Last week Swiftpage, the makers of Act!, updated their "Tolerance Reset Policy" to clarify who will receive free tolerance resets, and who will be charged a nominal fee for same.

For those unfamiliar with the term, there is a built-in registration tolerance threshold in Act!, similar to other popular software titles on the market. This threshold allows for a user to reinstall Act! a specified number of times, on new hardware for example, but also serves as a protection mechanism for the publisher.

Historically, when the threshold was reached, a user was able to call into support and have the agent reset the tolerance, assuming no unusual circumstances were present. Swiftpage understands that circumstances exist where some customers reach this limit legitimately in the course of normal business.

Last week they released this statement:

We would like to clarify and update a few details regarding the Tolerance Reset Policy.  We have updated our policy to continue to provide this service free of charge to both active subscribers and perpetual license customers on supported versions of Act! Pro or Act! Premium. Users who do not fall into these categories are now subject to a reasonable fee to cover the costs of delivering this service via a live agent. As a subscription-first company, we have transformed our business to focus our resources and attention on active and engaged customers who are taking the journey with us. As such, we are comfortable having companies who we do not have an active, ongoing relationship with us cover nominal costs involved with the ongoing maintenance of their solutions, in line with others in the subscription software market.

What this means is anyone whose software falls within their long standing Obsolescence Policy will get free tolerance resets, and those that continue to use unsupported versions, in other words versions outside of the obsolescence policy, will pay a small fee. 

From our perspective, this policy position is a practical distinction all Act! users should understand when they make the business decision to use legacy versions of Act! in a production environment. Resetting tolerances is a form of "support", and normally this would not be available for versions of the software outside of the Obsolescence Policy. What Swiftpage is doing with this policy update is to clarify an exception to that policy, so that customers do not become unduly punished for needing their activation tolerance reset when they either replace their hardware or need to refresh the operating systems on the same computers.

In the past, "no support" meant precisely that, and this included tolerance resets, but it was randomly enforced, meaning your success often relied upon which support rep you connected with at Swiftpage. This policy update ensures everyone gets the Tolerance Resets they need, and simply articulates which customers will be subject to a small fee.