How do I download, install and activate a new license for Perception?

Questionmark Perception employs a licensing policy for its products, this way Questionmark can control who is using the software legally. Licenses are purchased by organisations, the types of licenses they purchase will depend on how many users they intend to service, how many servers they will require as well as what kinds of features they will need, i.e. Advanced authoring requirements, advanced reporting tools, etc.

Licenses for Perception are associated to the Communities members on this web site, when a new license is purchased it is assigned to the community member that has been nominated by the organisation. So when it is required to download a new license, the Communities log in and password will need to be available. This Knowledge Base article will detail the step by step requirements for downloading a new license for Perception Server and activating the license file.

The computer running Perception Server will need to have access to the Internet in order to download a new license from communities. If the Perception Server does not have access to the internet, you will have to manually install your license for Perception.

Downloading a new license file

To obtain a new license file for your Perception Server you will need to access Enterprise Manager to run the licensing application. Once you have loaded up Enterprise Manager and logged in with the relevant administrator details follow the steps below.

1. From the Enterprise Manager home page select Update License

2. Select Download New License

The Download New License screen allows you to download a Perception Extended evaluation license, or a Permanent license.

3. Before the Download New License screen is displayed, the Questionmark Communities login screen is displayed.

Questionmark Communities is the system that identifies you with Questionmark, and is the same login as you usually use to download software and gain access to the Perception knowledgebase.

If the:

• Questionmark Communities login screen is not displayed, it is likely that you do not have an Internet connection, see section: Questionmark Communities login screen is not displayed
   
• Questionmark Communities login screen is displayed:

1. Input your email address and password associated with your communites login

2. If you have forgotten your password, once you have filled in your email address if you click Lost Password you communities password will be emailed to you
    
3. If you have not yet registered, click Register

If you are not associated with an appropriate license, a message is displayed that says this, and Questionmark’s customer service team are advised of this. They should be in touch with you to discuss an extension license, but you can also contact them to associate you with a license.

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 check you download the right one, checking with your system administrator or with Questionmark if you are not sure.

The 'Please confirm the details ...' screen is displayed

The screen displays the details of the ‘replacement’ license in the ‘Replace with the following license’ section of the screen
 

4. You can view the details of the new license by clicking View Details, this will open a new window containing the license details similar to below:

5. If you are satisfied that you want to download the replacement license, click Proceed
   
   A replacement license file is then downloaded to the Perception Server license file directory, and the existing license file is replaced. The license applies to all parts of Perception Server, including:
    
• The Participant Facing Software (PFS) (perception.dll, session.dll etc)
   
• The Shared Repository Manager (SRM)
   
• The Shared Repository Service (SRS) and
   
• QMWISe

The process of downloading your license file is complete, and you will be shown the page below to confirm this. Now you need to activate your license file.

If the Questionmark Communities login screen is not displayed

If the Questionmark Communities login screen is not displayed, it is likely that you do not have an Internet connection. If this is the case,  then Enterprise Manager isn’t able to download the license file directly to the server, and you will see a Cannot Connect to Questionmark Licensing Server screen.

You can either:

• Test your PCs connection to the Internet and send Questionmark with details of any problems you may be having, or
   
• Send Questionmark an email to ask for your license file to be emailed to you

Testing your connection to the Internet

If the computer running Perception should have internet but does not appear to do so, there is a test built into Perception that will check what the connectivity of the computer is, this information can then be used by your technical support/administration team to help resolve the issue. To run the test you will need to do the following:

• On the left-hand side of the screen, click Internet connection

The Perception Server connection tester screen is displayed

Tests on the following are performed:

• The connection between the Perception Server and the Internet
• The web protocols
• The DNS resolution
• The connection to the Questionmark server
• The connection to the Questionmark licensing service
• Request to SOAP

Details are given for each test, including Status and Time Elapsed

Otherwise to:

• Cancel the tests, click Cancel
• Send the test results to Questionmark:
  1. Click Send by email

  An email 'new message' box is opened, containing the test results

2. Click Send to send the email to Questionmark Support

Sending an email to Questionmark to ask for your license file to be emailed to you

When Perception can not find an internet connection to the Questionmark Licensing Server, Perception will automatically generate an alternative method of obtaining license files and registering the new license files on Perception. When you do not have an internet connection you will be presented with the following screen after you click Download New License.

To send an email requesting a new license 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 with an attached license file. You should then save the license file to the \Program Files\Questionmark\Perception4\server folder, provided you have installed Perception in its default folder.

To Paste in a ‘license key’ that has been emailed to you:

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 license key (a license key is 66 characters long - a mixture of letters and numbers)
    
4. Paste the license key into the text box
    
5. Click Proceed

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

Activating your license file

Once the license has been downloaded you will be required to activate the license. To activate your server license:

1. Open Enterprise Manager.

2. Click Administration | Server Management.

3. Click Reset Perception Server DLLs.

4. Click Reset. This will reset session.dll, which is the part of Perception Server that delivers assessments.

5. Return to the main index page, and click Update License.

6. Click Activate Current License.

   

7. 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. (If you are running Perception on a load balanced cluster, you will see two or more separate machines listed.)

8. Select Tryout or Production from the Activation Status drop-down list, depending on the license file you want to activate.

9. 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 Manually activating a license file for an alternative method.

Manually activating 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 an email facility or is connected via a network to a PC that has an Email facility.

To manually activate your server license:

1. Click Click here to download the Activation Request File. The File Download screen is displayed.

2. Save the Activation file.

3. On the Manual Activation screen, click click here to automatically create the email message to be sent to Questionmark. A new email message is displayed.

4. Attach the activation file request.qmActivateR to the email and click Send.

   Questionmark will receive and process the Activation Request email, and reply with an email that has an activation file attached.

5. Once you have received the email, you can activate your license file. Return to Enterprise Manager and click Administration | Server Management.

6. Click Reset Perception Server DLLs.

7. Click Reset. This will reset session.dll, which is the part of Perception Server that delivers assessments.

8. Open the email from Questionmark and save the activation file on your Perception Server machine