WebDepot 14.12.

There are many ways to activate licenses. One option is to integrate an activation wizard in your software. Another elegant option is to use browser-based activation with the CodeMeter License Central WebDepot. The WebDepot is a PHP application that can be tailored to your specific needs with minimal effort.

Find the Right Look and Feel

The design of the WebDepot can be matched with your corporate design by means of a CSS file. The multilingual WebDepot is currently available in the following languages: Chinese, Dutch, English, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Portuguese, Russian, and Spanish. You can add further languages as required by creating additional language files, hide any languages you do not need, or adjust the copy in the existing language packages to your liking. Adjusting the WebDepot to your corporate language is easy.

All Licenses at a Glance

After the end users have entered their tickets, they are taken immediately to the license overview, where all licenses for their ticket are listed. If the users enter multiple tickets (separated by “;”), they will receive a summary overview of the licenses for their tickets. 

As vendors, you can define which columns are included in the list, choosing between: Ticket, Article Number, Article Name, Status, Order Date, Serial Number of the CmContainer, and Comment. You can also freely define the order of the columns and licenses, group similar licenses, or hide older licenses on the same ticket.

The overview shows the user all available options: “Activate licenses,” “Transfer licenses,” “Recover licenses,” and “Continue transfer.”

Activation

Depending on how your licenses are configured, the users have the option to transfer them to a CmDongle or computer-bound CmActLicense. You can also let the user decide, in which case a selection is offered before the actual activation. 

The users select the appropriate licenses and click on “Activate selected licenses.”

On this page, you can determine which licenses are pre-selected (either all, no, or every individual license once). All activated licenses are automatically hidden on this page.

Transferring Licenses

Activated licenses can generally be deactivated or returned. Your settings decide whether this can be done for your licenses. There are two typical cases for returning a license: A planned transfer to another computer or the rescission of the actual sales contract. Since you, the vendor, can be expected to support the planned and legitimate transfer of licenses, the button is named “Transfer licenses.”

The “Transfer licenses” page also handles the returning of licenses. If the licenses are distributed on multiple CmContainers, the users first choose a CmContainer, then select the licenses to be returned, and finally click on “Return selected licenses”.

After confirming the successful return of the license, it can be re-activated again as if it had never been activated before.

Recovering Licenses

In individual cases, it is impossible for licenses to be returned after the machine they had been activated on has changed. In such cases, license recovery is the right option. As the license vendor, there are two basic cases in which you can allow a recovery: the recovery of single licenses, or the recovery of entire CmContainers. CodeMeter License Central 2.10 or newer is required for the latter case.

Licenses can only be recovered with your express permission. You can allow it either automatically with a defined waiting period or by manual request. 

The users are also notified that the original license is voided and placed on a blocked list.

Continuing the Transfer

All of these cases are common for online activation, where the user has the right CmContainer connected to an internet-enabled computer with a browser that supports Websockets, ActiveX, or Java. In all other cases, licenses can be transferred by offline means in three simple steps: upload a request, download the license, and upload the receipt.

The “Continue Transfer” page lists all processes that have not yet been completed with a receipt and can be continued.

Additional Options

You can also define certain rules for retrieving licenses. For instance, you can determine that all older licenses on a ticket are also retrieved when a new license is downloaded. This would be a perfect means for ensuring that no user can skip an update in sequential updates. This also applies in the other direction – the return or recovery of licenses. With the right settings, all newer licenses are also returned. Other settings include “always all licenses” and “only the most recent license.”

Conclusions

CodeMeter License Central WebDepot gives you a simple-to-use and elegant way of distributing licenses to the users of your software. Activate, transfer, or recover: everything is possible without any manual effort on your part. The WebDepot is flexible and versatile enough to match your needs in look and feel.  

 

KEYnote 29 – Edition Spring 2015