QLM Maintenance Plan

QLM provides a complete framework for implementing a maintenance plan for your software.

When a customer activates a license key, the QLM License Server validates that the license key corresponds to the version the customer is running. For example, if a customer is running version 6.0 of your software but has an Activation key for version 5.0, the QLM License Server will fail to activate the license.

However, if a customer purchases a maintenance plan for your software, the QLM License Server will allow activation of a recent version of your software with an activation key for a previous version. For example, if a customer is running version 6.0 of your software but has an Activation key for version 5.0, the QLM License Server will successfully activate the license if the maintenance plan is active and the MaintenancePlanRenewal date is greater than the Release Date of the new version of your product. The Release Date of your product can be defined on the Define Product page in the QLM Console.

The QLM database stores maintenance plan information in the MaintenanceRenewalDate field. If the maintenance plan is not enabled, this field will be empty. If the maintenance plan is enabled, the field will be set to the expiry date of the maintenance plan.

The MaintenanceRenewalDate can be set during the order process or manually via the QLM console.

To enable the maintenance plan during the ordering process, you can invoke the following URL:

http://yourserver/qlm/qlmservice.asmx/EnableMaintenancePlan?is_vendor=<vendor>&is_user=<user>&is_pwd=<pwd>
where:

<vendor> is the name of your vendor (see list of supported eCommerce providers)
<user> is a user to use for authentication (as defined in the Manage Keys / 3rd Party Extensions)
<pwd> is a password to use for authentication (as defined in Manage Keys / 3rd Party Extensions)
The maintenance plan date is set to 365 days after the Order Date. You can control this setting from the web.config file of the QLM License Server.

Alternatively, you can customize your eCommerce provider order form to publish a new field during the POST to specify whether the maintenance plan was purchased. The name of the field is typically different for each eCommerce provider. The table below describes the name of this field for each of the supported eCommerce providers:

Provider / Field Name

Digibuy: maintenance
Regnow: yearly_maintenance_plan
Paypal: MaintenancePlan
ShareIt: yearly_maintenance_plan
Default: is_maintenance_plan

To set the maintenance plan using the QLM Management Application

For a new activation key, click on Manage Keys / Licenses / Create and check the Maintenance Plan check box.

For an existing activation key, click on Manage Keys / Licenses / Edit then specify a Renewal Date for the Maintenance Plan.

Maintenance Plan Email Notification

To remind customers to renew the maintenance plan, you can schedule a task that will send your customers a reminder email prior to the expiry of the maintenance plan. For more details, see the help on Scheduled Tasks.

Place an order to renew a maintenance plan

When a maintenance plan expires, you can renew the maintenance plan from your eCommerce provider's ordering system by invoking the following URL:
http://yourserver/qlm/qlmservice.asmx/RenewMaintenancePlan?&is_avkey=<activationKey>&is_vendor=<vendor>
where:

<activationKey> is the activation key of the customer
<vendor> is the name of your vendor (see list of supported eCommerce providers)