Confused with Cisco Collaboration Flex 3 License?

What is Cisco Collaboration Flex Plan 3.0?

The Cisco® Collaboration Flex Plan entitles organizations to use Cisco’s industry-leading collaboration tools with one simple subscription-based offer. Choose to provide employees with a-la-carte meetings, calling, or bundled both services plus add additional contact centre capabilities, under the same umbrella.

It helps with transitions to the cloud, and investment protection, by including cloud, premises, hosted and hybrid deployments, with the flexibility to use them all.

“In a nutshell, One agreement covers software, entitlements, and technical support for cloud-based and on-premises services.”

– Ronak Agarwal

Why Move to Cisco Collaboration Flex 3.0 Plan?

If you have been using Cisco Collaboration technology, then you know how complex their licensing model was. Perpetual license purchases, perpetual + SWSS, Node licenses, tiered licensing (Enhanced License requirement can be fulfilled by extra Enhanced+ licenses etc.), multiyear support contract renewals, different license type for different phone model etc..

Difficult to review Prime License Manager to see if you even need licenses. Cisco has finally simplified its license consumption model called “Flex.”

What is covered in Cisco Collaboration Flex Plan 3.0?

Cisco Flex licensing model is a subscription model for calling, meetings, contact center workloads. These workloads can be selected individually, for the different term length.

Cisco Flex Plan provides flexibility to choose your own plan for different workloads. For example, “for Calling, you can choose Named User (NU) or Enterprise Agreement (EA)” and/or “for Meetings, you can choose Active User (NU) or Enterprise Agreement (EA)”. The choice is yours.

*If you need new licensing after the January 23, 2021, date, those new licenses will be purchased as a subscription and you’ll then be operating in a blended license model.

Cisco Flex 3.0 Deployment models

As an organization, you have the option to choose a mix of deployment models to fit your need. Deploy Cloud Meetings with On-Prem, Partner-Hosted, and/or Cloud Calling (UCM Cloud and/or Webex Calling)

Cisco Flex 3.0 Buying Models

Cisco has simplified the licensing and now there are 3 buying models:

• The Enterprise Agreement
• The Active User
• The Named User. Let’s look at each one in detail.

1) The Enterprise Agreement

This agreement covers all Knowledge Workers (KW) in an organization and allows for 20% growth.

Minimum Requirement: 250KW for for Webex Or 1000 KW for UCM Cloud.

Features & Benefits

• Single Tier EA which can be Calling, Meetings or both Calling + Meetings.
• Better together pricing.
• Ramp up at your own pace.
• Common Area Licenses are included for 50% of KW count.
• Device registration is included when cloud registering and upto 20% of Kw’s when registering on-prem.

2) The Active User

The buying model is a usage based subscription for meetings. Meeting entitlements can be purchased based on adoption.

Minimum Requirement: Purchase Minimum 40 Active Users.

Meeting AU requires you to enter the total KW’s and then the number of Active Users.

Features & Benefits

• Single AU Tier for Meetings.
• Provides ability to scale based on adoption/ per usage.
• Pro Pack entitlement included.

3) The Named User

The buying model is a usage based subscription for Calling or Meetings services for individuals, teams or departments and to additional Named Users as adoption grows.

Minimum Requirement: No Minimum (but 5 for Advanced Meetings and 250 for UCM Cloud).

Features & Benefits

• Calling offers in 3 tiers: Professional, Enhanced & Access.
• Better together pricing.
• For more details on features, please click the link.

Named user calling value tiers

• Professional – the full-featured tier for employees and contractors who use multiple communication devices as part of their job duties. This tier includes voicemail.
• Enhanced – the feature rich tier optimized for task-based workers who use a single device without the need to voicemail.
• Access – the entry level tier for a dial-tone and basic calling capabilities on basic devices.

How to order Cisco Collaboration Flex Plan 3.0?

Ordering Steps

But my Current Phone system is working fine..?

Here are some important dates when the renewal and support for Perpetual license will end.

Software Support Services (SWSS) for perpetual on-premises calling

• The last day to renew has been moved up to October 30, 2021.   – CUWL Standard
• Last day to support is Jan 31, 2024

Cisco FLEX Subscription v10.x for Unified Communication Suite

• The last day to order & renew the affected product(s) is April 23, 2021.
• Last day to support – July 31 2022

Perpetual Licensing for Cisco Enterprise Agreement for Unified Communication Suite.

• The last day to order the affected product(s) is January 23, 2021.
• Last day to support January 31, 2024

That’s it! Folks! Hope this article was helpful!

That’s it Folks! Let me know what you think about the blog. Please post for any comments, questions. I can also be reached at LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook.

Appendix & Sources

• Define Enterprise Knowledge Workers Count
• Knowledge Workers are your employees and contractors who use devices as part of their job duties that are performed on your behalf. A device includes computing or communications devices capable of running the software or browser plugins associated with the organization’s collaboration suite.

https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/partners/tools/collaboration-ordering-guides.html

https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/products/collateral/customer-collaboration/guide-c07-740917.html

https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/products/unified-communications/unified-communications-licensing/eos-eol-notice-listing.html