Infralution Support

[Bob Dukes]

Using License Tracker 5.8.1 and Authentication License Server with stand-alone database. Keys are pre-generated in License Tracker and then given to 3rd party distributor. Buyer information is imported back into License Tracker when keys are purchased. Currently have implemented subscription license by using first authentication date and a hard-wired time duration to "expire" a license in my product application events code. I would like to take advantage of the Expiry Date introduced in 5.8.0 and have all my product keys using that field. For new pre-generated keys, I will use the key generation tab and set the Expiry date with days after key first authenticated. Previously generated keys (before Expiry date available) fall into three classes:

1) keys given to 3rd party distributor and have not yet been purchased.
2) keys sold by the 3rd party distributor and imported back into License Tracker, but not yet authenticated by the buyer
3) keys sold by the 3rd party distributor, imported into license tracker and have been authenticated by the buyer

I'm unclear as to the best way to handle these 3 cases to wind up with keys that have a Expiry date which is a combination of the first authentication date + a fixed time period. There doesn't appear to be a way to edit pre-generated keys to do this unless they been authenticated. Set Limits only has a calendar date and could be used in case 3. Appreciate any suggestions you can give me. Thanks-Bob

[Infralution]

If you set the Expiry date (with days after key first authenticated option) for the product then when any key is authenticated (including ones generated prior to you setting the option) the license will include the ExpiryDate. For it to have any effect however the customer must be running an application compiled against Version 5.8. If they are then cases 1 and 2 will both work without issue.

For case 3 you can use the Set Limits function. If you had a large number of license keys to deal with then you could write a program to do this.

Unless you can be sure that customers will not be running older versions of your application then you will probably need to leave the "Include First Authentication Date in license" option checked so that a customer running an older version can still authenticate their license key. You may also want to put some code in your application to handle licenses that were authenticated before the expiry date feature was added. This would check if the license has the expiry date (AuthenticatedLicense.ExpiryDate.HasValue) and if not calculates it based on the FirstAuthenticationDate property.
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Infralution Support

[Bob Dukes]

Thanks for the answers about how to handle previous (to 5.8) pre-generated keys and what I need to do to accommodate users running older application versions. I want to switch to using the Expiry date for my subscription licensing while I still have relatively few existing pre-generated keys. Given your answers, I believe the conversion should be pretty straightforward. Really appreciate the way you support your products. - Bob