Introduction

This article discusses the Views Licensing option for web deployments.

There is a separate article about an alternative licensing option for web deployments - Player Licensing.

NOTE:

• Annual Views license subscriptions are available to Platform Premier and Platform Enterprise accounts.
• Only Platform Enterprise can purchase month-to-month Views license subscriptions.

What is "Views Licensing" for web deployments

Intuiface users have the option of publishing experiences as webpages. With Views licensing, you permit any number of webpage views from any number of devices, up to your views limit—aka your "views quota."

Views quota and entitlement

The number of views purchased for an Intuiface account is known as the "quota". Quotas apply to a calendar month, independent of when a Web Views subscription is purchased. At the beginning of each calendar month, the views count resets to the quota. Unused views for a calendar month are NOT carried over to the next month.

The smallest number of views supported by a Web Views license is 1000. This number is experience-independent - i.e., all web-based experiences for an Intuiface account draw from the same views pool. Additional views can be purchased in packages of 1000.

The quota is shared by the Primary Account and all associated Secondary Accounts. Secondary accounts cannot have an independently purchased or consumed views quota. It is not currently possible to measure or limit the number of views consumed by a specific primary or secondary account.

Views Licensing vs. Player Licensing for web deployments

Views Licensing and Player Licensing have unique advantages. In addition to the items listed below, be sure to review the experience performance differences imposed by the two models.

Advantages

By using Views Licensing, you free your URL to be loaded by any number of people on any number of devices anywhere in the world. You don't need to know which people or devices; you just need a general idea of how many potential web views there could be to establish an appropriate views quota for your account.

With Player licensing, you are limited to a finite number of known devices.

Disadvantages

When using Views Licensing, webpage deployments always require a live internet connection. Offline use is not possible.

With Player licensing, you can run webpage deployments offline and convert those experiences into stand-alone apps outside of a web browser.

When a view is counted (and not counted)

Basic rule

• A view is counted every time a visible webpage containing an Intuiface experience is 1) loaded, 2) reloaded, or 3) every 20 minutes. "Containing" means the Intuiface experience is either a webpage or embedded in an iFrame.

The 20-minute clock cannot be interrupted except by a webpage load (the clock is then restarted) or a webpage close (tab or browser is closed, OS shut down, etc.).

Visibility rules

A view is counted after the 20-minute clock lapses if:

• The browser and browser tab displaying the page are not hidden. "Hidden" means the entire webpage is not visible - eg. the browser is minimized or the browser tab with the Intuiface experience is not selected.
• The browser and browser tab are hidden and become visible - whether active (the webpage has focus) or passive (any portion of the browser displaying the webpage is visible, but no focus).

If the webpage containing an Intuiface iFrame is visible (active or passive), but the iFrame itself is not visible (you need to scroll to see the iFrame), the webpage is still considered visible.

Offline rules

If the device is online (i.e., has access to the Internet), a view is counted after the 20-minute clock lapses. If the device is offline, the experience enters a 20-second retry period. If reconnection fails, a 'Failed to connect' message will be displayed, rendering the experience inoperable. When the device is back online, the Intuiface experience will resume automatically, and a view is counted.

Views Licensing selection and configuration

Before creating an experience URL, you must first specify whether you wish to use Player Licensing or Views Licensing. Select the "Display as webpage" tab for any experience in the Share and Deploy console. Then select the "Use Views Licensing" section.

Now, you can create a URL by clicking the "Create URL" button at the bottom of the screen. This URL will exclusively use Views licensing, no matter how often it is loaded in a browser. The same experience can simultaneously have Views Licensing URLs and Player Licensing URLs.

See our article "Deploying experiences as a webpage" for details about the URL creation and configuration process.

Tracking view counts and quota

On the "Use Views Licensing" tab are metrics for view usage across all experience URLs.

The first section, "View usage", contains a cumulative bar chart identifying the total number of views consumed by all URLs for this particular experience in the current calendar month and then the remaining number of views consumed in the current calendar month by all other experiences published to the web with Views Licensing for the same Intuiface account.

In the example above, all experiences published to the web have combined to generate 697 views. All other experiences contributed 584 of those views; the current experience, across all URLs, contributed the remaining 113 views. The views quota for the calendar month is 5000; this user had purchased 4 x 1000 view packs to complement the default 1000 views.

The section below "View usage", named "Experience URL(s)", lists all URLs associated with the given experience. (An experience published to the web can have more than one URL. In the example above/below, there is only one URL.)

For each URL there are two numbers:

• Previous Month: The number of views consumed by this particular URL during the previous calendar month.
• Current Month: The number of views consumed by this particular URL during the current (uncompleted) calendar month.

NOTE: It can take up to ten (10) minutes for a new view to appear in the View Usage chart.

Video Explanation - Difference between Player & Views Licensing

You will find in the Quarterly Q&A Summer 2023 video more information regarding Players & Views Licensing.