Licensing and Rep-Admin Demos

|   Watch Licensing Overview Demo   |    Watch Rep Administration Demo   |

The big idea:

Reps buy licenses from LumaPix and allocate them to end users, who can download and activate copies of the software that have been customized to the Rep’s specifications.

One setup, one executable

LumaPix sells several variations of a single core product, called FotoFusion. These variants (YearbookFusion, Extreme, Enhanced, and Essentials), are tuned for yearbook publishers, wedding photographers, photography enthusiasts and scrapbookers respectively. When we refer to “FotoFusion” we are generically talking about the application engine underneath these various license types.

All of these products are all the same core application running with different features turned on and off. Which version is running is determined by which license type was used to activate the program.

There is one installer that contains all versions of the software, and which runs as a free trial by default.

Free trials

The process of getting FotoFusion running on a machine always starts with installing the free trial. If the customer has purchased a license, then they can activate the software (convert it to a full license) immediately; if not, they can leave FotoFusion running in trial mode (e.g. for evaluation purposes).

When running in free trial mode, FotoFusion will watermark all output, disable uploads, and disable archiving.

it’s a good thing to activate end users as soon as they have purchased a license. For example, an installation left as a free trial at a school will not know the name of the user’s school (because the school name is specified in the license that a publisher assigns to a school when allocating a license to them), and so any PSPA information imported into the free trial will need to be reassociated from a temporary placeholder school into the user’s actual school after activation. This happens automatically, but gives you a sense of why LumaPix recommends activating as soon as possible.

Note that Reps have the option of making their FotoFusion installations insist on activation at first run (e.g. their software can’t run as free trials).

Rep Associations

The installer places a free trial of FotoFusion on a machine, together with information about who referred the software (the “Rep” - for example, a yearbook publishing company that is reselling YearbookFusion to schools). This association with the Rep is critical, as it affects the features available in the FotoFusion installation, including (for YearbookFusion licenses):

• which branding is displayed in the interface
• which FTP site will receive files that the end user uploads
• which clip art or templates the customer should have access to
• what support contact information should be exposed to the end user
• the school’s name (used as a key to the database created by PSPA import)

These options are configured by the Rep in the Rep Admin website, a self-serve online license administration tool provided by LumaPix.

To build the association with the Rep, the installer package must be tagged with the ID of the rep that gave it out. This is done on-the-fly, by having the user download the setup package via a URL that includes the repID:

http://www.lumapix.com/?repid=ACME

The LumaPix server responds to this request with a setup file that has been customized for the rep (Acme in this example).

Allocating a license

Reps maintain a balance of license credits – one credit per customer. These licenses are purchased in bulk by the rep, and then allocated to end users.

The reps work with the Rep Admin tool, a custom web site that provides license balance information, customization options, and the tools to allocate licenses to end users.

When a rep allocates a license to an end user, they specify

• which type of license to allocate
• what email ID to use to communicate with the end user
• what name to use as the LumaPix user ID (usually equal to the email ID)
• rep-specific customization options (see above)

When the allocation happens,

• The Rep’s available license count drops by one
• The new userID is added to the LumaPix database, together with the Rep’s ID, license type, and other information
• A ‘welcome’ email is sent to the email ID specified for the end user

Activating a license

Activating the software means converting a free trial into a fully-licensed version. This is usually done on-site by the end user.

The user enters their LumaPix User ID, which they know from the welcome mail sent by the LumaPix server at the time the license was allocated.

Their User ID is checked against the main LumaPix user database to determine what type of license that user has bought. The free trial then converts itself into the type of license that was allocated to it.

The communication that makes this possible is online. It’s simplest to have the end user be online, then choose ‘activate/online’ from the FotoFusion help menu. Offline activation is possible but much more involved, as the user must manually copy information from a server to the offline machine.

When a user ID is used to activate the software for the first time, the LumaPix server asks the user to choose a password. This password is saved at the server end. The next time the user activates the software with the same user ID, the server will ask the user to enter the existing password. Depending on the license type being activated, the server may allow this to happen more than once; an Extreme license can be activated twice (e.g. on a photographer’s PC and laptop) before alarm bells start going off at LumaPix; a YearbookFusion license can be used to activate up to 40 installations (each of which will share the same school name).

 

To get a school up and running with FotoFusion:

Ensure that your license balance is positive

• Log into the RepAdmin tool
• Check your license balance

Allocate a license of the software to a school

• Use the ‘allocate license’ menu to enter information for a school, as described below, and hit ‘submit’.
• Your license balance will drop by one and the school will receive a mail with instructions on how to download the software

Verify that all went well at the school

• When the school follows the link in the confirmation email, they will receive a version of the software that has been encoded specifically for you the publisher (your branding, your FTP upload information, etc).
• The school activates the software with the userID that you specified in step 3.

License allocation options

Field	Meaning	Sample
Customer Name	The end user’s first and last name. (the yearbook administrator, photographer, etc)	Timothy White
Email ID	The end user’s email address. If you are working with a school whose administrator changes from year to year, then you might ask if they have an email alias for the yearbook staff instead of an individual’s email ID.	yearbook@central.edu
User ID	The user ID uniquely identifies a FotoFusion user. By default, the userID is copied from the email ID field; we have found this to be the easiest for end users to work with (one less userID/password combination to remember). Yearbook publishers may want to generate an abstract userID for that school if no generic yearbook email alias is available, as the yearbook administrator may change from year to year. If you need to generate 500 licenses in a hurry, you may find the ‘Create Unique’ button useful – it generates a random user ID for the school	yearbook@central.edu
License Type	There are several types of licenses, but most reps only have access to ‘prepaid’.	Prepaid
Product	Which license type to allocate to this end user. The list of license types is rep-specific; Yearbook publishers can choose to allocate licenses for <400 students or >= 400 students, for example.	YearbookFusion expiring license for >=400 student school
Number of Licenses	How many licenses to allocate to the end user. Your license balance will drop by this count. A school using YearbookFusion needs one license. A pro photography studio with 5 machines that is buying Extreme needs 5 licenses.	1 license
Street / City / State / Zip / Country / Phone	The extended contact information. Used to verify customers if they call in, and to call the customer in case of serious support issues.
Comments	Optional notes that that you would like to associate with this customer’s license allocation.	Allocated by Nancy Green
Send Confirmation Email to Client	If this option is checked, an email with instructions on how to download and install FotoFusion will be generated automatically and sent to the email address. Leave this checked unless you want to manage the process of sending mails to customers yourself, which is possible (you know the user’s email ID/FotoFusion UserID and can provide this information in your own mail if you like). We recommend leaving this option checked.	Yes
HTML and Newsletter	If newsletter is checked, the customer will receive LumaPix newsletters (news, tips/tricks, offers, etc). If HTML is checked, the customer will receive the newsletters in HTML format; plain text otherwise.	No, No
Expiration	How long should the license function before expiring. For YearbookFusion licenses,  this field can be ignored – the license will expire after one year.	(n/a)
School Name	The complete school name. Will appear at the bottom of each page of YearbookFusion output for projects created by this school.	Central Secondary
Internal Client ID	Optional textual information to associate with this end user. Reps that maintain databases of their end users will have unique identifiers for each user, which can be entered here. Will be provided as part of upload manifest when the user sends a composition to the rep, if uploading to the rep is enabled.	C254
Enable local output	Determines if this end user will be able to Render to flattened files Publish compositions to web sites Print Send emails If this item is not checked, the end user will not see these options in their licensed FotoFusion installation.	No
Forget store password after each use	Determines if this end user will be able to purchase content from the online store without having to type their password each time. Used to ensure that students at schools do not abuse the administrator’s account.	(not yet implemented)
Enable Marketplace	Determines if this end user will be able to browse for non-free content in the online store. If false, the user will not see the ‘premium’ tabs in search hovers or the ‘marketplace’ button in the start page.	(not yet implemented)

 

To get a link to the latest version of the software.

Reps can choose to give out free trials of the FotoFusion software to prospects before allocating a license to them. This is a useful sales tool as it allows prospects to evaluate the software prior to making a commitment.
Free trial users will not be able to render without watermarks, archive projects, or upload work to the publisher until they have a license allocated to them by the rep and activate their installation.

It’s important that reps give out software that knows that it came from them – e.g. that the association with a particular RepID is in place (otherwise, the end user will not see the rep-specific version of the software – the rep’s branding will not be present, the upload to publisher will not be correctly configured, etc). For this reason, reps should NOT simply tell their prospects to download the software from the LumaPix website – they should tell prospects to download from a specially-formatted link that will tag the FotoFusion installer application with their RepID.

To get this rep-specific link,

• Go to the RepAdmin site
• Click on 'Download rep-specific version'

The RepAdmin site will show a link that looks something like this:

http://www.lumapix.com?repid=ACME << SAMPLE ONLY, DO NOT USE

• The link is specific to a rep (ACME in this case) – following this link will download a version of YearbookFusion that has been stamped with that rep’s branding, that knows about that rep’s FTP site for upload, etc.
• Use that link in your web site, email blasts, and other places where you instruct schools on downloading and installing their software.
• Be aware that if you copy the file locally, it will get out of date as we update the build frequently. This can cause problems. If you want to do a CD distribution then by all means, follow your own link and burn the resulting installer to CDs that you give out – but try to keep your inventory levels as low as possible, as it doesn’t help anybody to have schools installing older versions of the software.