User licenses

A user license is the overall authorization for a user to perform certain actions in Collibra. What a user can actually do in Collibra depends on the global roles and the responsibilities of the user.

License types

The license type defines the actions a user is authorized to carry out.

The legacy license model defines two license types:

License type Description

Read-only

A Read-only license is a basic license type that allows users to:

Note It does not allow users to create, edit or delete resources.

You can view which global and resource permissions require a Read-only license on the Cogwheel icon Settings page.

Standard

A Standard license is an enhanced license type that allows users to perform all of the actions that require Read-only permissions and create, view, edit, and delete resources, such as:

  • Create, edit and delete assets.
  • Create, edit and delete communities, domains, and responsibilities.
  • Create and share (anyone’s) application, community, and domain views.
  • Create and share (anyone’s) dashboards.
  • Bulk import assets through Excel, CSV, or API.
  • Manage and participate in workflows.
  • Edit the operating model, for example create, edit, and delete asset types.
  • Manage users, user groups, roles, and permissions.

You can view which global and resource permissions require a Standard license on the Cogwheel iconSettings page.

The maximum number of licenses is defined in the license file.

Warning If your organization occupies more licenses than the maximum (as stipulated in your contract and identified in the license file), your administrator will receive a warning, but all users will retain access to all Collibra functionality, as determined by their roles and responsibilities. Occupying more licenses than the maximum may have financial and legal implications.

Access to Collibra Console does not require a license.

The new license model defines three license types:

License type Description
Viewer

A Viewer license allows users to access and browse Collibra, add comments and ratings, create collections, and start workflows. With a Viewer license, users can search through business and technical content, typically to find curated data products in the Data Marketplace and perform a data product check-out. Viewer users have full viewing capabilities across Collibra, but administrators may restrict them to only see curated and approved content. They also have access to applications such as Glossary, Catalog, Data Marketplace, or Reference Data, allowing them to navigate through available content. When Viewer users spot missing or incorrect information, they can engage with data stewards and owners by commenting, rating, or utilizing workflows to ask questions, propose changes, suggest missing content, or report issues.

Contributor

In addition to the Viewer license, a Contributor license allows users to perform a deeper exploration of the platform to understand and interact with the metadata landscape:

  • Request access to data products.
  • Participate in data product improvement, curation, and certification workflows.
  • Offer feedback on data product quality or issues related to data products.
  • Assist Creator users with final certifications and approvals.
  • Update asset tags.
  • Execute classification rules.
  • Conduct and submit assessments.
  • Leverage data notebooks to write SQL-based queries to build insights on data products.

They also have access to applications such as Guided Stewardship, Usage Analytics, or Data Helpdesk.
Creator

A Creator license grants users full access to all available products and capabilities. In addition to platform administration, configuration, and customization, they can create, edit, and delete assets without restriction and take on the roles of business and data stewards:

  • Manage the operating model, including users and subscriptions.
  • Manage the organizational setup, including communities, domains, and responsibilities.
  • Create, update, and delete assets and asset characteristics, including bulk import.
  • Manage assessments and assessment templates.
  • Manage and publish data notebooks.
  • Manage Protect, classification, and tags.
  • Access Settings, Workflow Designer, and Insights Data Access.
Note 
  • The described actions for each license type are not all-inclusive and may be subject to change.
  • The new license model no longer uses required and effective licenses.
  • At any moment, a user has the maximum license type required by any permission included in any role that the user has. For example, if a user has a role with a permission that requires a Contributor license and another role with a permission that requires the Creator license, that user occupies a Creator seat.

License usage

Users will be determined on a named user basis rather than on a concurrent user or shared user basis. Each user account shall be assigned to, and Collibra customers shall cause it to be used exclusively by, a single individual, for example without the creation of generic or shared user accounts. Users are limited to the number set forth in the respective order, and access to the Collibra software will be restricted to such number of users through a license management key provided by Collibra. You may reassign a user account where the person initially assigned such account has left the company or changed job assignments to a new role where use of the Collibra software is not part of such role responsibilities. However, you may not share or pool a user account’s access among multiple individuals to allow for temporary use by multiple users, rather, purchase additional users as required.

Note There is currently a known issue with Edge only system users consuming a Standard license. We will allow all customers to exceed the license agreement for such Edge only users until this known issue has been fixed.

License assignment

License assignment is an automatic process. You cannot assign licenses individually. Instead, Collibra calculates the required license type for each user:

  1. A required license is calculated based on the permissions assigned to the roles the user has, either directly or through the groups the user belongs.
  2. An effective license is calculated based on the required license and whether the user participates in workflow activities.

Required licenses

The required license is the maximum license type of any permission included in a role that the user has. If none of the permissions require a Standard license, the required license of the user is Read-only.

Tip 

You can see the required license type of all permissions in the Settings.

You can also see the required license types of all permissions and the out-of-the-box global roles and resource roles in the administration guide:

Effective licenses

The effective licenses are the number of Standard licenses currently in use:

  • All of the required licenses.
  • Additional workflow participation licenses for the current month.

Workflow participation

When a user that does not consume a Standard license participates in or starts a workflow, they retain their Read-only license but are counted against a Standard license for the current calendar month. This number is then reset at the start of the following calendar month.

Tip You can see when a user last took part in a workflow if you add the column, Latest workflow participation to the users table.

Example Users with a Read-only license are counted for that specific calendar month’s effective licenses when they have participated in a workflow during that calendar month. For example, if a Read-only user has only participated in a workflow in September, then they are not counted for October, or any other month, as long as they don't participate in any other workflows.

Example During the month, the effective license count grows as workflow participation is carried out by users with a Read-only required license. The number listed for effective license at the end of the month is then captured and reset at the start of the following month. For example, the effective number is 200 at the start of September, then there are 20 Read-only users with workflow participation by mid September: there are now 220 effective licenses in use. If another 30 new Read-only users participate in workflows by the end of September, the number is 250 at the end of the month. On the first day of October, the number of effective licenses resets to 200 and begins to increase again as users with a Read-only require license start participating in workflow activities.

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