Reviewing paid operator licences in TOPdesk

In TOPdesk you pay per operator. You cannot tell from someone’s name or job title whether they are a paid operator, because that depends on the permissions attached to their account. When someone leaves, moves to a new role or joins a project, their permissions should be changed, and sometimes that is done only partly or not at all. With a regular review you can see which paid accounts are still in use and where permissions no longer fit the work people do.

Which operators you pay for

TOPdesk’s pricing page states that you pay per operator per month. It calls them agents and defines an agent as “anyone who can open and adjust tickets in TOPdesk”. Users who only view dashboards are not charged.

Whether an operator counts depends on the permissions in their permission groups. TOPdesk has free and paid permissions; the paid ones are marked with a money icon. If an operator has at least one paid permission, you pay for that operator. Broadly speaking, free permissions are meant for viewing information, and the paid ones are intended for changing data or the environment itself. The documentation on free and paid permissions gives the example of an Incident Management permission group with many paid permissions enabled, which makes every operator linked to it a paid operator.

An operator gets a paid permission group either directly or through an operator group that is linked to that permission group. In the second case, every member of the operator group gets its permissions. Administrators have all permissions for all processes without belonging to a permission group, so a check that only looks at permission groups will miss them.

A few kinds of cards do not count as paid, even when paid permissions are attached:

• API accounts. In TOPdesk SaaS they have had their own API Account card since October 2025. They cannot log in to the operator section and do not use an operator licence, whatever permissions they have.
• Cards that are not allowed to log in. If “Allowed to log in” is switched off, the card is not marked as paid.
• TOPdesk’s own accounts. The Consultancy and Support accounts in a SaaS environment are not marked as paid.

If an integration still runs on a regular operator card, that card does count, as long as it is allowed to log in and has paid permissions. Since the end of July 2026, TOPdesk SaaS no longer lets you convert such a card into an API account. Instead, create a new API account via Supporting Files > New > API account, with the permissions the integration needs and its own application token. Then switch the integration over to the new account and archive the old card.

For Administrators, and for any card you are unsure about, check the Authorization tab on the operator card. It shows the licence status.

The Operator licence overview

Since the June 2025 product update, TOPdesk SaaS has included an Operator licence overview. If you run TOPdesk on-premises, check the documentation for your own version to see whether it is available there yet. You open it via Modules > Supporting Files > Overview > Operator licences. It replaces the older Active Operators Overview, which TOPdesk has announced it will remove in November 2026.

At the top is a graph showing contractual and actual licence usage. It is blue while usage is within your contract and turns red when more paid operators are in use than your contract allows. Below it, a list shows each operator’s name, when they were last active and whether the account is paid or free. An operator’s detail panel shows, for example, whether it is an API account and which paid permission groups are attached, including the operator group they come through, if any.

Filters let you narrow the list down to paid accounts only, to accounts with no login since a date you choose, or to both. You can also filter on whether a card is an API account and whether it has an application token.

The Last active date shows when someone last logged in. It is also updated when the person linked to the operator logs in to the Self-Service Portal, so a recent date does not necessarily mean someone has used their paid permissions.

To open the overview, your own account needs read permission on Operators and on Permission groups in the Supporting Files block, and the Access to overview permission in the Operator licence overview block.

Paid accounts that are no longer needed

Someone is given paid permissions because they need them, and the permissions often stay in place after that need has gone. You see this mainly in the situations below.

• Departure. Someone leaves and the card is not archived. As long as that card is allowed to log in and has a paid permission, it counts.
• Change of role. Someone moves to another team and is given that team’s permission group, but keeps the old one. Old permissions that stay behind are a security and audit issue. It can also go the other way, with someone missing from the operator group that receives their new work, which affects resolution times.
• Temporary permissions. For a project or to cover for a colleague, someone gets extra permissions for a few weeks. When the project ends or the colleague returns, nobody removes them.

The Operator licence overview tells you who no longer logs in. Someone who still logs in is not necessarily using their paid permissions, and whether they need them depends on what they do in TOPdesk. A team lead who logs in every day only to check where things stand can often manage with free permissions.

A quarterly review

1. Build the list. In the Operator licence overview, filter for paid accounts whose Last active date is more than three months old. If you also have a list of who has been the assigned operator on incidents, changes or operational activities in recent months, compare the two.
2. Check where the paid permissions come from. You can find this in the overview’s detail panel or on the Operator groups tab of the operator card. If they come through an operator group, the account continues to count as paid while the operator remains in that operator group, even if you remove the permission groups from the card itself. Bear in mind that the operator group often also determines what work is routed to someone, and that removing a permission group from an operator group affects all its members.
3. Review the list with your team leads. They know which people have left or changed roles, and which now only need to view information. For anyone who has changed roles, also check whether their permission group still matches their work and whether they are in the operator group that receives it.
4. Make the changes in TOPdesk. Anyone who only needs to see information can often manage with free permissions. To archive an operator card, use More > Archive. TOPdesk then asks whether you want to archive only the operator card or the linked person card as well, so the person card is not archived automatically. If the person still works for you, archive only the operator card. To archive several cards in one go, use Modules > Supporting Files > Overview: Operators. New permissions only take effect after the operator has logged out and back in.
5. Record what you decided. A short note for each account means that next quarter you can see what was decided and why.

If the number of contracted operators changes after the review, the Operator licence overview shows the new number after two working days.

Operator License Management in AureaDesk

AureaDesk supports this review with the Operator License Management view. The view looks at activity on incidents, changes and, with the Operations Management module, operational activities, and does not base its list on logins. It shows which paid operators have had no registered activity in the past 90 days and which permission groups they are currently linked to. In step 1, you can compare this list with the Operator licence overview.

The view also flags operators whose job title or department has changed since AureaDesk was connected to TOPdesk, so you can check whether their permissions and operator groups still match their current role. After reviewing an account, you tick it off as reviewed, and Mark all reviewed ticks off a whole list in one go. Whatever you tick off disappears from the list, for your colleagues as well. If nothing has changed, a paid account without activity reappears on the list within 90 days.

The view has some limitations.

• Not a verdict. Someone who mainly handles problems or works in the Knowledge Base, Asset Management or Reservations Management may appear on the list even though they do use their paid permissions. The list is a starting point for your conversation with team leads.
• Separate count. AureaDesk shows paid operators according to the data it reads from TOPdesk. For the licence status itself, rely on the Operator licence overview.
• Operator licences only. Software licences and contracts are outside its scope.
• Changes are made in TOPdesk. AureaDesk only reads data from TOPdesk and does not change anything there, including permissions and cards.

Operator License Management is included in Pro and Enterprise. The pricing page shows what each package includes.