A few questions :-)

Hey BGA,

1. What we would like to do is have a Dashboard (I see you have one here http://wyday.com/limelm/features/tour/) that would enable our finance department to see all our customers by name and to be able to:

This is a great idea. Right now we only have a single login for the company. Having multiple logins for a company is on our list of features to implement. Since you need it, we'll bump it up to top priority.

How many different roles do you have? (You mention finance department, do you have any other departments that would need logins, like customer service, etc).

2. Deactivate them individually online

You can deactivate individual activations. Or you can revoke and un-revoke product keys.

The difference is that by deactivating individual keys remotely you allow the user to reactivate their product key on the same computer or on a different computer. Plus, when you integrate TurboActivate within your app, you can add an option for the user to deactivate their licenses without having to interact with your customer service.

Revoking product keys permanently disables the product key remotely. That is, their computer becomes deactivated and the product key is useless for future use.

3. Activate them individually online

The user can activate within your app. You can either use the TurboActivate wizard, or you can use the API and develop your own interface.

4. Set timebombs per customer (we can take care of the Nag that appears on screen if LimeLM) doesnt do this.

I'm not quite sure what that means. Can you clarify?

We support custom license features where you can specify date/time feature types. And we also support time trials. But I'm not quite sure what you mean by timebomb.

5. When activating the sites to be able to set a finite time period which finance can extend before the current licence times out (this method we currently use circumvent a site getting a licence then blocking the ports we use to send a de-activate message)

We support SaaS and time limited licensing, if that's what you mean. For instance, our article on SaaS and time-limited licensing describes having "update contracts" that last a finite amount of time and the user can purchase more time and their license will be updated accordingly. But you can apply time-limited licenses however you need (it doesn't need to be limited to updates).

Is this what you mean, or have I misunderstood you?

6. To create manual keys in the event of an online failure

Not yet. You're the first potential customer to request this. This was in our plans, but if you want we can bump this up in priority.

The reason we haven't added this yet, is that TurboActivate has been real world tested. That is, every crazy internet configuration (and misconfiguration) TurboActivate works in. Plus it supports custom proxies, if you don't want TurboActivate to automatically detect and use the proxies on the user's machine.

Is this a "must have" for you? If so, we'll bump this up priority too.

I may have more questions in the future but as an initial evaluation any info on the above points would be gratefully received

Sure, I'll be glad to answer any other questions you have.

Yo Sam,Thanks for the responses .. will have words at this end based on them and get back to you thanks BGA

Hi again Sam,Had a word this end.

1a. The ability to see each client site by name is a must for us as our Finance people (the staff ultimately using the licencing system) will be responsible for revoking keys if for example a standing order fails etc etc, they will need to see "ABC Cinemas" then just be able to revoke the key(s) associated with that company.

1b. We would ideally require multiple roles for the dashboard access - ie Finance, Admin, Support - or a facility to add multiple roles maybe

2.Sorted

3.Sorted

4.The Time bomb issue will be our issue here so no worries on that score (we will code an expiry date into our software to maintain version control)

5.see point 4 so no worries there

6. Manual keys are a must for us I'm afraid , due to the insistence of some clients who require that internet access is not available therefore we activate manually using keys read out over the phone

I can happily supply any docs to describe ideally how we would like it to work but appreciate obviously its not a tailor made solution and we can work with it as it is with just a few little additions ..Hope ok

Alan (BGA is an alias obviously )

Hey Alan,

1a. The ability to see each client site by name is a must for us as our Finance people (the staff ultimately using the licencing system) will be responsible for revoking keys if for example a standing order fails etc etc, they will need to see "ABC Cinemas" then just be able to revoke the key(s) associated with that company.

1b. We would ideally require multiple roles for the dashboard access - ie Finance, Admin, Support - or a facility to add multiple roles maybe

Ok. We'll add the ability for the admin account to add users, and give the admin the ability to limit abilities of each of the accounts.

6. Manual keys are a must for us I'm afraid , due to the insistence of some clients who require that internet access is not available therefore we activate manually using keys read out over the phone

Manually activation keys have been getting a flurry of "seconded" requests, so we'll be adding this first.

I can happily supply any docs to describe ideally how we would like it to work but appreciate obviously its not a tailor made solution and we can work with it as it is with just a few little additions ..Hope ok

This would be useful. If you have any special requirements not mentioned here, you can always send any docs to support@wyday.com.

Also, we'll be adding these features ASAP, but what are your deadlines so we clearer time frame?

Just an update: we plan to have the full "offline activation" support & trial extensions on Wednesday this week. The other features you've requested will be rolled out in the coming weeks.

Ok, we've added manual activation (aka. offline activation). In addition to manually activating from the LimeLM interface, you can use the web API to create a self-serve type form on your website. We have fully baked examples of this written for ASP.NET (C# and VB.NET) and PHP. Get the latest web API example pack from your API page (requires login).

We'll be adding user-based roles (finance, etc.) in the coming weeks.

Hi we also need to be able to do manual activation over the phone or via an sms. Our end users will not have access to any online facility so we cannot have them upload an xml file nor will they have that kind of technical expertise as our product is aimed at children. We would Ideally like to be able to have our customers call in and activate.

We would Ideally like to be able to have our customers call in and activate.

We don't currently have activation via phone (and we don't have plans to add it). The reason we won't be adding it is the data that needs to be transmitted (spoken) is about 1 KB. Which isn't a large amount of data, but when you have to speak that data it can be time consuming and prone to errors.

So what are your options? Well, you can use our offline activation. A customer can install your software on their computer, and if they don't have internet access they can offline activate. Offline activation is just like the regular online activation, except the process is split into 3 steps:

1. The customer generates the "activation request" for your software on that computer without internet access.
2. The customer uses another computer with internet access (or a cellphone, or SMS) and send this activation request to your company (by email, by web form, by SMS, or by any other method you choose).
3. You send the "activation response" back to the user (by cellphone, by email, by web form, by SMS, or any other method you choose) and they use the "activation response" to activate your software.

Does that make sense?