Modernize deployment and license management systemJordan_Hiller and me at 2021 kick-off.
Jordan_Hiller: Could we modernize the JMP deployment and license management model?
Jordan_Hiller’s experience and thoughts:
The JMP deployment and license management system is overly complex for a desktop software product. We have relied on the SAS infrastructure for deployment and license management. At first it must have been convenient and sensible to plug into existing SAS systems for JMP’s needs in this area; today the benefits of using the SAS framework are outweighed by the costs of administering and explaining and troubleshooting it for our customers. The deployment experience is at odds with our software values: ease-of-use, simplicity, transparency.
A fair proportion of my customer contacts involve soothing frustrated customers who are having difficulty with download or installation or license files. These frustrations are particularly acute for small sites with a handful of users.
Concrete suggestions:
- Remove the SAS Download Manager from the product.
- Provide the installer as a single zipped file, rather than a folder of many files.
- Separate the license file from the installer. Inclusion of expired license files in the depot causes confusion.
- Remove restrictions on the number of times the installers may be downloaded.
- Provide a mechanism for administrators to track users (controversial, I know).
- Investigate the systems used by IT departments at our largest customers for Software Asset Management, to ensure that our model is compliant with and supported by those systems.
My experience and thoughts:
Our current systems puts a burden on Champions and IT teams. The burden is enough to generate complaints. The most common license management complaints in the Rocky’s territory are related to tracking/identifying users, version/update management, downloading, and installing. I have empathy for this as I had the same complaints when I was a JMP champion.
In my past life, we accomplished user tracking by getting an installation report that identifies computers with installations. IT would then walk through the list with me to make sense of it before renewal. Often this exercise led to an upgrade so it’s worth thinking about (controversial, but I don’t mind bringing it up). What’s messy and painstaking about this approach is that someone must figure out who is an actual user and how many computers the user has JMP installed on (e.g. one user may have a desktop/laptop, lab, and factory floor computer). New releases and updates were communicated through an in internal six sigma team. There were many touch points for me as a champion and the six-sigma team that could be automated and run by IT. Perhaps the Champion’s role in all of this could be less active and more geared to verification? Champions are typically scientists and engineers whose job descriptions don’t include license administrator:smiling_face_with_smiling_eyes:
I do believe people care about being honest with installations. We have found a couple of IT folks in the Rocky’s who do not understand our licensing that had unlicensed users. Perhaps a more automated solution could help with this as well.
MATLAB has a licensing manager that makes software deployment and named user licenses assignment and tracking easier. I believe it is worth looking at. MATLAB’s tool is not perfect, but software updates are easier, and it makes license allocation and tracking individual users easier. I found the tool to be handy as it took work of my plate!
I concur with all of Jordan’s suggestions. I would also add -make it as streamlined and automated as possible. It would be awesome if the install and management parts of the JMP experience were just as joyous as using JMP.
OtherRe: Modernize deployment and license management systemThe new corporate subscription system should be operational in the US by the end of 2021 and will answer all these needs, we hope. John Jones will provide updates on division webcasts as more news is available.
Re: Modernize deployment and license management system@Daniel_Valente, I will definitely push for them to join EA. For NXP, Intel and Western Digital many users have multiple versions of JMP installed. An example from NXP is having JMP 12 and JMP 14. Use JMP 12 to run legacy scripts/add-ins and JMP 14 to perform ad-hoc analysis. They have not been able to rip the band-aid off and update the scripts to work in a new version of JMP. A couple reasons this is the case
- It is not that painful of a problem for end users to switch between JMP versions
- Software Management has not forced updating version
- Scripting knowledge is limited for the people using the legacy script and the expert scripter is no longer involved with that team or company
- The scripts are propriety and they are not able to share with JMP team to get help updating
Re: Modernize deployment and license management systemThey did mention that new versions have broken their scripts, so they have been hesitant to force people on to the latest version.
@Peter_Hersh -- any customer that mentions having this experience we need to tell to RUN don't walk to the early adopter program. One of the main benefits of the EA program is access to beta versions of the software up to 1 year ahead of the GA of the next major version of JMP. Any customer that heavily relies on custom JSL for running their business needs to try out their scripts in the beta versions of JMP. If they find something that is broken or has changed it is much easier for development to address it in the EA cycle instead of waiting to address it in a maintenance or major release of JMP.
Re: Modernize deployment and license management system@Bob_Hickey I think you are right when they say deployment it is mainly licensing they are referencing. They mentioned they don't like having to maintain multiple versions (currently 11-15), which is partially their fault. They did mention that new versions have broken their scripts, so they have been hesitant to force people on to the latest version. I will ask them for more information next time we talk with them.
Re: Modernize deployment and license management system@Peter_Hersh Did Western Digital share with you information on their deployment issues? I'm curious to know details about their deployment issues that are not part of licensing.
Re: Modernize deployment and license management system@Daniel_Valente , Just heard the request to simplify license management from the team at Western Digital. Larry Tsu, Kouii Suzuki, Shingo Miyata, and John Schmidt. They are all in Software management for Western Digital. The comment was "We manage many different software products such as Minitab, and Matlab, which are much easier to deploy and manage than JMP. Your software deployment is overly complex and is time consuming for us every release. Can you please make this easier for us and our 2500 JMP users?"
Re: Modernize deployment and license management system@Daniel_Valente for JMP Clinical (again, this is for the current situation, but will simplify a little when SAS component is removed, then they will have the same pain as the other JMP users)
Customer List:
@geoffrey_mann can corroborate this one: The FDA struggles with deploying JMP and JMP Clinical to 100s of users, both new and existing users. He can give you details here.
BioCryst,
Appellis
Former customer Nextar (did not renew for a number of reasons, but this thread is not the main one. IT did complain about its deployment).
Novo Nordisk
Incyte
MedImmune
I think these are good examples of where the IT people were the loudest/squeakiest wheel and then the users. Mainly deployment/install and license renewals were the biggest problem.
Re: Modernize deployment and license management systemTech Support is all in favor of improvements in these areas (installation and licensing). These two areas are #1 and #3 in the number of tracks we deal with regularly. See https://live15daily.na.sas.com:3501/packages/Packed-Bar-Chart-of-Topics/js-p/2h9Wj0sWrH5DmcF0Fwn5X-4 for more details. Though the current process seems like it should be easy and straight forward, customers just don't experience it that way.
Re: Modernize deployment and license management system@Daniel_Valente , I probably spend 2-4 hours a month helping customers overcome licensing issues (and my IS rep about the same). In my case, 90% of the time, it is some poor person at the organization that was told they’ll be managing JMP but beyond that they know nothing of the software. It is usually a painstaking step-by-step/hand holding because there are so many steps and they often aren’t in IT. Having said that, we’ve had about 4 hours of calls with IT at Conoco/Oxy over the past 4 months about managing their licenses--they are just bewildered and overwhelmed at how best to manage it and they mentioned many times that they are worried that they won't know if/when they are out of compliance. Occasionally the issue has gone to JMP support (e.g. TEA https://sirius.na.sas.com/Sirius/GSTS/ShowTrack.aspx?trknum=7613203262).
Common issues are related to:
- Confusion over a temporary license while the PO clears (a new Pro customer FLIR)
- Getting temporary licenses due to the delayed closing of a PO (Conoco/Oxy)
- Confusion at organizations where there are multiple versions of JMP (15, 14, etc., TEA, HP, KeurigDrPepper)
- Confusion over standard vs. Pro users (Conoco/Oxy)
- Knowing who is using licenses (just about all the companies over 100 users, TI and Conoco/Oxy comes to mind recently)
- Not upgrading due to the complexity of the undertaking on the IT side (SABIC, still on version 14)
- SAS License emails going to spam
Re: Modernize deployment and license management systemJust today I have received this message from University of Oxford, one of our top (academic) customers in Europe:
“Dear Volker,
Happy New Year!
I hope you are well and healthy. We have the JMP session this coming Friday, …
As every year we are having trouble with the license so I asked students to get the trial version – I hope this gets resolved soon though.
All the best,
Imma”
Often the academic IT personnel is not willing to spend so much energy "just to add another software product" to their campus portfolio.
Faculty members have a higher motivation to overcome the challenges in deploying JMP, but they have no IT admin experience (which is also nothing they like to work on).
Evaluations are often limited or just fail if they have to follow the standard deployment process.
This is not only a one-time short-term issue for new customers. Many of our sites need hand-holding with every renewal.
If it helps to track more customer feedback, I am happy to help.
Re: Modernize deployment and license management systemA couple of specific customers from the US Academic side include, but are not limited to:
- NCSU - Curt and I met with a professor that uses JMP in a big class and said his number one complaint was the deployment process and he had to spend too much time walking students through the process.
- The Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania - They are a huge customer of ours but also complained during a visit that deployment was too complicated and took up too much of their time.
- Many additional academic customers believe they should be able to send students and faculty to JMP to download directly from us.
- Another issue I run into a lot is the Presentation Virtualization site does get delivered in a manner that lets the customer know. On many occasions the customer reaches back out and says they never received the download e-mail for this site, only for the desktop licenses. I have to look back and assure them they did receive it and point out the correct order number.
Thanks for taking the time to hear us out on this and please let me know if you need more examples.
Re: Modernize deployment and license management systemThis is a big headache for many customers in our territory (Academic EMEA). Just last year, I can count no less than 10/15 of our top customers who have threatened to cancel their licenses if we don't put in place a simpler, more straightforward system. And this is not only likely to impact our customers I think...Explaining how to download/install/activate the software is taking me almost as much time as selling licenses 
Re: Modernize deployment and license management systemI know our academic customers need better deployment and license management for JMP, and I don't want to minimize that need. But I have a lot of customer names I can add for struggling with deployment and license management for JMP Genomics. Certainly removing SAS from JMP Genomics would make a huge impact on simplifying installation and license management. Here are a few names:
Associate Director, Cell Therapy Process Development
Biologics Development Department
University of Texas
They made the purchase before trying to install, but then they struggled with install. I think there are fewer users because they found the install so difficult. It's hard to spread this use in academia (within an institution) when it is such a massive effort for a user to try out the software that is already licensed by the university.
- Dr. Annabelle Rodriguez-Oquendo, M.D., FAHA
Professor of Cell Biology, with tenure
Linda and David Roth Chair of Cardiovascular Research
Center for Vascular Biology, Room L5021
University of Connecticut Health
This professor LOVES regular JMP, so she was more willing to deal with difficulties than many customers, but she had lots of trouble with installation. We didn't lose a sale over this, but it was a huge time sink trying to get her the hep she needed for the install.
Director of Research
Ron & Kathy Assaf College of Nursing
NOVA Southeastern University
This professor was trying to interest many other departments in purchasing JMP Genomics, but the install struggle lost several of them. NOVA only licensed for one department instead of many.
In general, I strongly suspect that we could be better seeding JMP Genomics use/familiarity in grad students and postdocs that would go on to want to purchase JMP Genomics in industry *IF* we made it easier for these folks to install and give it a try within their licensed sites.
Re: Modernize deployment and license management systemAgree!
Though I don't know what solution would be best, we definitely know that a much simpler license and installation process would be very much appreciated by faculty and students.
Re: Modernize deployment and license management system@Daniel_Valente
How would you like to capture these data?
I am aware of tech support calls for delivery (ESD) and installation these should be trackable. I just did a quick look through TESSA and found several tickets on ESD.
My team has been the recipient of complaints related to the system gaps we pointed out. I can give names and companies for the grumpiest complaints in my territory. To my knowledge many complaints have been communicated internally within team and leadership, might have been noted in Sales Force (hard to see), but most likely not logged anywhere.
J
@Daniel_Valente just noticed your reply to Chris. I must have been typing when you posted. I will post some info soon.
Re: Modernize deployment and license management system@Daniel_Valente thanks. Will do.
Re: Modernize deployment and license management system@Chris_Kirchberg -- I'd like to collect as much as I can in this thread to put together a package to share with development. In the case of JMP Clinical re: all customers, if you have a couple of stories that you think are representative of the pain in general, that would be fine.
Re: Modernize deployment and license management systemRecent post about managing licenses with names: Solved: Re: Script license renewal from central server on startup - JMP User Community
Re: Modernize deployment and license management system@Daniel_Valente where would you like us to put the content that you have requested?
I can say every (yes I do mean all) JMP Clinical customers have complained about installation/deployment in some shape or form (part of JMP C's complications are due to the dual license and components, which will hopefully be resolved in JMP C 9). So adding the list here might be too much. But getting the list of those who have cancelled or decided not to upgrade/adopt broader use is more difficult to extract given that there is an interaction with perceived ease of use, functionality and learning curve. The combination of things may cause a person or company to not renew, upgrade, or expand. But in my experience that any one of these is enough to deter in most cases, but instead becomes more of an IT pain, which likely does not have control over what the users want.
Re: Modernize deployment and license management systemThis is a great topic, and definitely something on product management's radar. We do need help from the field to build the case to invest development resources towards this effort, however.
Specifically:
1) We need to hear this from customers. We need names and companies.
2) We need to make a strong case of how this causes pain.
3) We need to know about the opportunity cost of keeping the status quo. Are customer cancelling their licenses because of our deployment and license management practices? Are there missed opportunities for upgrades or broader JMP use at an organization? Are customers switching to a competitive product?
Re: Modernize deployment and license management systemConcur with Jason/Jordan (thanks for bringing this up). The issues outlined here come up routinely and are common pain points customers report.
Re: Modernize deployment and license management system - Status changed to: Open for VotingAlso see J3C -- JMP Command, Configure, and Communicate
Re: Modernize deployment and license management systemI would like to add that this same problem occurs with JMP Genomics and JMP Clinical. These two products/solutions are even more cumbersome to install/manage.
