For those of you that don’t know Microsoft has released a new licensing model for Microsoft Dynamics-GP called DCO licensing. DCO licensing stands for Dynamics Client for Office.
DCO licensing essentially replaces the Business Portal licensing that a user would purchase to access the web capabilities of Dynamics-GP. One of the changes that is occurring with the new licensing is that you will no longer need to purchase separate business portal applications. Each DCO license allows the user to access the following Business Portal applications:
Order Management
Requisition Management
Field service Suite
Human Resources self service suite
Project time and expense
DCO Licenses also gives the user access to Excel reports, SRS reports, business intelligence features, KPI’s and charts, Analysis Cubes, and the Analysis Cubes Library.
This is all great value at a starting price of 195.00 per user.
The piece that is not mentioned in too much detail are the users that never owned business portal. The new licensing model requires a DCO license whenever a user accesses the Dynamics-GP data and are not using a Dynamics-GP client. What does this mean? Well what this means is that if you write a report or build your own integration each user that access that integration or uses that report needs a DCO license. Let’s look at this scenario.
Company A builds a series of SQL Reporting Services reports for managers and executives that deliver information regarding their business. Company A has 5 executives and 30 managers that access these reports. In this scenario Company A would need to purchase 35 DCO licenses to allow the users to run the reports.
These rules also apply if you purchase a third party program that interfaces with Dynamics-GP and the application is accessed outside of the Dynamics-GP client. Let’s look at another scenario.
Company A again has a 10 user Dynamics-GP system and uses the payroll module. After evaluating the web based time sheet program that Microsoft provides they feel that it doesn’t meet their needs and decide to purchase a ISV product that matches the requirements. Company A has 300 employees that will submit time. The ISV product costs 200.00 per user for their product. In order to use the product with Dynamics-GP Company A would need to purchase 300 DCO licenses @ 125.00 per user which is the price break for 300 users.
In Prior versions of Dynamics-GP non GP users were able to access the SQL Reporting Services reports that are available with the product. That is not the case in GP2010 and GP10 under the new licensing. Each non Dynamics-GP user would be required to purchase a DCO license to access the SQL Reporting Services reports and Excel based reports.
