Name: Optimizing high value A&D Engineering Software License Concurrency
Start: 2026-02-17T15:00:00+00:00
End: 2026-02-17T15:30:00+00:00
Location: OpenLM

Float license management with OpenLM

Float is a top-rated resource management and capacity planning platform used by agencies, studios, and consulting firms to schedule tasks and forecast project timelines. Monitoring Float is crucial because its billing model is directly tied to the size of the team being managed; as projects wrap up and contractors leave, organizations often fail to archive these resources, leading to continued payment for “ghost” employees who are no longer active.

OpenLM helps monitor these assets by auditing the activity levels and schedule status of users within Float. It enables IT and Operations leaders to identify active profiles that have not been scheduled or logged in recently, facilitating timely deactivation and cost recovery.

Understanding the platform: What is Float?

Float serves as a shared visual timeline for teams. It replaces spreadsheets for resource allocation, allowing project managers to assign tasks to specific team members and track their capacity. It integrates with tools like Jira, Asana, and Slack to keep schedules in sync with actual work.

The primary management challenge with Float is the distinction between “Users” (who log in) and “People” (who are scheduled). In many setups, you pay for every person on the timeline, regardless of whether they log in to check their schedule. This makes “Zombie Resources”—profiles of former staff or finished contractors—a major source of wasted spend.

Licensing schemas of Float: What you must know

Float typically operates on a simple yet strict per-active-person subscription model.

Pay per person: You are billed for every active person, guest, or placeholder on your schedule.
Active vs. archived: To stop paying for a user or resource, they must be explicitly “Archived.” Simply not assigning them tasks is not enough; if they exist on the active list, they are billable.
The optimization challenge: Agencies often add freelancers for a 3-month project but forget to “Archive” them when the project ends. The account remains active, and the agency continues to pay the monthly fee for that freelancer indefinitely, inflating the “burn rate” of the operations budget.

OpenLM’s solution for Float license optimization

OpenLM connects to the Float API to provide a clear audit of your resource list, helping Operations Managers match their billable “Active People” count to the actual reality of their workforce.

OpenLM capability	Value for Float licenses
Unscheduled resource detection	Identify “Active” people who have had zero hours scheduled or logged in the past 30-90 days. These are prime candidates for archiving.
Inactive user harvesting	Flag administrative users or project managers who haven’t logged into the platform to update schedules. If they aren’t managing resources, they likely don’t need a paid seat.
Offboarding verification	Cross-reference the list of active Float resources against your HR or Active Directory records. Automatically flag profiles that belong to terminated employees.
Role optimization	Distinguish between users who need full scheduling rights (“Project Managers”) and those who only need read-only access. Float’s permissions allow for granular control, but only if applied correctly.

OpenLM advantages for Float license usage monitoring

OpenLM brings financial discipline to the often chaotic environment of agency resource planning.

Agency profitability: In an agency model, every overhead cost eats into the margin. OpenLM ensures that you are only paying for the talent that is actually generating revenue or working on active projects.
Automated clean-up: Instead of a manual quarterly audit where an Operations Manager has to ask “Is this person still here?”, OpenLM provides data-driven reports on who is active and who is dormant.
Unified project tools view: Manage Float alongside other project-based tools like Jira, Asana, and Trello. This helps correlate usage; if a user is disabled in Jira, OpenLM can signal that they should likely be archived in Float as well.