Timed trials in your app
In addition to licensing and online activation, LimeLM fully support timed trials. Timed trials can be used within your application to allow prospective customers to try your application for a limited time.
The timed trial has tamper protection and isn't reset on re-installation of your app. Plus, if your user needs more time to try your app, you can generate a trial extension and send it to your user.
In short, you can offer trials to your customers without worrying about the details.
Using the TurboActivate trials API
Adding trials to your app is simple. You only need to know 3 functions: UseTrial(), TrialDaysRemaining(), and ExtendTrial().
UseTrial()
The UseTrial() function begins the trial the first time it's called. Calling it again will simply validate the trial data hasn't been tampered with.
It's recommended that you call the UseTrial() function at the start of your application.
TrialDaysRemaining()
The TrialDaysRemaining() function returns the numbers of days remaining. If the trial has expired then this function will return 0.
ExtendTrial()
The ExtendTrial() takes as a parameter the trial extension string. After a valid trial extension string has been entered, you can call TrialDaysRemaining() to see the new number of trial days remaining.
Trial extensions
Trial extensions are codes you can give to prospective users so they can extend the trial to your application.
There are many uses for trial extensions. For instance, a user could tell you their trial expired and they haven't convinced upper management to make a purchase yet. Or perhaps they tried your application once, went on vacation, and have come back to discover the trial is expired.
In both cases (and many more instances) trial extensions are the solution.
Generate a trial extension
To generate a trial extension, the first thing you need to do is click the "Trial extensions" clink on the side bar of one of your product versions:
After that, on the trial extensions page, click the "Create a new trial extension" link and you'll be presented with a few options. For starters you can choose from an "online" trial extension and an "offline" trial extension.
We recommend creating an "online" trial extension for all cases except when the user is on a restricted internet (government, banks, etc.). The advantages of the "online" trial extensions are as follows:
- Much shorter extension string for the user to type (only 34 characters) as compared to the 380+ characters required for the "offline" trial extension.
- You can limit how many times the trial extension can be used.
- You can change the length of the trial extension and when it expires after you've created it.
Make trial extensions using the LimeLM web API
In addition to generating trial extensions from within LimeLM, you can integrate this ability into your website or company processes. To do this use the limelm.trialExtension.generate web API function.