Siemens UMC License 6ES7823-1UE30-0YA0: Activating 100 Users

Overview of the Siemens UMC Licensing Model

The User Management Component (UMC) is the central identity and access management service that ships with WinCC Unified, TIA Portal, and the SIMATIC Runtime Unified stack. UMC administers user accounts, group memberships, role assignments, password policies, time-bounded sessions, and audit logs for HMI panels, runtime stations, and engineering clients. Its scope is broader than the local user administration of WinCC Flexible / TIA Portal V13–V16: UMC synchronises a single identity store across multiple engineering stations, runtime nodes, and Unified Comfort Panel clients.

UMC licensing is delivered through the SIMATIC License Service (SLS) and follows a named-user model rather than a concurrent-session model. Each user account provisioned in the UMC user list consumes one license entitlement, regardless of how many are signed in at a given moment. The free-of-charge baseline shipped with every UMC installation is 10 user accounts. Production deployments exceeding this threshold require a paid entitlement - for example, the 6ES7823-1UE30-0YA0 100-user certificate.

For an architectural overview of how UMC integrates with the WinCC Unified runtime and TIA Portal, see the Siemens Engineering Portal entry Central user management and UMC (RT Unified). The license mechanics are documented in the WinCC Unified system manual entry SIMATIC License Service base document and the operational procedure is described in Managing UMC licenses.

License Part Number Breakdown: 6ES7823-1UE30-0YA0

UMC entitlements belong to the SIMATIC WinCC Unified software family and use the 6ES7823 prefix. The part number 6ES7823-1UE30-0YA0 decodes as follows:

The "Y" in the last-but-one block of the MLFB marks the delivery form: a Certificate of License rather than a hardware-bound USB stick or a key file in the legacy *.zip or *.lic format. Siemens introduced CoL as the standard delivery method for WinCC Unified / TIA Portal software and option packages, replacing the previous *.txt license keys.

Prerequisites for Activation

Confirm the following engineering environment is in place before attempting the license confirmation. Skipping any item typically results in the greyed-out checkbox symptom described in §4.

1. TIA Portal V17, V18, V19, or V20 installed on a Windows 10 / Windows 11 / Windows Server 2016+ engineering station, with the WinCC Unified option package installed.
2. SIMATIC Automation License Manager (ALM) installed and reachable - the UMC service queries the local ALM for the active CoL.
3. Administrator account on the engineering station with rights to start ALM, the UMC service, and the TIA Portal.
4. Certificate of License (CoL) PDF downloaded from the Siemens Online Software Delivery (OSD) portal after order acknowledgement. The PDF contains the CoL Number and the License Key required to import the entitlement into ALM.
5. UMC service installed and running - either on the engineering PC or on a dedicated UMC server. Default HTTPS port: 8443; default URL pattern: https://<umc-host>:8443/umc.
6. At least 11 UMC user accounts provisioned in the UMC database (the free-of-charge baseline is 10; the confirmation checkbox is gated by this threshold).

Root Cause: Why the UMC License Checkbox is Greyed Out

The dialog Settings → User Management contains the confirmation field "I confirm that I have a valid license for the required amount of user accounts." In the as-shipped state of every UMC installation, this checkbox is rendered as a disabled (greyed-out) control that cannot be selected.

UMC enables the checkbox only when the number of configured UMC user accounts exceeds the bundled free baseline of 10. The 10-account baseline is hard-coded into the UMC service and is the same across all TIA Portal / WinCC Unified versions V17 through V20. The rationale is operational: Siemens provides up to 10 user accounts without charge so that the engineering team can size the system, build the role/group hierarchy, and validate RBAC before purchasing a full entitlement.

The 11th user account - the first that exceeds the free baseline - is the trigger that switches the checkbox from disabled to enabled. The administrator must still click the checkbox manually; UMC does not auto-confirm the license. The system is not inferring that a paid CoL exists; it is only exposing the contractual acknowledgment field once the engineering project is large enough to require a paid entitlement.

Step-by-Step Activation Procedure

The complete activation flow consists of three independent sub-flows: (a) import the CoL into ALM, (b) raise the UMC user count above 10, and (c) confirm the license in the UMC settings dialog. The flows can be executed in any order, but all three must be completed.

Sub-Flow A - Import the Certificate of License into ALM

1. Open the SIMATIC Automation License Manager from the Windows Start menu (or run almsrv.exe if you are on the UMC server).
2. Locate the host entry for the UMC server in the left tree view.
3. From the menu, choose License Key → Import (or right-click the host and select Import License Key).
4. Browse to the downloaded CoL PDF. ALM accepts the PDF directly; it does not need to be unzipped, renamed, or converted.
5. Confirm the import. The UMC entitlement appears in the host's license list with status Valid and a remaining-validity counter of approximately 365 days.

Sub-Flow B - Provision the 11th User Account in UMC

1. Open the UMC Web UI in a browser: https://<umc-host>:8443/umc. Accept the self-signed certificate warning if the UMC service is using the default certificate store.
2. Log in with the UMC administrator account (default: the local Administrator account created during UMC setup).
3. Navigate to Users in the left navigation pane.
4. Click + New user and provision user #11 with name, login, email, and initial password. Repeat for any additional users required for the project (12, 13, … up to 100).
5. Assign each user to at least one group / role so that WinCC Unified can resolve their access rights.

Sub-Flow C - Confirm the License in the UMC Settings Dialog

1. Stay in the UMC Web UI and navigate to the Settings entry (gear icon, top-right).
2. The Settings page reports the current user count and a checkbox reading "I confirm that I have a valid license for the required amount of user accounts." The control is now selectable because the user count is > 10.
3. Tick the checkbox.
4. Click Save (or Apply, depending on the UMC version). The dialog writes a confirmation flag into the UMC runtime database and synchronises the entitlement flag with the connected UMC clients.
5. Restart the UMC service to commit the change: net stop "SIMATIC UMC" && net start "SIMATIC UMC" from an elevated command prompt, or use the Windows Services MMC snap-in.

Understanding the 365-Day Validity Window

Siemens classifies 6ES7823-1UE30-0YA0 as a subscription-style (Rental) license with a fixed validity of 365 days. The countdown starts at T0, the date the CoL is generated by the Siemens OSD system, which corresponds to the order / delivery date. Importing the CoL into ALM at a later date does not extend the validity - the remaining time at import is 365 - elapsed days.

To determine the exact start date, open the CoL PDF and locate the field "Date of issue" on the first page. The companion "Date of expiry" field is the 365-day endpoint. If the CoL PDF is not available, the ALM License Key Details view reports both the install date and the expiry date.

Verification Procedure

After completing sub-flows A–C, perform the following functional and administrative checks to confirm the entitlement is fully active.

1. Checkbox state: re-open the UMC Web UI Settings dialog. The license confirmation checkbox must be ticked and remain editable (un-ticking and re-ticking must persist after a UMC service restart).
2. User provisioning ceiling: add a 50th and a 100th user. UMC must accept both without warning. If a warning dialog stating "Free of charge limit exceeded" is shown, the confirmation flag has not propagated - repeat sub-flow C and restart the UMC service.
3. ALM license view: in ALM, navigate to the UMC host and confirm the entry SIMATIC WinCC Unified UMC 100 shows status Valid with a non-zero remaining-validity counter.
4. Runtime login test: launch the WinCC Unified Runtime on a Unified Comfort Panel or a PC Runtime and log in with user #11, #50, and #100. All three logins must succeed; the UMC log file umc-app.log (default path: C:\Program Files\Siemens\Automation\UMC\logs) must not contain LICENSE_LIMIT_EXCEEDED events.
5. Audit log: in the UMC Web UI, open Audit log and confirm the entry License confirmation accepted with the timestamp of the UMC restart.

Troubleshooting Matrix

License Renewal, Migration, and Multi-Site Considerations

Renewing 6ES7823-1UE30-0YA0 is a like-for-like replacement: a new CoL is issued for another 365-day period and is imported into ALM on the same UMC host. The existing UMC user list and group/role configuration are retained - the renewal only refreshes the entitlement counter, not the UMC database. When migrating a UMC installation to a new engineering PC, the CoL must be returned to ALM on the old host (via License Key → Return) and re-imported on the new host. Hardware-bound CoLs are tied to the ALM host fingerprint; a fresh host triggers a fresh CoL request through Siemens support.

For multi-site deployments, each UMC server requires its own CoL. The license is non-floating - it cannot be served by a network license server in the manner of legacy WinCC V7 dongles. A common pattern is to operate a single central UMC server (with one or more CoLs sized to the consolidated user count) and to point multiple WinCC Unified Runtime clients at that UMC, rather than running one UMC per site.

Field-Proven Caveats and Best Practice

• Export the CoL PDF to two locations. The OSD download link is time-limited; losing the CoL requires a re-issue request via Siemens support and prolongs the gap in coverage.
• Document T0 in the project quality folder. Record the CoL issue date and the projected expiry date (T0 + 365) in the project FAT documentation. Schedule a renewal reminder 30 days before expiry.
• Synchronise the UMC host with NTP. License validation in ALM compares the system clock against the CoL validity window. Even modest clock drift triggers warnings; a 24-hour rollback is treated as tampering.
• Decouple the user count from the named-license count. A common pitfall is to provision 100 user accounts in a project that will only ever be operated by 8 operators. The license model is configured user accounts, not active sessions; provision only the accounts that have a real operator, and use groups / roles to manage permissions rather than per-user accounts.
• Confirm after every TIA Portal upgrade. Major TIA Portal upgrades (V17 → V18 → V19 → V20) sometimes reset the UMC license confirmation flag. Repeat sub-flow C after every upgrade.
• Use the UMC Web UI rather than the TIA Portal dialog for confirmation. The dialog in the TIA Portal project tree and the UMC Web UI write to the same backend, but the Web UI provides an immediate restart-free verification cycle, which speeds up commissioning.

Frequently Asked Questions