Team Leader, this will give them permissions for allocating and revoking licenses
Summary of Team Licensing permissions for a Team purchased through a Reseller:
Reseller Team Owner (Reseller - Admin of the account) – Purchasing and managing multiple End User teams • Naming their End User teams and allocating licenses by inviting a Team Manager • Can also invite team members • Adding additional seats to a Team Pro rata • Renewing/Extending teams.
Team Manager – (Manager of Team only – not a user of a license) – Naming their teams • Allocating licenses by inviting new team members • Revoking licenses e.g. when someone leaves the company • Reallocating licenses • Making someone a Team Leader • Revoking Team Leader Status • Making themselves a Team Member so that they also have a license on that team • Cannot manage multiple teams • Does not have purchasing permissions or access to payment information • Toggling plugin data collection options (on or off).
Team Leader – (Use of allocated license within a team) • If Team Management not yet allocated, is able to make themselves a Team Manager • Allocating licenses by inviting new team members • Revoking licenses e.g. when someone leaves the company • Reallocating licenses • Cannot Lead multiple teams • Does not have purchasing permissions or access to payment information • Toggling plugin data collection options (on or off).
Team Member - Use of allocated license within a team only • Does not have purchasing permissions, access to payment information or any other permissions.
Data Collection
Please note that we collect data to assist us with future product development and to understand how our service is used. None of the data we collect will be passed to third parties.
Only the Team Manager and Team Leader have permissions to control all plugin data collection settings for a Team.
The data collection settings are found under the Invite Team Member/All licenses allocated section when clicking Manage next to a team. The Manager or Leader should click the arrow next to Manage team plugin usage data and it’s then possible to toggle the button to opt in or out. This button controls the data collection settings for the entire team.
If the Team Manager opts their team in to data collection, Astute Graphics cannot view the screen or artwork of the users. We will not be able to see how the plugins are being used, only which plugins have been used.
If the team is opted-in, we will collect a Unique ID for each action of Astute Graphics tools used and some native tools, alongside a time & date stamp.
Plugin usage data collection is optional and the Team Manager can opt-out at this stage or at anytime.
For more information please see Data Collection for Teams.