Usage CAL usage from caldata.pgo.xml

[lvdbrink]

All,

I am trying to get more insight into our usage CALs and for that I am looking at the Session logs and the CALdata.pgo.xml. Escpecially the CALdata.pgo.xml should (as far as I understood) contain the current status of my (usage) CALs at all times. The entries in this XML have to following format:

	<UsageCalInUse>
	<Name>XXX\DOE_J</Name>
	<ClientMachineId>4062ef0f-57cb-4855-9c5b-ee575a4ccd55</ClientMachineId>
	<FirstUseTimestampUtc>40E4F9534A8641FE</FirstUseTimestampUtc>
	<ExpireTimeUtc>40E4FCD34A8641FE</ExpireTimeUtc>
	</UsageCalInUse>

Using a formula I found here, we convert the timestamps back to readable format. However, reading this XML gives me too many rows, about 800ish, where we only have 500 usage CALs in our environment. When investigating this, I found out that most of the records occur multiple times, some even up to 8x, with the exact same data in each field.

Naturally, my next attempt was to count the distinct Timestamp-machineID-user combinations, resulting in 320 usage CALs. Now when I look up the available CALs in my QMC, it shows me that there is 140 available. 320+140=460 and not 480. This means that I am missing about 20 CALs that are seemingly not registered in my CALdata.pgo.xml.

I then consulted the session logs from the QVS and found even more strange things. I have a specific user that had 2 sessions with CAL type = Usage CAL, one session of about 1.5 hour and one session of about 30 min, 2 days apart from each other, both less than 28 days ago. This very same user had 4 entries in CALdata.pgo.xml, but all 4 entries had the exact same timestamp-machineID-user info.

To me this looks like at least one of these sources is incorrect. I should have 3 usage CALs logged in CALdata.pgo.xml or either 4 or 1 sessions logged in my session logs.

So my question is: does anyone know how to successfully extract UsageCal data from the CALdata.pgo.xml? We would like to have more control over our usage CALs, but right now we cannot trust the numbers we extract from these 2 sources because they simply do not add up...

Any help is appreciated!

With kind regards,

Lennaert

[rwunderlich]

I've never tried to decipher UsageCal data from pgo.xml.  I usually rely on the session logs which seem to be reliable and balance with my expectations. 

-Rob

[lvdbrink · Accepted solution]

After some digging around, Qlik Support managed to tell me why the calldata.pgo.xml does not represent the number of usage cals used. What it apparently does is it records all sessions that are made using usage CALs. This is different from the amount of usage CALs used since a user can consume multiple CALs in a single session (by having long sessions or opening multiple dashboards).

This is consistent with my own findings (but sadly does not provide me with the information I was actually looking for). We have now built our dashboard using the information from the session logs, but it is important to note that this session log is only updated after a session is ended. Therefore there might be quite a gap between the amount of usage CALs in a dashboard built on session logs and the QMC if your users regularly have longer sessions on usage CALs. (In our environment we have a large group of users that use their application extensively, but only on 1 or 2 specific days of the month. In their case, usage CALs are still more efficient than document CALs despite the long sessions)