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License Activation Center Administration Quick Start

This Quick Start takes you through a simple example of using License Activation Center (LAC) to learn how to:

  1. Log into the administrative area of LAC.
  2. Add products, along with selecting a license generator for the product and adding features and templates for the product.
  3. Add customers.
  4. Create license orders.
  5. Activate a license.

Logging into LAC

First, log into the administrative area of LAC by going to https://license.x-formation.com. From this page, log in by entering your username and password in the login box.

If the login box is asking for an activation key, you are on the end user login page. Click the "Log in as a software vendor" link at the bottom of the login box to switch to the vendor administration login page. 

Adding a product

In this section of the quick start, we'll add a new product to LAC called Flagship, then select the license generator to use for the product. We'll also add features and templates to the product.

To add a product:

  1. Click the Products tab at the top of the License Activation Center web application page.
  2. Under the Menu area, click Create Product. The Create New Product dialog appears.
  3. Enter Flagship for the product's Name. 
  4. Enter 1.0 for the Version. The description is optional. If you like, enter a description, such as "Our primary software product," 
  5. Click Save to add the product to LAC, then click Cancel to close the dialog. You'll see that Flagship has been added to the Products table.

To add a license generator for the product:

  1. In the Flagship product row, click the Edit icon under the Action column.
  2. In the Edit Product "Flagship" dialog that opens, click the License Generator tab.
  3. From the License Generator pick list, select xmllicgen as the license generator. Most of the remaining fields will be filled in. If desired, enter a description for the license generator in the Description area at the bottom of the dialog.
  4. Click Save. (You must click Save to save your changes before clicking another tab in this dialog.)

To add features to the product:

  1. In the Edit Product "Flagship" dialog, click the Features tab.
  2. Under the Menu area, click Create Feature.
  3. Enter F1 for the Feature Name, and 1.0 for the Feature Version.
  4. Click Save to create the feature, then close the dialog. Back at the Edit Product dialog, you'll see the feature F1 in the Features table.
  5. Create a second feature called F2 in the same manner as described above.

Creating templates for the product

Now, we'll create two templates for the product. One template will be for Corporate customers, who will receive 10 floating licenses by default, and will have both features F1 and F2 included, with F1 an annual license and F2 a perpetual license. The other template will be for Small Business customers, who will receive one node-locked license by default, will include only feature F1, and will expire 6 months from license activation.

To define a Corporate template for the feature:

  1. Click the Templates tab in the Edit Product "Flagship" dialog.
  2. Under the Menu area, click Create Template. The Add New Template for "Flagship" dialog opens.
  3. Enter Corporate for the template name, and click Save, then close the dialog. Back at the Edit Product dialog, you'll now see the Corporate template listed in the Templates table.
  4. In the Corporate template row, click the Edit icon under the Action column. The Edit Template "Corporate" dialog opens.
  5. In the General tab, select:
    1. ETHERNET for the Hostid Type
    2. Floating for License Type
    3. Customer for Licensee Type.
  6. Click Save.
  7. In the Features tab, select both F1 and F2. Click Save.
  8. In the Settings tab, specify the following for Feature F1: (Note: You may need to close the Edit Template "Corporate" dialog and open the Corporate template for edit again in order to see the Settings tab contents.)
    1. Fixed for Expiration Type
    2. One year from today's date for the Expiration Date. (You can select the date using the calendar or type the date. If typing the date, the format must be YYYY-MM-DD.)
    3. 10 for Count (to indicate that Corporate licenses include 10 seats by default).
  9. For Feature F2, specify:
    1. No Expiration for the Expiration Type.
    2. 1 for the Count.
  10. Click Save, then close the dialog.

To define a Small Business template for the feature:

  1. From the Templates tab, edit the Default template.
  2. In the General tab, change the name from "Default" to "Small Business," and specify the following settings:
    1. HOSTNAME for HostID Type.
    2. Nodelocked for License Type.
    3. Customer for Licensee Type.
  3. Click Save.
  4. In the Features tab, select only F1. Click Save.
  5. In the Settings tab, specify the following for Feature F1 (this should be the only feature shown in the Settings tab):
    1. Days From Activation for Expiration Type.
    2. 180 (6 months) for Days From Activation.
  6. Click Save and close the dialog.
  7. Close the Edit Product dialog.

Note that both the Corporate and Small Business templates are now available for all features in the product. To assign features to existing templates, you can use the Features tab from the Edit Product dialog. For example, if you open Feature F2 for edit, you will see that it is assigned only to the Corporate template. If you want to also include it in the Small Business template, simply select Small Business from the list of templates to include the feature in.

Adding customers

Now, we'll add a couple of customers to LAC who will be purchasing our Flagship product.

  1. From the main LAC page, click the Customers tab.
  2. Under Menu in the left sidebar, click Create Customer.
  3. Enter ABC Enterprises for Customer Name.
  4. Enter Corporate customer under Notes (optional).
  5. Click Save and close the dialog. You will now see ABC Enterprises listed in the Customers table.
  6. Open the ABC Enterprises customer for edit by clicking the Edit icon in the Action column for that customer.
  7. In the Contacts tab, select Create Contact. The Create New Contact dialog opens.
  8. Enter Joe Biggs for the Contact Name, and jbiggs@abcenterprises.com for Email.

Enter a second customer named "XYZ Ltd" in the same manner as above. This will be our Small Business customer. The only required information for the customer is the customer name; all other information is optional.

Creating license orders

Let's create a license order for our Corporate customer:

  1. From the LAC main page, click the Licenses tab.
  2. Under Menu in the left sidebar, click Create License Order.
  3. In the Add License Order dialog's General tab, select the following:
    1. ABC Enterprises from the Customer drop-down list.
    2. Flagship from the Product drop-down list.
    3. Corporate from the Product Template drop-down list.
  4. Click Next to accept your choices and open the Settings tab. The Settings tab presents you with the settings that are specified in the template you selected, in this case, the Corporate template.
  5. In order to be able to activate our license later without providing a host ID, change the HostID Type setting to "Not Locked."
  6. Click Save to accept the changes and return to the Licenses tab, where you will now see the order you created for ABC Enterprises added to the top of the License Orders table.
  7. To see the license you've created, click the Edit icon in the Action column for the ABC Enterprises license order, then click the Preview tab in the Edit License Order dialog. From here, you can also make any changes to the license order. For example, you could change the template that was used for the order, which will also let you review and edit the template settings.

If you like, create a license order for the Small Business customer in the same way described above, selecting XYZ Ltd as the customer and Small Business as the product template.

Activating a license

To let ABC Enterprises activate their license, you simply copy and paste the Activation Key from the License Orders table into an email with instructions on activating the license. Let's now assume that you are the end user at ABC Enterprises and want to activate your license.

To activate the license:

  1. Log into LAC by copying and pasting the activation key into the end user log-in screen at https://license.x-formation.com. (If you're at the vendor login screen, click the "Enter your activation key to get your license" link at the bottom of the login area to switch to the end user login screen.) This opens a Licenses page that list the license details, including the product name, version, license type, and other details. When a host ID is required, this page specifies the host ID type that is needed to activate the license. Since we changed the host ID type to "Not Locked," no host ID type is needed to activate the license.
  2. Click Activate. 
  3. After the license is activated, click Download to get the license. The license is downloaded as a .lic file, which the user can rename and place in an appropriate directory as required to run the licensed software. The license can be re-downloaded anytime, as long as the license is valid (not expired).

This concludes the License Activation Center Administration Quick Start. For complete information about LAC features, including the LAC API, see the License Activation Center Vendor Guide. For more information about activating licenses, see the License Activation Center End User Guide.

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