FredoTools: sketchUcation licensing for businesses
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@cadensaege said:
Hi Sketchucation Team,
I haven't read anything from you for some time now.
What is the situation with my problem?
Have you worked out a solution in the meantime?
If not, can I expect a solution within the next 2 weeks?
My users are already desperate and would like to continue using the Fredo tools, our company would like to buy but unfortunately we can not do that before the points raised in the first post are clarified.You can now buy a corporate license (30 or 60 seats).
However, the validation has to be done on each individual computer. There is nothing such as a central management of licenses. You could put the corporate license file on a server and each user would simply validate with this license file (it would take less than a minute by plugin), and this is done once, for present and future version of Sketchup, regardless of the updates of the plugins.
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Hi,
thank you for your quick response.
Where can I find information about a bulk purchase of licenses? Are there any instructions or a manual on how to activate bulk licenses and how to handle a license file stored on a server?Best regards,
Marc Scherer@fredo6 said:
@cadensaege said:
Hi Sketchucation Team,
I haven't read anything from you for some time now.
What is the situation with my problem?
Have you worked out a solution in the meantime?
If not, can I expect a solution within the next 2 weeks?
My users are already desperate and would like to continue using the Fredo tools, our company would like to buy but unfortunately we can not do that before the points raised in the first post are clarified.You can now buy a corporate license (30 or 60 seats).
However, the validation has to be done on each individual computer. There is nothing such as a central management of licenses. You could put the corporate license file on a server and each user would simply validate with this license file (it would take less than a minute by plugin), and this is done once, for present and future version of Sketchup, regardless of the updates of the plugins.
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The corporate licenses for 30 and 60 seats are listed on the purchase page of each Plugin. For instance, here is the one for RoundCorner: https://sketchucation.com/purchase.php?plugin=RoundCorner
I suggested that the multi-seat license files are put on a shared drive (instead on user's PC). Then each individual user would validate locally on his computer against this license file accessed on the network.
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Hi,
thx again for your quick reply.
Do i understand this right?
It is not necessary to install the Sketchucation Extension manager to work with this kind of corporate license? The only thing i have to do is to use a centralized license file for plugin license activation for each user and plugin?Best regards,
Marc Scherer@fredo6 said:
The corporate licenses for 30 and 60 seats are listed on the purchase page of each Plugin. For instance, here is the one for RoundCorner: https://sketchucation.com/purchase.php?plugin=RoundCorner
I suggested that the multi-seat license files are put on a shared drive (instead on user's PC). Then each individual user would validate locally on his computer against this license file accessed on the network.
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Fredo will reply in detail, BUT as far as I understand it the SCFlicensing system needed to validate the licenses relies on sub-code provided by the installation of the SketchUcation Toolset RBZ...
This in turn provides the toolsets use by it...
The SketchUcation Extensions Manager is one of them, although its use is not obligatory, and it has been paralleled by changes to the native tool anyway: the ExtensionStore³ is still useful for accessing the vast number of extensions/plugins uniquely stored here, the SketchUcation Plugins Manager also offers unique ways of managing your loading files etc, and of course there are several other peripheral tools accessed by the Toolset's menu, outside of the toolbar... -
Hi,
thank you for your reply. The problem i have with the Sketchucation Extension manager is: You have to have a Sketchucation-Account to be able to use it. And that's something I really do not need in company context. Something like this is an administrative nightmare. We already have so many accounts and different logins for several Tools, I don't want this for each and every PlugIn. Evrything related to licenses/accounts have to be documented, users have to be informed and so on. We're not only using SketchUp, we are using a bunch of products, most of them are running with SSO and relative easy licensing mechanism.Best regards,
Marc Scherer@tig said:
Fredo will reply in detail, BUT as far as I understand it the SCFlicensing system needed to validate the licenses relies on sub-code provided by the installation of the SketchUcation Toolset RBZ...
This in turn provides the toolsets use by it...
The SketchUcation Extensions Manager is one of them, although its use is not obligatory, and it has been paralleled by changes to the native tool anyway: the ExtensionStore³ is still useful for accessing the vast number of extensions/plugins uniquely stored here, the SketchUcation Plugins Manager also offers unique ways of managing your loading files etc, and of course there are several other peripheral tools accessed by the Toolset's menu, outside of the toolbar... -
@cadensaege said:
Everything related to licenses/accounts have to be documented, users have to be informed and so on. We're not only using SketchUp, we are using a bunch of products, most of them are running with SSO and relative easy licensing mechanism.
The licensing system is a living and evolving tool. It's primary purpose is to give developers a free and robust licensing mechanic. It's main end user is single user to small teams.
I do understand that this does not suit large corporate environments. It may evolve to suit that but at the moment the vast majority of license users are outside corporate/networked systems.
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What we suggest is as follows
- You create a generic free account on Sketchucation web site. You give the credentials to all users
- Each user installs Sketchucation ExtensionStore and my plugins on his computer
- You purchase a corporate license (under the generic credential) for 30 seats
- You receive the license files and put them on a shared drive accessible as files for each user
- Each user validates licenses against these centralized license files
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@rich o brien said:
@cadensaege said:
Everything related to licenses/accounts have to be documented, users have to be informed and so on. We're not only using SketchUp, we are using a bunch of products, most of them are running with SSO and relative easy licensing mechanism.
The licensing system is a living and evolving tool. It's primary purpose is to give developers a free and robust licensing mechanic. It's main end user is single user to small teams.
I do understand that this does not suit large corporate environments. It may evolve to suit that but at the moment the vast majority of license users are outside corporate/networked systems.
Hi,
thank you for this information. This confirms my previous understanding of the Sketchucation Extension Manager. I understand that the target audience is not large companies and that developing a licensing mechanism that meets the needs of large companies would incur costs that would probably be disproportionate to the revenue to be generated. There are always two points of view in the efforts to monetize helpful tools: The developer side, who rightly wants to be paid for their work, and the customer side, who expects a low-maintenance, reliable and, above all, compliant licensing mechanism in addition to the services of the actual tool. This is the downside of monetization for the developer(s). -
@fredo6 said:
What we suggest is as follows
- You create a generic free account on Sketchucation web site. You give the credentials to all users
- Each user installs Sketchucation ExtensionStore and my plugins on his computer
- You purchase a corporate license (under the generic credential) for 30 seats
- You receive the license files and put them on a shared drive accessible as files for each user
- Each user validates licenses against these centralized license files
Hi Fredo6,
I send you my thanks for your effort to help me solve this problem. Probably in the end we will have to do it exactly as you suggest here. Unfortunately, such an approach violates several rules of our internal IT policy. I will have to discuss your suggestion with our internal IT and see if we can implement it as suggested. But as a food for thought for you and the Sketchucation team regarding the danger of such an approach: 60 users use SketchUp daily and an essential part of their workflow are the Fredo tools. All users share the same Sketchucation account. One user has now quit and wants to harm the company. So he logs in with the general Sketchucation account and simply changes password & associated email address. As a result, 59 users will have a slightly longer downtime of FredoTools, because it will not be so easy for us as a company to get back to the Sketchucation account. In my experience Sketchucation itself will first of all refuse to release such an account again, because of course every fool could claim that something like just described happened. Proving the legitimacy of such an account reset would be extremely difficult for us. -
You need to distinguish the installation of plugins from the validation of license.
For installation of plugins
You can centralize the downloads of plugins and their access from user computers. I have developed a plugin called AdditionalPluginFolders which allows to add additional directories for telling Sketchup where to find plugins (unfortunately, this is not supported natively by the Sketchup Plugin Manager, but it is by the Sketchucation ExtensionStore).
As an administrator, you download the rbz file of the plugins and expand them once in a shared directory (as rb file and folder). So, users would have no need to have an account on Sketchucation, or, if they have one, it would be personal.
Each user computer would have to install AdditionalPluginFolders once on his environment and set the additional directory to be this shared directory. After restarting Sketchup, the plugins stored there would automatically be loaded in Sketchup.
This is by the way how I share all my plugins while developing between my 3 computers (2 PC and 1 Mac), between all versions of Sketchup (I use myself Google Drive for the synchronization between computers).
License management
You have your administrative account on Sketchucation, not shared with anybody. This allows you to download plugins and purchase licenses.
Then you put the license files on a shared drive.
Each user computer would have to validate the license for the plugins from the license files in the shared drive, but this is done once for all, for all version of Sketchup and the plugins, past and future.
This is also what I do for my 3 computers.
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@fredo6 said:
You need to distinguish the installation of plugins from the validation of license.
For installation of plugins
You can centralize the downloads of plugins and their access from user computers. I have developed a plugin called AdditionalPluginFolders which allows to add additional directories for telling Sketchup where to find plugins (unfortunately, this is not supported natively by the Sketchup Plugin Manager, but it is by the Sketchucation ExtensionStore).
As an administrator, you download the rbz file of the plugins and expand them once in a shared directory (as rb file and folder). So, users would have no need to have an account on Sketchucation, or, if they have one, it would be personal.
Each user computer would have to install AdditionalPluginFolders once on his environment and set the additional directory to be this shared directory. After restarting Sketchup, the plugins stored there would automatically be loaded in Sketchup.
This is by the way how I share all my plugins while developing between my 3 computers (2 PC and 1 Mac), between all versions of Sketchup (I use myself Google Drive for the synchronization between computers).
License management
You have your administrative account on Sketchucation, not shared with anybody. This allows you to download plugins and purchase licenses.
Then you put the license files on a shared drive.
Each user computer would have to validate the license for the plugins from the license files in the shared drive, but this is done once for all, for all version of Sketchup and the plugins, past and future.
This is also what I do for my 3 computers.
Hi Fredo,
sounds like a better plan, thx.
Best regards,
Marc Scherer -
Hi again,
is PayPal the only payment method available?
Best regards,
Marc Scherer
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For general information.
We have now implemented the Fredo multi-license bundle.
I'll summarize the procedure here, maybe this will help one or the other with a similar request...Implementation of the SketchUp PlugIn bundle Fredo6Bundle2022Corp60
Boundary conditions to acquire the licenses as a company
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Creation of a free SketchUcation account by the commercial department
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Documentation of the account and the access data in the commercial department
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Purchase of the bundle via the website: https://sketchucation.com/purchase-smart.php?plugin=RoundCorner
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Payment by credit card
Included tools:
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Curviloft
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Curvizard
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FredoScale
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JointPushPull
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RoundCorner
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ToolsOnSurface
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TopoShaper
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VisuHole
License files and seats:
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Per tool one license file (So 8 files of type: *.scflicense)
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Number of licenses per license file: 60
Further PlugIns required for implementation (Free):
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LibFredo6 (Function library for all FredoTools)
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SketchUcation ExtensionStore (Provides the licensing mechanism)
Implementation procedure
Preparation
Regarding the license files-
Download of the license files via the company account at SketchUcation
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Creation of a share on the company's central file server:
@unknownuser said:
\Server\Share\SketchUp\2021\Licenses
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Sharing the share with all potential users
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Copying the license files to the shared share
Regarding the PlugIns
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Download of all required PlugIns (*.rbz)
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Unpacking of all *.rbz files using 7Zip
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Provision of all unpacked contents of the PlugIns (*.rb files and subfolders including all contents) for distribution by IT
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On the part of the IT: Creation of a SCCM package for the distribution of the provided PlugIn contents on each SketchUp computer into the path: %programdata%\SketchUp\SketchUp 2021\SketchUp\Plugins
Communication with users
- Creation of an illustrated tutorial on how to activate FredoTools that require licenses, indicating the location of the license files as a UNC path (Universal Naming Convention
@unknownuser said:
\Server\Share\SketchUp\2021\Licenses
).- Publication of an advance notice about the upcoming distribution of the updated and new FredoTools including the activation instruction as an attachment.
RollOut
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Distribution of the SCCM package to all SketchUp machines on the effective date.
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Renewed distribution of the activation instruction to all users
Sequence of an activation:
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User starts SketchUp
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If a user launches a Fredo plugin that has not yet been activated, a dialog box appears "Trial Period Expired: [tool name]"
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A click on the Manage License button opens another dialog box "License of PlugIn: [Toolname]".
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A click on the Validate License button opens a file selection dialog box
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In the file dialog, navigate to the path:
@unknownuser said:
\Server\Share\SketchUp\2021\Licenses
(copy path into field "File name:", press Enter, dialog jumps to target path.-
Arrived at the destination path, the user sees only the license file matching the tool, selects it and clicks the Open button.
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If everything was done correctly, the license is activated on the computer of the executing user. The license manager shows the license status.
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After clicking the Done button, the user can restart the licensed tool and work with it.
Notice:
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According to Fredo6, a PlugIn only needs to be activated once on a computer.
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An activated license can be easily returned by a user at any time and added back to the license pool.
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An Internet connection is required for activation and deactivation
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Works like charm!
Many thanks to Fredo and SketchUcation
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How to release the license from the old re-installed windows (sketchup)?
There is no tracking licenses usage on where the license installed. It said 3 used taken, while my active Sketchup are on desktop and laptop.Thank you!
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