License features provide access to the features of Spotfire. The administrator sets licenses for groups, thereby determining what the group members have permission to do within the Spotfire environment. The access your analysts and consumers have to Spotfire is determined by a combination of feature licensing, product licenses, and product license models.

At installation Spotfire includes a number of groups that correspond to common user roles, such as Deployment Administrator or Scheduled Updates User. The administrator enables appropriate licenses for these groups, and adds to them the groups and users that perform these tasks.

Administrators often import their groups and users by synchronizing with an external user directory, but it is also possible to import users and groups from a file or create them manually. Administrators then build a hierarchy of groups to meet company requirements.

Groups can be added as subgroups to other groups, in which case group members inherit access to the licenses of all their parent groups in addition to any licenses specifically set for their own group.

Through careful planning, administrators are able to provide users with appropriate access to the Spotfire environment, within a group structure designed for easy maintenance. For more information, see How licenses work and the License and feature reference.