Best way to release UFT concurrent license after script execution

[grahamengland]

I've just discovered that many of our UFT users kick off their test scripts (directly in UFT) just as they leave the office for the night.  This is bad practive because once the script has finished running, UFT remains open and is using up one of our licenses unnecessarily.

What's the best solution to this please?  I was hoping that changing the <LicenseAutoReleaseInterval> setting in C:\ProgramData\Hewlett-Packard\UFT\License\LicenseSettings.xml to 120 (2 hours) would work, but it doesn't seem to help.

I know that the users could instead use a VBScript script to run their tests from outside of UFT, or of course use ALM, but I'd like to know the best approach that allows maximum flexibility and minimal hassle.

[Ruddy_A_FT]

Hi Grahamengland,

Hope you are doing well.

I found below Enhancement Request to add support for: "License auto-release setting should release the license when only UFT is left idle, not the whole system "

https://softwaresupport.hpe.com/group/softwaresupport/search-result/-/facetsearch/document/KM02521472

this is still under investigation and will be consider for future releases.

At this moment Unified Functional Testing (UFT) by design cannot free up a license as long as it is opened and can communicate with the license server. 

UFT checks in with the license server every 15 minutes to validate that the license is still available. Licenses are freed up as soon as UFT is closed gracefully. If UFT crashes or UFT process is killed, UFT will not get to the exit code that frees up the license: in this case, wait for the timeout of 15 minutes – the license will be released after 15 minutes of no communication from the client machine.

If License Server is restarted, this would only help if there are “phantom” connections, i.e. it does not help if UFT is open and can communicate with the license server.

Regards,

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[Alvaro777]

Hi,

In regards LicenseAutoReleaseInterval setting, it works when there is no user activity, meaning that the computer is not being used at all (it monitors all mouse and keyboard events); just minimizing UFT or having it idle won't work.
Since scripts are running overnight, are the users using any utility like Caffeine to keep the machine awake? This utility sends a keystroke every 59 seconds which avoids the idle state of the machine and will reset LicenseAutoReleaseInterval counter as well.

In the other hand, when running from ALM, you can configure UFT Remote Agent to automatically close UFT. For more information, review remote agent settings:

Kindly,
Alvaro