Blog on Software Licensing, Commercialization, and Revenue Optimization

In this blog, we explain the theory behind floating licenses in an offline setting in Cryptolens. For the actual code examples, please read the following documentation page on floating licenses. You can also check out our License Server repository on GitHub. Scroll down to the section called “Floating licenses offline” to find the most relevant information.

Alternatively, you can watch the full tutorial including more information about how everything works in theory on YouTube:

Floating licenses in theory

Say that you want to restrict licenses to a set number of machines. This can either be done with floating licenses or node-locking. Node-locking works in such a way that you restrict licenses to a number of machines, and if you want to activate a new machine to that license, you have to manually deactivate one of the existing machines.

For floating licenses, you instead have a requirement that only a certain number of machines can use the license simultaneously. This eliminates the need to activate and deactivate machines.

This is perfect if, for example, a customer downloads your application on 100 machines. You can then limit the number of machines so that only 10 developers can use your application at the same time. If the customer is anticipated to change machines very frequently, you no longer have the hassle of activating or deactivating machines every time a developer changes machines.

But how does this work? Your application continuously sends heartbeats to our API as it’s running, which tells Cryptolens that that particular machine is active. If Cryptolens does not receive a heartbeat from that machine anymore, it will automatically be deactivated. Naturally, a new machine can be activated again, as long as no more than a set number of machines are being used at the same time. This allows you to potentially charge the customer more for a license that allows for more machines to simultaneously be able to access your application.

The offline approach

With the offline approach, you can even use floating licenses when your application runs in a locked-in environment without access to the internet, such as a docker container. Instead of having to send requests to Cryptolens, you can have your application send the requests to a local license server. In this way, your application can run in, for example, a docker container without encountering any licensing issues.

We have now covered the basics of floating licenses in an offline setting in Cryptolens. If you want to set up floating licenses, please read the documentation, or watch the YouTube video provided earlier in this blog.

Please let us know if you have any questions. Thank you for reading!

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This blog post will focus on the Verified Trial feature in Cryptolens, allowing you to automatically issue trial licenses in Cryptolens. The full documentation page can be found here.

You can also watch this tutorial as a YouTube video:

Let’s first cover the theory behind the Verified Trial feature. In your application, you would call a specific API method, in this case the Key.CreateTrialKey method, and supply the machine code or any other device identifier. As long as that machine code has not received a trial key before, a new trial key will automatically be generated and sent to the application.

Setting up the trial licenses in Cryptolens

To implement the Verified Trial feature, you would need to add additional code to your product. Please find this code example at the bottom of this blog post, or on the dedicated documentation page.

To set this up, we will begin with a limited version of the code so you can make sure that you get everything properly set up before you implement the feature. To get started, simply copy the code below and paste it into your application.

var newTrialKey = Key.CreateTrialKey("access token", new CreateTrialKeyModel {ProductId= "product id", MachineCode = "machine code" });

if(!Helpers.IsSuccessful(res))
{
	Console.WriteLine(res?.Message);
}

Console.WriteLine(res.Key);

For this to work, you need to enter an access token, your product ID, and the machine code into the code above.

Access Token

For the access token, you need to sign in to Cryptolens. Go to the Access Token page and click “Create new Access Token”.

Give your new access token a name. Under the “License Key” headline, click on the checkbox called “Create Trial Key”. To complete, click on “Create an Access Token”

At the top of the Access Token page, a green field will appear with the token you have just created. Copy the access token, either manually or by clicking on the blue icon to the right of the access token.

Paste the access token in your application’s code where it says “access token”.

Product ID:

Make sure you provide the correct Product ID of your desired Cryptolens product in your application’s code. You find the Product ID by going to the product’s page in Cryptolens. The Product ID should be visible just above the “Create a new key” button.

In the code you just pasted into your application, please provide the correct Product ID where it now says “product id”.

Machine Code:

Normally, you would use Helpers.GetMachineCode to get the correct machine code. For this example, however, you may specify your own machine code to make sure everything is working, and when you want the Verified Trial feature to go live, you should simply replace your example machine code with Helpers.GetMachineCode.

For this example, we will set the machine code to “test3” by entering it into the code where it says “machine code”.

Final Step:

Run the application. If everything works as it should, the newly created trial license key should appear. When the feature is live, you should proceed as normal with key verification after this step.

You can now find the trial key on the Product Page, just like it does when you create the key manually.

You have almost learned how to automatically issue trial licenses in Cryptolens. We will now cover a way of customizing the pre-defined features and the expiration date. If you do not wish to make any changes, proceed with the section of this blog called “Full implementation”.

Customizing the pre-defined features

Notice how the new key has the “trial” feature set as true. Unless you have specified that all licenses are time-limited, the trial key should also have another feature set as true, which is the “time-limited” feature.

If you want to change which feature is the trial and time-limited feature, click on Edit Feature Names. 

In Feature Definitions, you can specify which features you want to be the trial and time-limited feature. If you want all licenses to be treated as time-limited, you can click on the checkbox below the list of 8 features called “Treat all licenses as time-limited”.

Customizing the expiry date

Notice how the trial key you created will expire in 15 days. You can customize this by changing the access token.

Go to the Access Token page and delete the access token you created earlier in this tutorial by clicking on the cross icon to the right for the correct access token.

Click on Create new Access Token. Give the access token a name. Once again, select the “Create Trial Key” checkbox in the License Key section.

Scroll all the way down to the bottom of the page to find the Feature Lock field. In this field, you can specify the expiry date of the automatically issued trial license keys. If you want the trial license key to be valid for 30 days, simply write 30 in the Feature Lock field.

When you have specified your desired expiration date, click on Create an Access Token.

Copy the new access token by finding the green field at the top of the Access Token page as you did earlier and replace the old access token in your application’s code with the new one.

Remember to change the example machine code you provided earlier to see if everything is working. For this example, we will change the machine code to “test5”.

Run the application again. If everything works, the new trial license should appear.

Go back to the Product page and you should find the newly created trial license key with the expiry date that you specified in the access token’s Feature Lock field. For this example, the new key should be valid for 30 days.

Full implementation

To fully implement this feature, please see the code example below.

Notice that the first part is exactly the same as we pasted earlier, meaning that if you have followed the steps in this blog, that part is correctly customized for your application.

Lastly, remember to remove your example machine code and instead use Helpers.GetMachineCode, or any other method of identifying devices, as soon as you are done experimenting with the Verified Trial feature.

Here is the code example for full implementation:

var newTrialKey = Key.CreateTrialKey("access token", new CreateTrialKeyModel {ProductId= "product id", MachineCode =Helpers.GetMachineCode() });

if(newTrialKey == null || newTrialKey.Result == ResultType.Error)
{
    Assert.Fail("Something went wrong when creating the trial key");
}

var activate = Key.Activate("access token", 
    new ActivateModel {
        ProductId = 3941,
        Sign = true,
        MachineCode = Helpers.GetMachineCode(),
        Key = newTrialKey.Key, Metadata = true
    });

if(activate == null || activate.Result == ResultType.Error)
{
    Assert.Fail("Something went wrong when verifying the trial key");
}

// now we can verify some basic properties
if (Helpers.IsOnRightMachine(activate.LicenseKey) && activate.Metadata.LicenseStatus.IsValid)
{
    // license verification successful.
    return;
}

Assert.Fail();

Now you know how to automatically issue trial licenses in Cryptolens.

Thank you for reading this blog, please reach out if you have any questions to [email protected].

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In this blog guide, we will cover a method of blocking expired licenses automatically in Cryptolens. This guide is based on a page from our documentation, which you can find here.

If you would rather watch a video of this guide, please watch the following:

The first step is to sign in to Cryptolens and go to the Product Page. Click on Edit Feature Names.

To implement automatic blocking of expired licenses, Cryptolens must know which licenses are time-limited, and there are two methods of doing that:

1. You can designate a specific feature to be time-limited. To implement this method, simply choose what feature you want to be the time-limited feature, and enable it for the licenses you want to automatically block after they expire.

2. You can also treat all licenses as time-limited, meaning that any license regardless of its features will automatically be blocked after it expires. To implement this, simply click on the checkbox below the feature list called “Treat all licenses as time-limited”.

Regardless of what method you choose, you must click on the checkbox below the feature list called “Block expired licenses”. Press Save.

Now you know more about blocking expired licenses automatically in Cryptolens. But what about deleting license keys completely? You cannot remove expired licenses due to security reasons. It is however important to block licenses that are not used. This is because Cryptolens charges a small fee for each active license.

There is also a way to automatically send email notifications to customers when their license is about to expire. You can find that tutorial here.

Thank you for reading this guide, please reach out to [email protected] if you have any questions.

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This blog features a convenient way of speeding up license creation using license templates in Cryptolens. Issuing multiple licenses with the same expiry date and enabled features can speed up the license creation process and make your work easier.

If you would rather watch a YouTube video of this guide, please watch the following video:

The feature covered in this blog is called License Templates, and you can read the full documentation here.

License Templates tutorial

Start by signing in to Cryptolens, and go to the product you want to create a license template for. Click on “Create a new key” like you normally do to issue a license manually.

Select the features and the expiry date that you want. Instead of clicking on Create, you should click on Save as Template.

Give the license template a name. Notice that the “Parameters” field is already filled out. If you want to customize the parameters of your license template, please read the existing documentation.

When you are done customizing your template, click on Create.

Go back to the product and click on “Create a new key”. You should now be able to see the license template you created in the field called “License Templates”.

To make a new license with the same features and expiry date as you selected for the license template, simply select your newly created license template in that field, and click on the Create button to the right of the drop-down menu.

Know you now more about speeding up license creation using license templates in Cryptolens. This method is useful if you, for example, want to issue multiple yearly or monthly licenses with the same features. It is also possible to retrieve the license templates through the API if you prefer to use the API for license creation.

Thank you for reading this blog, please reach out to us if you have any questions!

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In this blog, we will cover how you can automatically notify customers at license expiration in Cryptolens. You will be able to select time intervals for the emails and choose to send a copy to your own email as well.

We have also uploaded this guide as a video if you find that more convenient:

This guide is based on a page in our documentation that you can find here.

Setting up automatic expiration emails

Sign in to Cryptolens and head to the Product Page. For an existing product, click on “Edit Features” and scroll down. Click on the checkbox called “Automatic expiration notification” and then click on Save.

You have enabled the feature, but you need to specify which licenses are time-limited. Do this in one of these two ways:

1. You can designate a particular feature to be the time-limited feature, meaning that any license with that particular feature set as true will be treated as time-limited.
2. You can treat all licenses for your selected product as time-limited.

1: To designate a particular feature to be time-limited, simply select the “Time Limited” option in the drop-down menu for a particular feature’s “Type”, which can be found at the top of the Edit Feature Names page. Enable the chosen feature for the licenses you want to send email notifications to. Click on Save.

2: Click on the checkbox below the list of features near the top of the Edit Features Names page called “Treat all licenses as time-limited”. Click on Save.

Now that Cryptolens knows which licenses are time-limited, your customers will receive 3 email notifications, one 7 days in advance, one 3 days in advance, and one on the day that the license expires.

Customizing the time intervals

You can customize when to send the emails and how many to send. To do this, head to the Product Page once again, and click on Data Objects.

cryptolens_expirationnotice

Copy the object name above and paste it into the field called “Name”.

By default, the string value is 0,3,7, meaning that an email will be sent 0 days prior, 3 days prior, and 7 days prior to the license expiration date. Simply change this string value to whatever time intervals you want. If you want to send more emails, just add a comma (,) and specify how many days prior to license expiration you want to send an email. For example, to send an extra email 10 days in advance, simply modify the string to be 0,3,7,10. Press on Create when you have chosen your preferred time intervals.

Sending a copy to your own email address

Stay on the Data Objects page to set it up so that you receive a copy of the email sent to customers.

cryptolens_expirationnotice_send_copy

Copy the data name above and paste it into the Name field. Provide the email to which you want the copy sent in the String Value field. Press on Create.

Now you know how to automatically notify customers at license expiration in Cryptolens.

If you have any questions, please contact us at [email protected].

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In this blog, we will discuss how you can add more features in addition to the 8 features that come out of the box when using Cryptolens and our software licensing system. You will also learn how to create feature hierarchies.

This guide is also available as a video tutorial in case you prefer to take in information that way:

The first step is to sign in to Cryptolens and bring up the Product Page. Once you have created a product and a license key, you may already be aware that you can click on the license key to enable or disable up to 8 features.

Let’s suppose that you’d like to add feature 9, or even define a feature hierarchy where you create a module with multiple sub-modules. This can easily be done using Feature Templates, which are described in more detail in our documentation.

Multiple Features Without Hierarchy

The example listed below allows you to add additional features without defining any feature hierarchy.

["ModuleA", "ModuleB", "ModuleC"]

You may change the name and the number of new features in the code to suit your needs. If you do not wish to make any changes, simply copy the code above and head back to the Product Page on the Cryptolens dashboard. Click on “Edit Feature Names”.

Scroll down to find the Feature Template field, and paste the copied or modified code into that field. Press the Save button and go back to the Product Page. When you press a license key, the new features will now appear below the original 8 features. The end result is shown below.

Multiple Features With Hierarchy

Let’s now suppose that you would like to add a sub-module to a particular feature. In this example, you will learn how to create two sub-modules for Module B, but the same logic can be applied to define whatever hierarchy suits your needs the best.

This section begins after the above-mentioned one ends, so if you have not already, please begin with the steps mentioned above regarding “Multiple Features Without Hierarchy”.

Head back to your Product Page on the Cryptolens Dashboard and press “Edit Feature Names”. Scroll down to the Feature Template field to find the code you pasted earlier. To define feature hierarchies, you will have to modify this code slightly.

The following code shows how to create two sub-modules for Module B. Simply replace “ModuleB” from the code in the Feature Template field with the following code:

["Module B", ["Submodule 1", "Submodule 2"]]

As you can see, the first element in the list is the name of the main feature, and the following elements will be the associated sub-modules. Using the same logic, you can define whatever feature hierarchy suits your needs. Keep in mind that you also can define sub-sub-modules.

The following code shows the end result if you just want to make three new features, whereas Module B has two sub-modules:

["ModuleA", ["Module B", ["Submodule 1", "Submodule 2"]] , "ModuleC"]

When you have created your desired hierarchy, hit Save, go back to the Product Page, and click on the license key. You will now see additional features listed below the original 8, with the hierarchy you have defined.

Below you will find what the hierarchy looks like from our example.

If you have any questions, please reach out to us at [email protected].

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