Licensing Perception

To download a license file you must be the Root Manager or Senior Administrator on your Perception system. There are two methods for downloading a license file. You can

• download a new or extended evaluation license file or
• manually retrieve a license if your Perception system does not have access to the internet.

Download a new or extended evaluation license file

To download a new or extended evaluation license:

1. Login to Enterprise Manager as the root manager user. If you have not yet changed them, use the default name Manager and the password Secret to log in.
2. Select the Settings tab, click Server Settings, followed by Update License.

   

3. Click Download New License.

   

4. The Questionmark Communities login screen is displayed.
5. Log in to Questionmark Communities. If you have not yet registered for a Communities account, click Register.

   Questionmark Communities is the system that identifies you with Questionmark. You use the same login details as you would normally use to download software and access Communities. If this screen is not displayed, Enterprise Manager was unable to download the license file from the Questionmark licensing server. Refer to the Manually retrieve a license section. If:

   • You are associated with more than one possible license to download because your organization has more than one license, you are given a choice of which license to download. Please ensure that you download the correct license. Contact your system administrator if you are not sure about which license to download.
   • You are not associated with an appropriate license, a warning message will be displayed and Questionmark will contact you to discuss an extension license. You can also contact Questionmark directly, or associate yourself with a license by using Authoring Manager if you already know the license ID.
6. Details of the replacement license are displayed. If you are satisfied that you want to download the license file, click Proceed. A replacement license file will be downloaded to the Perception license file directory, and the existing license file will be replaced. The license applies to all parts of Perception, including
   • the participant-facing software
   • the Shared Repository Manager
   • the Shared Repository Service and
   • QMWISe.
7. Activate your license file. For instructions on how to do this, refer to the Activate a license section of this page.

Manually retrieve a license

If your server does not have a connection to the internet, then Enterprise Manager isn't able to download the license file directly to the server. In this case, you see a screen similar to the one below:

You can:

• Send an email to Questionmark to ask for your license file to be emailed to you. To do this:
  1. Click Send an email to Questionmark to ask for your license file.
  2. Click Proceed. Your email application will start and, if you have an active email service, you can send the email. Questionmark will then email your license file back to you. If you don't have an active email service on your server, you can send an email message using another PC to licensing@questionmark.com. Include any relevant details in your email. Questionmark will reply with an email that includes an attached license file. You should then save the license file to the\Program Files\Questionmark\Perception5\server folder.
• Paste in the "license key" that has been emailed to you. To do this:
  1. Click Paste in license details received by email from Questionmark in the box below
  2. Locate and open the email that Questionmark has sent.
  3. Locate and copy the entire license key.
  4. Paste the license key into the field.
  5. Click Proceed.

The process of downloading your license file is complete. Now you need to activate your license file.

Proceed to the Activate a license section of this page for instructions on how to activate your license.

Permanent license files need to be activated, otherwise Perception will not deliver assessments.

A license file will only work with the particular Perception server it was issued for. The Perception server is identified by

• the directory in which perception.php is held and
• the IPV6 Machine ID of the server.

If either of these change, you will need to re-activate your license file. To do so, you must first deactivate your license file and then reactivate it in the new location. If you don't deactivate your license file first, you will not be able to reactivate your license file and will need to contact Questionmark Technical Services for assistance.

You can activate a license for Tryout use, which allows a limited number of participants on a tryout or development server, or Production use, which gives you full license capabilities.

For Production licenses, you are only allowed a limited number of activations (often only one Tryout and one Production server), so please be careful not to activate a server inappropriately, or mistakenly activate a Tryout server as a Production server. If you activate a server in error, please contact Questionmark Technical Support for assistance in de-activating it.

There are two ways to activate a server:

• Automatically, using the internet
• Manually, using an activation file

Automatically activate your license

The automatic approach to activating the license requires a connection to the internet from your Perception server.

Before you can automatically activate your account you need to access perception.php. The easiest way to do this is to navigate to the open login page for the participants in a web browser. A typical address for the open login page is:

• http://<my_server>/perception5/open.php
• ...where <my_server> is the name of your Perception server.

To automatically activate your license file:

1. Login to Enterprise Manager as an administrator.
2. Select the Settings tab, and click Server Settings.
3. Click Update License.
4. Click Activate Current License.

5. The Activate Servers screen is displayed.

This lists the Machine Name, Questionmark Server ID, Activation Expiration date, and Activation Status (which shows that the server is Unactivated) of the servers on your system.

6. Select Tryout or Production from the Activation Status drop-down list, depending on the license file you want to activate.
7. Enter your Communities email address and password, and click Activate. If successful, the success message will be displayed.

If this screen is not displayed, Enterprise Manager was unable to contact the server you are running Perception on. Refer to the Manually activate a license file section of this page for an alternative method.

Manually activate a license file

If you don't have an internet connection to the server you are running Perception on, and you are attempting to activate your license file, Enterprise Manager will display the Manual Activation screen.

You can manually activate your server license if your Perception server

• has email capability or
• is connected via a network to a PC that has email capability or
• can have the data transferred to or from it by floppy disk, CD, USB Flash drive, or other medium from a PC that has email capability.

To manually activate your server license:

1. Click here to download the Activation Request File.

The File Download screen is displayed.

2. Click Save to store the Activation File and choose a convenient location to keep it.
3. Click Save.

The activation file, request.qmActivateR, will download to the selected location.

4. Click Close.
5. On the Manual Activation screen, click Click here to automatically create the email message to be sent to Questionmark.

In your email client, the New Message screen is displayed:

6. Click Attach (or equivalent command) and attach the request.qmActivateR file
7. Click Send. Questionmark will receive and process the Activation Request email you sent and reply with an email that has an activation file attached.

To activate your server license:

1. Open the email from Questionmark.

2. Right-click on the attached Activation file (for example, Customer.qmActivate).
3. Click Save As.

Navigate to a convenient location on the server where your Perception installation is located.

4. Click Save to store the Perception Activation file on the machine where your Perception installation is located.
5. In Enterprise Manager, click Update License.
6. Click Activate Current License.

You then see a screen similar to the one below, which displays the Machine Name, Questionmark Server ID, Activation Expiration date, and Activation Status (which shows that the server is Unactivated):

7. Click Browse.

8. Navigate to and select your Activation file (for example, Customer.qmActivate).
9. Click Open.
10. Click Finish.

Your license is now activated.

If you have any difficulty downloading or activating your license, please contact our technical support team for assistance.