License Templates

License templates are a fundamental component of the Babel Licensing system, serving as blueprints for generating licenses with consistent configurations. These templates streamline the licensing process by defining standard configurations that can be reused across multiple license instances, ensuring consistency and reducing manual effort.

Advantages of Using Templates

License templates have these advantages:

1. Consistency and Efficiency: License templates allow you to define standard configurations for floating licenses or license activation. By using templates, you ensure consistency in the licensing process and avoid manual entry of the same information for each license. This saves time and minimizes the risk of errors or inconsistencies in license creation.
2. Streamlined License Generation: With license templates, generating licenses becomes a streamlined process. Templates pre-fill the relevant information, such as product details, license fields, features, and restrictions. This eliminates the need to manually enter repetitive information and speeds up the license generation process.
3. Customizability: License templates offer flexibility and customization options. You can create multiple templates with different configurations based on your specific licensing needs. For example, you can have templates for different product editions, license types, or feature sets. This allows you to cater to various licensing scenarios and easily adapt to changing licensing requirements.
4. Reusability: License templates are reusable assets. Once you create a template, you can use it as a blueprint to generate multiple licenses with similar configurations. This is particularly beneficial when issuing floating licenses or activation licenses to multiple customers or users. You can quickly generate licenses based on the template, reducing manual effort and ensuring consistency across licenses.
5. Simplified Updates and Maintenance: License templates make it easier to update and maintain licenses. If there are changes in licensing terms, product details, or restrictions, you can modify the template accordingly. This automatically applies the changes to all licenses generated from that template, ensuring that the updated information is consistently reflected across licenses.
6. Standardization and Compliance: License templates help enforce standardization and compliance in license creation. By defining specific fields and configurations in the template, you ensure that all licenses adhere to the required licensing rules, restrictions, and compliance regulations. This promotes license standardization and helps maintain compliance with licensing agreements and legal obligations.
7. Centralized Storage: The Babel database provides a centralized store for license templates. This eliminates the need for scattered template files stored across different systems or folders, ensuring a repository for managing and organizing templates.

In short, templates make licenses faster to create and more consistent, and you can still adapt them to different licensing scenarios.

Template Structure and Components

A license template in Babel Licensing consists of several key sections that define various aspects of the license:

Basic Template Information

• Name: A descriptive name for the template that identifies its purpose or the type of license it generates.
• License Type: Defines the category of license (e.g., Standard, Professional, Enterprise).
• Mode: Specifies the licensing model:
  • Activation: Licenses that are activated and bound to specific machine
  • Floating: Licenses that can be shared among multiple users with concurrent usage limits
  • File: Traditional license files that are distributed to users

License Configuration

• User Key Format: Defines the format for generating unique user keys (e.g., STD-{TOKEN:5}-{TOKEN:5}-{TOKEN:5}).
• Issue Date: Toggle to include the date when the license is issued.
• Expire Days: Number of days after which the license will expire.
• Support Days: Duration of provided support in days.
• License File Name: The default filename for generated license files.
• Format: The format of the license (XML, XML DSig, ASCII, BASE32).
• Description: Additional information about the template’s purpose or usage.

Product and Signing

• Product: Associates the template with a specific product in the Babel Licensing Database.
• Sign Keys: Cryptographic keys used to digitally sign licenses generated from the template, ensuring their authenticity and integrity.

License Properties

The License Properties section contains four main tabs:

1. Assemblies: Lists the .NET assemblies that the license applies to, including details such as:
   • Assembly Name
   • Version
   • Culture
   • Public Key Token
2. Components: Specifies components within assemblies that are licensed.
3. Fields: Custom license fields that can store additional information.
4. Features: Defines specific features that are enabled by the license.

Restrictions

Templates can include various restrictions that control how the license can be used:

• Trial: Limits usage based on time or number of executions, including:
  • Expire Days: Duration of the trial period
  • Run Instances: Maximum number of concurrent instances
  • Run Count: Total number of allowed executions
  • Run Time: Maximum allowed runtime
  • Terms: Additional terms and conditions
• Hardware: Restricts the license to specific hardware configurations.
• Domain: Limits license usage to specific network domains.
• Beta: Designates the license for beta or pre-release software.
• Usage: Defines specific usage scenarios or environments.

License Models and Template Configuration

Each licensing model requires specific configuration within the template:

Activation License Templates

Activation license templates are designed for licenses that are tied to specific machines. Key configurations include:

• Mode set to “Activation”
• User Key format definition
• Allowed sites (number of activations permitted)
• Hardware restrictions (optional)

Floating License Templates

Floating license templates enable license sharing across multiple users or machines. Important settings include:

• Mode set to “Floating”
• User Key format definition
• Allowed sites (maximum concurrent users)
• Heartbeat interval (implicitly defined by the service)

File License Templates

File license templates generate traditional license files that can be distributed to users. Key aspects include:

• Mode set to “File”
• License file name
• Format (XML, XML DSig, ASCII, BASE32)
• Sign keys for digital signature

Managing Templates in Babel Desktop

License templates are stored on the Babel Licensing Service. You can manage them with Babel Desktop, with the Data Center web application, or with the Babel Licensing WordPress plugin.

To access license templates in Babel Desktop, open your service profile from the activity bar and choose License templates.

The grid lists the license templates with their name, code, type, licensing mode and expiration days. Within the grid, you can:

1. Search: type in the search box to find templates by name or code.
2. Sort and page: sort the templates by a column and move through the pages of results.
3. Choose columns: use the Columns chooser to show or hide columns.
4. View details: open a template to see all its settings and the licenses generated from it.
5. Edit: change the settings of the selected template with Edit.
6. Delete: remove a template that is no longer needed. Deleting asks for confirmation and cannot be undone, so take care not to remove templates still in use.
7. Upload and save template files: use Upload template file… to attach a template file (.xml, .txt or .tpl) to the template, and Save template file… to save it to the license export folder.

Create and Edit Templates

To create a new license template, choose New license template on the License templates toolbar. Creating and editing templates requires a Local test connection profile with Local management, that is, Babel Desktop running on the service machine; profiles of remote services are read-only. The form is organized in these groups:

• Template: the Name, Code, Type and Format of the template.
• Licensing: the licensing mode (file, activation or floating), the License file name, Set issue date, Expires after (days), Maintenance (days), Generate key info and the User key format.
• Details: the Description, the Product, the Release id and the Signature key.
• Properties: the Assemblies, Components, Fields and Features included in the licenses.
• Restrictions: the license restrictions, such as Trial, Usage, Hardware, Beta, Domain or Custom.

Save the form to store the template on the Babel Licensing Service. The new template then appears in the License templates grid and can be selected when you generate a license. To change an existing template, select it and choose Edit.

With the Data Center edition you can also manage templates in the web application.