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BEYOND Registration and Licensing

BEYOND Licensing Options

BEYOND Licenses come in two different types, and two different timeframes.

Hardware vs Account (Internet)

Licenses for BEYOND are bound to either a piece of control hardware or linked to an account login. For hardware licenses, the hardware needs to be connected to the control computer running BEYOND at time of use. For account-based licenses, you log into your account and “lease” the license to a computer for a time selected by the user. You do not need to be constantly connected to the internet to use an internet license, just a time of lease.

Lifetime (Perpetual) vs Monthly (Rental)

BEYOND can be purchased either monthly or in a lifetime license. Monthly licenses are non-subscription based single purchase codes where 32 days of access start at time of activation. Lifetime licenses are full licenses that are perpetual and can be used for the lifetime of the product and include free updates to BEYOND for life.

Both license timeframes can be used with either Hardware or Account based registrations.

Purchasing a license

Licenses can be purchased on the main Pangolin Website at https://pangolin.com/collections/beyond-software/products/beyond-license. Once a product is purchased, a code will be sent to your email address used to purchase within a few minutes. Be very cautious when purchasing your license, you want it to be the correct version for you.

Using Licenses in BEYOND

Activating licenses is done within the BEYOND software, so if you have just purchased your first license, go to the BEYOND Downloads section of the website to download the BEYOND Full version.

Once you start BEYOND, go to the “License and Registration Manager.”

Registration and License Manager

The registration and license manager is a window in BEYOND is a window where all licensing is managed. This window has three tabs.

The Status tab will help you determine what licenses are currently in use and connected, all connected hardware and if your hardware is registered as genuine. This window also provides lots of session information. This can be very useful for support to use when assisting users.

The Registration Tab is where you can force “Registration”. Registration is a connection to the pangolin server that serves many purposes. But mainly to check for connected hardware's status, for hardware with licenses tied to it, or ensuring genuine hardware is used.

The License Tab

When it pertains to activating licenses or managing your licenses, the most important tab to use will be the “License” Tab. The first thing to note is the dropdown next to “I want to” where you can select your action. Those are:

The first dropdown is used when using your account-based license and using your internet licenses. The rest are for activating licenses via codes when purchasing new or upgrades to licenses.

Using an Account (Internet) Based License

If you have purchased or use a “Internet” or “Account” based license, you will use the “Manage an Account (Internet) License Tab most commonly. This will allow you to log into your account (Specific to licensing) and see all licenses on your account, and the status of those licenses.

On the right you can log in, log out and change your password, these are account settings, next to that you can refresh the list in the main window.

On the main left window, you have your “status” of the computer, and BEYOND install, and the account logged in, and date and time. Below that you will see each license in the account with its name, what the license has included with it (like version, kinetic plugin etc.). The license expiration (If lifetime, it should say 100 years into the future of activation) and for monthly licenses it will let you know when the license expires. Below that it will show login number, for this pc, and the session time of that log in until next refresh. Licenses “In Use” are licenses that are logged in.

Internet licenses allow for two logins, the first login being your license, and the second being your emergency log in, this does not mean you have two log ins, but a secondary log in in case of computer failure, or lost computer where license was still logged in.

Internet licenses are stored on the Pangolin server, when a license is “Logged in,” or “started use” the server leases the license to the computer for a set amount of time (User determined) and at which point the computer can be disconnected from the internet, Both the server and computer will count down the amount of time leased, and both computer and server will release the log in at the same time.

To set the login time and change other settings, go to the “Edit” button on the right:

Here you can give your license a Name, and determine the “Log in”, or Refresh period, from minimum 2 hours to 60 days. Longer times are good for long term tours and extended show periods, shorter times are good for programmers on the go, or companies who frequently use many different machines. When you press “Ok” it will send those settings to the server and sync your account. Up top you can also see more details about the license itself.

When you would like to use your internet/ Account based license, all you need to do is select the licensee you wish to use and click “Start Use” on the right. This will lease the license to the PC.

To log off, and reset the logins for the license, you can also click “Stop Use” or “Stop Use all” if you have multiple licenses logged in on this pc. Note: you cannot stop use licenses that are not on this pc, or currently connected to the internet, if you lose access to that login for any reason, you can use your emergency second login, and wait for the first login to expire.

If you would like to reset the login's lease time, you can click Renew, and it will reset the lease time from the server, using your set lease time in the edit window.

Note all these options must be completed while connected to the internet, however no internet is required to continue using a “Logged in” or “In use” license until the time runs out.

Using Hardware Licenses

Hardware licenses are bound to specific pieces of control hardware, including FB3, FB4, And other legacy, and possible future control hardware. When new hardware is connected to the computer, BEYOND will try and register. By doing so it will take the connected hardware and as the server if any of the attached hardware has licenses bound to them, if they do the server will let the computer know which, and the computer will store this information into a folder on your computer under C:\Pangolin. This will allow your computer to “remember” hardware and give you that license whenever the hardware is connected without checking the server again.

Activating a new License

When you purchase a license from Pangolin or its distributors, you will receive a activation code in your email. This code is how you activate your license. Depending on what license you purchased, you will need to use a specific option from the “I Want to” Drop Down.

Add a new Account (Internet managed) License

For adding a new account/ Internet license, you will first need to log into your license account, license accounts are unique for this portion of software and not the same as any other account you have with pangolin. Once you have logged in, you can put the code in the box, and click redeem online. This will add your new license to your account. Which can be managed in the “Manage” Dropdown discussed in the previous section of the manual.

Add a new Hardware License online

If you have purchased a hardware-based license, ensure that the hardware you would like to bind your license to is connected, then go to this dropdown. Here you can enter in the code, select the correct hardware and redeem online. It is very important to ensure that you are binding the new license to the correct hardware, once it is bound, it cannot be undone or changed.

Add a new hardware license by email

If you are a user who would like to keep your show computers offline at all times, you can also activate your hardware license without direct connection to the internet. For this, use the active by email option. Enter in the code and select the correct hardware. From there you click “redeem by email” and it will save a registration file. From there you can mov ethe file to a separate computer and email the file to activate@pangolin.com. in a few moments you will receive an email back with a different file, move that back over your show computer and “Open Registration” This will activate the license, and let your computer know the license is good to go.

Add a new PCID License online

PCID Licenses are a special time of computer bound license that is used mainly for NFR (Not For Resale) Licenses for development and testing. Most users will not encounter this type of license. For PCID Licenses, all you need to do is enter the code, and redeem online.

Upgrade a license online

If you have a license you would like to upgrade, you can purchase BEYOND “Upgrade” Licenses. These codes are specific for upgrades, enter the code in the field, and the licenses you can upgrade will be populated in the lower box. Be sure to have the hardware you want to upgrade connected or the internet license being used. All licenses that can be activated will be in the box, select the correct one and click “Redeem online”.

Registration

Registration is a process in which BEYOND on your computer connects to the Pangolin server to complete some sort of transaction. This could be verification of licenses, or hardware, or used for logging in and out of your licensed account or activating new licenses.

Registration is done automatically when BEYOND is first started and periodically when internet is connected, this is to help streamline licensing and registration process, so most users will not need to manually register. If you would prefer to keep your computer offline at all times, you can use this tab to do an “offline” registration where you create a registration file that is emailed into our system on a sperate computer, which will return a registration file you move to your show computer and load. Those options are located here.

The process of registration allows for automatic delivery of licenses, this allows users who are connected to the internet to just connect licensed hardware and the server will take care of the rest and activate that license on that pc. This improves the process form the previous licensing system where users had to manually move and paste license files into the BEYOND folder on the PC. This data is stored in a separate file on its own in BEYOND in C:\Pangolin and allows for multiple BEYOND installs to access the same license data.

If you need to manually force a registration, you can go to the registration tab and either select “Register online” and register online now or register by email and follow the process of saving the registration file, moving that file to a new PC, emailing that file to activate@pangolin.com, receiving a separate file, and moving back to the original pc, and uploading. This allows users to register on computers that are intended to never be connected to the internet.

Registrations do not expire and if there is no change in hardware in the system, there will be no need to update or re-register. This new system is particularly useful for installs that are not connected to the internet.

Reading and using the Status Tab

The Status tab of the license and registration window gives you an overview of all connected hardware and licenses for your pc. This can be particularly useful in identifying issues with your setup, install, licenses or hardware. And support technicians may ask for information from this tab. The sections are listed in groups and information pertaining to those groups, they are below.

  • BEYOND: This will show you the version currently active, and if output is enabled and file saving enabled, output continues for 40 minutes after a license is disconnected and saving is disabled 2 weeks after license is disconnected.
  • Hardware License: This will list all the hardware that has been connected to this PC that has a license bound to it, if a licensed hardware is connected, it will have a green check and notate the hardware serial and what it activates.
  • PCID License: If you have a PCID license, it will show up here and give expiration details
  • Computer: Details about your computer system will be listed, including the desktop name, BEYOND build, and the computers date and time.
  • Registration: If there is a green check, a registration file is located on the pc and is valid. It will let you know when the registration was last updated.
  • License files in Pangolin folder: This is all hardware-based license files stored on the PC, mostly similar to the “Hardware license” category, but will list old style .bmp file licenses as well.
  • Hardware: This is where all connected hardware will be detected, if not registered, it will be greyed out, but once registered, it will show up with an “OK (registered genuine product)” normally.

On the bottom you will see the details option, if you select any line in the status window, there may be more information that is not displayed, and you can use that to look at more details of things like licenses and registrations.

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beyond/lic.txt · Last modified: 2023/05/02 11:27 by Bob Varkevisser