If you’re checking out our software for the first time, one of your first stops on the website was most likely the free version page. There you’ll find a breakdown of our three available licenses: Free, Community, and Paid.

Now even if you’re relatively new to Cerb4 I reckon it will make sense as long as you’ve seen the Helpdesk in action. It’s fairly easy to spot what’s restricted in the free version as you click around the ‘helpdesk setup’ tabs. So what I’m going to do for these more seasoned, yet still new Cerb4 infants, is address upfront some of the common concerns I hear in live chat and in the forums. You guys can read the next section and skip the rest if you want, where I go over what the license differences are in more detail. At the very end I’ll explain how to acquire the Community license and how to activate a license.

Frequently Asked Questions

• Can I try the software and then buy the Paid license later if I like it, without losing anything?

Yes, you can install and use either free version right away and later decide to upgrade. You won’t lose any data, have to re-install anything, re-tweak your settings, patch the code, etc. The only thing that will happen is any relevant feature restrictions will be removed.

• Ok, now if I decide NOT to upgrade, is there some kind of trial period or are the free versions good forever?

Good for the lifetime of Cerb4. Any “premium” features we may choose to add in the future of course will be locked, but you will not lose any of your existing features or data associated with them.

• Your site says if you fill out the survey you will be sent a free Community license. I haven’t gotten mine yet, did I screw something up?

No, as long as you “registered” the software with us by finishing the survey then you qualify for a Community license. The issue here is the license processing is not automated — all of the surveys are processed manually by the WGM staff. Therefore depending on what time of day you installed the software, our California-based company may have finished their regular workday. So be patient, the license may come within the hour or show up by the next business day.

• I noticed your buy page lets you buy a Single (+1 worker) license for $99. However I’m currently running one of the free 3 worker versions. To get a 4th worker can I buy a single worker license or do I need to buy 4 single worker licenses?

In this case a single worker license entitles you to one fully unlocked worker with all the restrictions removed. So basically to get a fully Paid license you should be opting for 4 single worker licenses. Although at this point it doesn’t hurt to suggest you buy the 5 worker pack instead at $375 as opposed to 4 workers at $396 (4*$99).

• An employee left and we disabled his worker account in ‘helpdesk setup’, however this did not free up a license slot? Can we “replace” him or do we need to purchase more workers?

Unfortunately the license applies to total workers (including inactive ones), so if you aren’t comfortable with the idea of deleting a worker out of the system it’s going to cost you. Deleting workers generally wipes all their statistics from the reports menu and releases all work assigned to them back to the “anybody” pool. Things like sticky notes, comments, or time tracking entries they created are NOT deleted.

• Our business is outgrowing a single Helpdesk, can I move Cerb4 to a different sever? Or maybe install a second copy of Cerb4 using my existing license?

Yes, and at no additional cost. From the On-Site section you’ll find a nice bullet point on the subject.

We like being fair and simple; the software is licensed to your entire company for use by a certain number of workers. We do not obnoxiously restrict you to specific e-mail addresses, URLs, IPs, or CPUs. You are permitted to run multiple copies for your own use.

For anyone reading this who may want to take advantage of multiple copies of Cerb4, but does not understand how you can “outgrow” your Helpdesk, it’s pretty simple. Say your sales and support teams are forced to share an increasing number of contacts and tickets. Normally not a big deal, unless you’re in the type of business where each department has its own distinct clientele. To help cut down on confusion and unneeded overlap, you might want to consider moving one of the teams to their own separate Helpdesk.

Understanding the three licenses

Ok Cerb4 babies (no offense!), you of course are usually the ones we want to make the best first impression with. It’s easy to assume on our part that you downloaded the software, demoed it, or are using the free version happily before you even think of upgrading your license. Unfortunately I know not everyone shops for software that way. Some may want to learn immediately about the locked features, and if their company can get by without making a purchase. After all if you can’t afford a paid license and you need these options, then it may be time to move on before you get attached! With that said, I know we are happy to negotiate pricing for your budget, so send us an e-mail first.

Let’s start by reviewing the feature chart:

We have three license brackets, a couple of “professional” features, a way to purchase 5 or more workers, and two free versions? Can be confusing for the uninitiated. So what I’m going to do is explain each benefit, show screenshots, and write in a way that assumes you’ve never logged into Cerb4. I’m also going to approach this from a different angle and not go over each license individually, since the above chart makes it pretty clear what’s in and what’s out. Instead I’ll break it down by each feature.

Groups (Community/Paid)

Just to be clear buying a Paid license naturally entitles you to both of the following benefits.

There’s two big changes that come with the Community (other “free”) license: uncapping the total number of Groups and removing the Cerb4 Tagline. With the traditional ‘free (non-community)’ version, Groups, much like Workers, are capped to a total of three. By default the Helpdesk creates a Dispatch, Sales and Support group but you can change the names as you please.

You can think of groups, in terms of teams or departments, in your company. Workers can become members of one or more groups, usually in an effort to pair them with others having a similar role (job).

Signing up for the Community license allows you to create unlimited groups, making it much easier to pursue a “divide & conquer” approach to answering e-mail. With more groups you can better recreate the structure of your internal operations, organizing your mail into smaller and smaller piles for each team of workers to pull from.

Cerb4 Tagline (Community/Paid)

Community benefit number two is removing the Cerb4 tagline. This is probably something you’re used to seeing in your own inbox once in a while. Basically we append OUR company advertisement to the end of your outgoing replies, below your signature.

Workers+ (Paid Only)

That’s it for the Community license, the remainder of this article focuses on the features that come with a Cerb4 purchase. The primary reason for most companies to go with a Paid License is typically to increase the Worker cap, as you can see our whole price structure is based on this. Both free versions restrict you to having three login accounts to pass out to your employees and administrators.

Note that workers have nothing to do with the number of e-mail addresses you can feed into the system. If you want to pull mail into Cerb4 from 10 different e-mail inboxes (support@, sales@, … , billing@) you can do so without buying a license. The worker count is strictly how many team members you can have actually log into the web interface. Your workers will need to login to do just about anything worthwhile such as assigning tickets to other people, moving tickets to other groups, or browsing a client’s past history.

So bottom line, if you have a large company and multiple people who want to work with Cerb4 on a daily and collaborative basis, you’ll need to purchase a license for however many logins you need. The buy page has more details, but currently we offer a single (+1) worker license, a 5 worker pack, or an Unlimited worker package. If you decide to start light, as your company grows you can simply buy more workers in small increments. Note once you reach 20 workers the license will automatically transfer to an Unlimited.

Opportunity Tracking (Paid Only)

Two other perks you get with a Paid license is unlocking two capped plugins: Opportunity and Time Tracking. Remember you need to first enable both from the ‘helpdesk setup’, ‘Features & Plugins’ tab.

With our software it’s almost easier to explain what’s taken away as opposed to what’s added, because with one exception every “locked” feature is fully functional but limited to a set number of uses. This allows you to get a solid feel for the premium features while effectively preventing use in full production. It’s very akin to a “try before you buy” system.

The key thing to notice here in that regard, is the statement “Limited to 10 (opportunities/time tracking) entries for evaluation with a free license”. To clarify you are capped at 10 active entries, which means once you have saved your 10th you cannot create another one.

You can think of the Opportunity Tracking as a basic CRM (Customer Relationship Management) tool. Any existing contact or e-mail address you can promote to an opportunity, typically so you can track that individual as a sales lead. You can give that person or organization a descriptive title and detailed notes for your team to use when evaluating sales “opportunities”, in deciding whether it’s time to get in touch with those interested clients (e.g. “on the fence, price conscious”). Once you’ve closed the sale you can mark them as “WON” and attach a dollar (monetary) amount to their order for your records.

Learn more by watching the Opportunity Cookbook video.

Time Tracking (Paid Only)

Just like the Opportunities plugin, Time Tracking is also capped at 10 active entries unless you purchase a license. However time entries are unique in that they can easily be deleted, so if you want to keep testing out the feature feel free to delete your existing data and replace it.

The feature is pretty self-explanatory, as you’re working on a ticket you can start a timer that runs in the background. When you’ve finished what you’re doing, stop the timer, jot down some notes (and edit the time to the nearest 15/30-minute interval if need be). You can see a summary of all your saved times in the ‘activity’, ‘Time Tracking’ tab or any of the available ‘reports’.

More information and a video can be found here, Sneak Peek: Time Tracking.

Itemized Worker Permissions (Paid Only)

Unlike the two plugins before, Permissions are NOT available for a “trial run” and will only be accessible once you purchase a license. The basic idea here is you selectively choose what a Worker can actually do from a long list of possible actions.

As you can see from the sample list there, it’s possible to prevent worker(s) from opening tickets on behalf of customers. When enabled, affected workers will not see the ‘Open Ticket’ button in the ‘Mail’ section.

After you purchase a license you can learn more about setup with our Permissions Explained article.

Signing up for the Community License

So how do you get a Community license? All you need to do is “register” your free version by filling out the survey at the end of the installation process.

The Community license is also completely free for the life of the product. You can think of it as a “gift” for not downloading the software anonymously, and giving us a chance to stay in touch for things like product updates and “how can we improve the product” surveys.

Licensing your copy

And I’ll finish off this tutorial by showing you how to upload your license. After you sign up for either the Community or Paid edition, we should send you a license by e-mail. Go to ‘helpdesk setup’, and at the bottom of the ‘System’ tab first enter the e-mail address you used in your order, then copy and paste the actual license (including the BEGIN and END lines).

With Cerb4 I realize it can be very difficult to make a licensing decision without test driving the software a bit:

• How many workers do I actually need?
• Are permissions necessary for our company’s operation?
• Is time or opportunity tracking something I can see my employees and administrators taking advantage of?

I’ll always recommend you install the free version and set up a test environment custom fit for your business workflow, as that’s really the only good way to decide what you need. But for those who can’t commit to “demoing all the features” and don’t have the time to spend evaluating Cerb4’s premium capabilities, I hope this walkthrough helps :)

-joegeck@wgm