Overview of Access Control
Features
Access Control features allow the user to limit
access to his application based on who is using the program. This
is necessary in many database applications where you wish to expose
some of the users to more data than others.
The primary feature for all Access control is Logins and Passwords. This allows the computer to determine who is
using the program, and is essential for all the other features to
work.
The next most common feature is being able to limit access to screens, and
controls, within your
application. This is taken care of using the Screen Security
template.
The flip side of implementing all this access control is
how the end user
goes about managing it.
Ancillary User Functions like Change Password, Change Login and
Lock Screen are also helpful at this point.
User Groups are useful for grouping users together. This can
simplify the setting of user's access rights at runtime.
Workgroups are useful for programmatic limiting of users. In other words by using the
Workgroup field you can group users together and limit their rights
in your own way.
Overview of Licensing
Features
The basic goal of the licensing features is allow
you to sell your program in different flavors, and yet have a
single set of install files. In other words by making use of
an Activation
Code, you can limit, or
extend, your program based on the amount that the client pays. You
can use all the licensing features, or more likely, you'll just
make use of a few of them. In this User Guide each feature will be
discussed in more detail, so take a moment to read though them and
decide which ones you want to use. These features include:
Product
Branding through the use
of the user's company name, and a serial number. This means
you advertise on your screens, and on your reports, the name of the
licensed user. This makes it difficult for illegal user to
distribute reports etc.
Levels allow you to enable a piece of your program, then
a bit more, then a bit more, and so on. Each Level is a superset of
the previous levels - in other words each level includes all of the
previous level's features. By default these levels are named (in
order) Demo, Lite, Standard, Professional and Enterprise, however
you can name them anything you like.
Automatic Demo Licenses
allow you to distribute demo versions
of your program that run only for 30 days. Please note that this
feature is very 'strong', so testing is
difficult.
Optional Modules allow you to activate up to 30 separate,
unrelated, modules, in addition to your main program. For example
in accounting applications you often purchase a combination of
modules - General Ledger, Debtors Ledger and so
on.
Concurrent Network Copies
allows you to limit the number of
simultaneous, concurrent, users on a network. The user can load
your program on any number of computers, but only a limited number
of users will be able to access the data at any one time.
Users currently
logged in. This feature is
something of a bonus that you get when you implement licensing in
your program. Because of the concurrent network copies feature,
Secwin is able to track who is currently logged into your program.
This can be very useful for network updates, as you can ask users
to quit the system while you upgrade the program.
Expiry
Dates allows you to
control when the program will cease working. This can be used for
distributing 30-day demo versions of your software, or for
licensing your software for limited periods of time (for example
yearly license renewals.)
Counters are somewhat less common. Essentially they allow
you to sell your program based on the number of times it will be
run, or the number of reports that will be printed, or something
like that. Alternatively you might use it just to store an extra
number which you want to use somewhere in your
program.
All of the features are activated and de-activated through
an Activation
Code. This code is
generated by you, using either the Register example application or
using an online activation code generator like
Secwin Online Server).
If the user doesn't have sufficient access then the License will
fail.
