Configuring Subscription/Periodic Licensing

On the Periodic Expiration step in the wizard check the I want to allow periodic expiration option at the top:

Choose whether you want to display an expiration warning message to the user, and also what should be displayed when the license does expire. These messages will be prompted in the license dialog generated by Instant Protection PLUS 3.

If you are not using SOLO Server, then the Check SOLO Server for new expiration during warning/grace period and Obtain expiration date from SOLO Server when activating options will not be available.

If you are using SOLO Server, you need to enable the following options:

• Check SOLO Server for new expiration during warning/grace period: This allows the customer's current License ID to be renewed in SOLO Server, and the Instant Protection PLUS 3 runtime will silently check for a new expiration date and then update the local license file. This allows the software to continue running without the need to activate it again. A customer can purchase a renewal through the SOLO Server Customer License Portal, or you can use the recurring billing functionality to bill and renew a subscription automatically, which is described in the he Recurring Subscriptions with SOLO Server tutorial. You can also manually update the expiration date in SOLO Server, which is the Download Until field.
• Obtain expiration date from SOLO Server when activating: With this option, all activations for a given License ID will use the same expiration date that is set in SOLO Server, which is the Download Until field. When using the Product Option Type: Activation Code with Days Left (see below), this behavior always applies even without this option enabled.

You will first need to add a new Product Option in SOLO Server. If you have already synced to a Product Option in the Instant Protection PLUS 3 wizard, you can use the Duplicate option from the Actions dropdown on a View Product Option page to create a new subscription Product Option with the same Trigger Code Seed, RegKey 2 Seed, and Off Act Key values, which will allow the new Product Option to activate your application. View this topic for more information on product configuration.

To configure a Product Option that will activate the application for one year, use the following settings:

• Product Option Type: Activation Code with Days Left
• Trigger Code #: 11 - Trigger Code 11 will activate the license for X days from current date, with X being the Days to D/L field in this case.
• Days to D/L: 365 - This is set for a 1 year license, but accepts any number of days. The field passed down during activation to set the expiration date in the local license file, and it also sets the expiration date in SOLO Server. A license generated from this Product Option will have the field called Download Until when Days to D/L is not set to 0 (zero). In this example, the Download Until date on the License Details page will also be the expiration date of the activated application. Although it is labeled Download Until, this date field can be used for multiple purposes, including setting the license expiration and limiting access to downloads through the Customer License Portal.
• Reset Expiration at Activation: Checking this option causes SOLO Server to set the Download Until date on the very first activation rather than when the license is created. This ensures that the customer always gets their full subscription period. For example, if you are distributing your application in a retail box and you place a pre-generated License ID and Password on a label in the box, this will allow your product to sit on a shelf until purchased and the user will get the full subscription period once they activate.

When an activation is successful, it activates the local license file as a periodic license and sets the expiration date to match the Download Until date field in SOLO Server.

Since the Download Until date is also the correct license expiration date, you can use the SOLO ServerReports / Licenses / Expired Licenses to find customers whose licenses are expired or about to expiration. There is a daily process job that can send out an email to users X days before expiration. In SOLO Server, go to the menu Configure / Mailings (Email Templates) to set up the email template for each notification you want to send. Please contact us for further assistance.

It is possible to use the Customer License Portal to show renewals and sell renewals online.

To activate the application manually (by phone or email) using Instant Protection PLUS 3, open the Instant Protection PLUS 3 .ipp file for the product you want to activate and click the Generate activation codes tab. You can choose to activate with Trigger Code 10 or 11. Trigger Code 11 will always set the expiration based on the current date, where as Trigger Code 10 will extend the expiration date in the local license file (if it already has an expiration date).

The user will provide you with the User Code 1 and User Code 2 numbers which you enter in the corresponding fields. Set the Data (X) field to the number of days of the subscription licenses. This is limited to a 14-bit data value. In this example we will use 365 for a one year license, and then click the Generate Code button and send the Activation Code 1 and Activation Code 2 numbers back to the user. Once they enter these values and activate, the local license file will be updated with the one year subscription.