Purchasing and Licensing

Note:  This content applies to the on-premise version of DocRead only. For the Office 365 version have a look here. 

DocRead can be purchased in one of 4 editions (Team, Standard, Professional and Enterprise). The number of users and sites that can be used with DocRead varies with each edition. There are also differences in support for SharePoint Audiences between the editions. The following sections fully explain what is meant by each term and how they differ between the editions :

Users ('User Licenses')

When an edition refers to 'users' this means the number of users that can be issued with a reading assignment from DocRead. For example, if you have a document that needs to be sent to 10 unique users then you need 10 user licenses. Please note, if one user receives 5 different reading assignments, this still only counts as one user.

'USER' LICENSES EXPLAINED BY SCENARIOS

The following scenarios attempt to explain how many Users you would need in different circumstances:

  1. Imagine a group called 'Finance Users' that contains 50 employees who work in the 'Finance' department. A DocRead publisher uploads and distributes a SOX policy that those users need to read and confirm by next Wednesday. This will result in one Reading Task being generated for each user. Because the group contains 50 users, 50 User Licenses would be required.
  2. If a DocRead publisher sends out a HIPAA policy to that same group ('Finance Users'), the following will happen. An additional 50 Reading Tasks would be generated, but no new Users Licenses are required. This is because they are being sent to the same 50 employees who already have a User License.
  3. Now imagine an 'All Employee' SharePoint Audience that contains all 5000 employees. A Health and Safety officer wants to ensure that all employees read and confirm the 'Health and Safety at Work' policy, so sends it to this group. DocRead would cycle through each user in the 'All Employees' audience and send them each a Reading Task. The 'Finance Users' are also in the 'All Employees' audience and already have User Licences registered with DocRead. Therefore, an additional 4950 User Licenses are required. DocRead would then have a total User License count of 5000.
  4. If an employee leaves the organisation all of their Reading Tasks and Reading Receipts remain in DocRead for auditing and legal purposes therefore they still need a User License. In other words, their User License cannot be immediately recycled for a new employee. On a periodic basis we recommend that an administrator undertakes an archiving process to remove the leavers from DocRead. This will allow you to recycle their User licenses whilst maintaining reading records in archive databases.
  5. It does not matter which method a user accesses DocRead with (browser, home or by mobile phone for example). Their User License will only be counted once.

Need a Quote?

Our products are licensed based on the number of users who need to receive DocRead Tasks. To discover the cost - please click the button below.

Sites

DocRead can be installed on one or many SharePoint sites (sometimes referred to as 'webs'), meaning that documents contained in document libraries (within those sites) can be targeted to groups of users. Activating DocRead features on a site counts as one site and will cause the overall sites count to decrement by one. When you have activated DocRead to the allowable limit (as specified on your license page), you will no longer be able to use it on any new sites. If you deactivate the DocRead features on an existing site this frees up the license to be used elsewhere.

Activating the DocRead feature on a site, allows DocRead tasks to be generated by DocRead Publishers and for Reports to be viewed within that site.

Please note, we do not limit the number of sites where DocRead web parts can be added and displayed. The web parts allow users to view their Reading Tasks and confirm they have read them.

Publishers

DocRead Publishers are those users who have been granted the rights to publish and send out reading tasks to groups of users. There is no licensing limit on the number of users who can publish documents with DocRead.

Groups and Audiences

DocRead can distribute Reading Tasks to either a SharePoint Group or a SharePoint Audience. All editions support SharePoint Groups, whereas only the Professional and Enterprise editions support SharePoint Audiences. Please Note : regardless of which edition your purchase, Audiences are not available in SharePoint Foundation as this is purely a SharePoint Server feature.

Frequently Asked Questions

WHY USER LICENSES?

With a 'per-user' licensing model you only pay for what you need independently of the size of your SharePoint farm. For example if you have a SharePoint farm with 6 servers supporting dozens of thousands of users but only want to use DocRead on a small project with 100 users then you will only need to purchase 100 User Licenses. If, at a later stage, you decide that you want to increase the number of people on the project to 150 then you just need to purchase an additional 50 User Licenses.

CAN I BUY 2 COPIES OF AN EDITION AND USE IT ON THE SAME SHAREPOINT FARM?

No, this is not possible.

IF I WANT TO UPGRADE FROM 1 EDITION TO ANOTHER DO I HAVE TO RE-INSTALL?

No. The process is very simple and only takes a minute or two once you have purchased a new license key from us. If you do wish to purchase the next edition up (e.g. Team to Standard) please get in touch so that we can give you a quote for an upgrade and issue you with the new key.

CAN I DOWNGRADE MY EDITION ?

No. It is not possible to downgrade your edition as we cannot guarantee that you have already used functionality that relies on that specific version.

DO YOU OFFER ACADEMIC LICENSING?

Yes. If you operate as a registered charity, or within an education environment, such as a School, College or University we can offer a substantial discount. Please request a quote before purchasing.