Dynamsoft Licensing FAQ

Table of Contents

How to use a trackable license?
What is the relationship between organizationID and handshakeCode?
Does license tracking disclose any private information?
How secure is the Dynamsoft License Server?
How reliable is the Dynamsoft-Hosting Dynamsoft License Server?
How can I protect my license?
What happens if my license runs out?
Can a client device work offline?
Can I use Dynamsoft SDKs in an environment with no internet connection?
Can I unregister inactive devices?
Can I extend the quota of my license to support more devices or process more documents?
Can I renew my license before its current expiration date?
Can I purchase a license valid for more than one year?
Will the unused quota be rolled over to the next period?
What is counted as a single application?
Policies

How to use a trackable license?

A trackable license is fetched from the Dynamsoft License Server (either hosted by Dynamsoft or yourself, DLS for short) at runtime. Therefore, connection to the DLS is required.

The DLS can store one or multiple license items, you can specify which ones you want to fetch with the APIs organizationID and / or handshakeCode .

If you have just started evaluating a Dynamsoft SDK which supports trackable licenses, you don’t need to specify anything. As long as you have network connection, a 7-day (public) trial license will be automatically fetched from the DLS hosted by Dynamsoft.

If you require more time to test the SDK or you have decided to use it in your application, you can get your own license and then make use of it with the associated organization id and/or handshake code.

To get a 30-day (private) trial license, you can log into the customer portal (register for an Dynamsoft account if you haven’t already done so) and navigate to the Free Trial page.
To get a commercial license, you can purchase a license.

In both cases, you get a license that belongs to your organization (if you didn’t have an organization / account with us before, a new one will be created).

For the 30-day (private) trial license, it’s activated automatically and configured to the default handshakeCode of your organization which means you can get the license by simply specifying your organization id.
For the purchased commercial license, you need to activate it manually. During the activation, you can choose whether to configure it to the default handshakeCode.

NOTE:

To protect your licenses, you can specify a session password. This password corresponds to the handshake code specified by the above API handshakeCode or the default one if only the organizationID is specified. Read more about How can I protect my license?.

What is the relationship between organizationID and handshakeCode?

organizationID	handshakeCode	Result
Specified	Empty	Return license items configured to the default `handshakeCode` of that organization.
Specified	Specified	If the `handshakeCode` exists within that organization, return license items configured to the specified `handshakeCode` .
Empty	Specified	Return license items configured to the specified `handshakeCode` .
Empty	Empty	If the device never used the SDK before, return a 7-day (public) trial license.

Does license tracking disclose any private information?

No, the license tracking process does not disclose any private information.

For licensing purposes, Dynamsoft SDKs that use trackable licensing will keep track of the actual usage locally (for example, the symbology types and number of scans for Dynamsoft Barcode Reader or the number of images acquired by Dynamic Web TWAIN), then the usage information is condensed into a report and sent to the Dynamsoft License Server ( DLS ) every 3 minutes. Once submitted, the records are purged on the local machine. Note that the report is all about usage of certain features and nothing about the actual output of these operations.

Read more about the mechanism behind license tracking.

In addition, to uniquely identify a device, the SDK generates an UUID that is cached locally and included in all communication with the DLS . This UUID is random and doesn’t contain any information about the device itself. For more information, check out how a UUID is generated.

Apart from the license usage and the UUID, the DLS collects no more information which means it does not know anything about the user or device except that it is using Dynamsoft SDKs.

A few things to note

The DLS can either be the official one provided by Dynamsoft or one that’s hosted by the customers on their own servers.
Offline licenses that do not require any information to be sent anywhere are also supported. Contact Dynamsoft Sales for more information.

How secure is the Dynamsoft License Server?

The Dynamsoft License Server ( DLS ) is the only software that Dynamsoft SDKs would be communicating with at runtime, so the security of DLS matters. The following are the security features of DLS :

DLS is responsible for authorizing the SDK as well as tracking the usage. It is designed to send/receive static data only when requested. No script can be run remotely on DLS nor from DLS to the requesting clients.
DLS supports HTTPS and it is highly recommended that it runs via HTTPS.
DLS supports domain binding. With domain binding, authorization to use the SDK is only granted to requests sent from the specified domain(s).
DLS also supports setting a session password to avoid abuse.
The authorization sent back from DLS and the usage reports sent to DLS are both encrypted.

Last but not least, Dynamsoft is ISO 27001 certified.

How reliable is the Dynamsoft-Hosting Dynamsoft License Server?

Customer devices rely on the Dynamsoft License Server to get authorized for using Dynamsoft SDKs, therefore, its reliability is crucial. The following are the measures we have in place for maximum uptime:

DLS is hosted on AWS.
DLS database is backed up every 12 minutes.
The two instances of “DLS” run in parallel with each other on different machines, and their databases are synchronized every 2 minutes. If one of them fails, the other will take over all incoming requests.
Once a device is authorized, it can work offline for 3 ~ 365 days.
Technicians are notified of any server exception within 30 seconds of its occurrence.

Also, Dynamsoft has been a online service provider for over 13 years and has an experienced team who have been maintaining products like SourceAnywhere Hosted, SCMAnywhere Hosted, TFS Hosted, etc.

How can I protect my license?

A trackable license is accessed by either the organization ID or the handshake code or both. When you use the organization ID, it is equivalent to using the default Handshake Code. Therefore, to protect your license is to restrict the access of a specific handshake code. The following are the measures we have in place

You can set a session password for this handshake code. The license only works when the password in your application matches the one you set for the code in the DLS, therefore you can update this password each time you update your application.
You can limit the access by validation fields. A validation field is acquired at runtime from the application (e.g. the domain or the process name of the application) and sent to the server. If it doesn’t match any field you have set on the DLS, the authorization fails.

What happens if my license runs out?

Generally, each trackable license has a fixed quota. If the quota is used up, the license will no longer be valid and the software will stop running. Of course, this is unacceptable for production use, and Dynamsoft has the following measures to ensure that it does not happen accidentally.

Dynamsoft allows excessive usage of the licenses in case the licensee fails to extend or expand the license in time. Please refer to Grace Stage.
Dynamsoft notifies the licensee multiple times about the status of the license. Please refer to Usage Alerts.

Can a client device work offline?

Yes. Depending on the license type, once a client device gets authorized, it can be used offline for 3 ~ 365 days. After that, it must connect to DLS again for another authorization. Otherwise, it will stop working.

During the offline period, by default, all usage data is kept on the client side and will be sent to the DLS all at once the next time the device gets online.

Contact Dynamsoft Support Team if you would like your devices to work offline for a longer period of time, you can also contact us if you don’t want to share any usage data with Dynamsoft.

Can I use Dynamsoft SDKs in an environment with no internet connection?

Yes. There are two scenarios in this case

All client devices can connect to a local network within the organization.

In this case, you can simply host your own DLS for license tracking. Please see Self-hosting License Tracking.
Client devices never connect to any network.

In this case, you may require a special license. Please contact Dynamsoft Support Team for details.

Can I unregister inactive devices?

As mentioned in Per Device license, Dynamsoft keeps a list of UUIDs which identify the active devices. By default, only if a device hasn’t been used for over 90 days will its UUID be removed from the list. This is done automatically.

If you are in a business with a high turnover rate of your devices/users, you can choose a different license option, like Concurrent Device license or Per Active Device license.

If you use a Per-Device license and would like to clear the registered devices so that you can use other devices. You can contact Dynamsoft Support Team and pay a certain amount for the service (which comes in the form of temporary quota expansion).

Can I extend the quota of my license to support more devices or process more documents?

Yes. If you are using Dynamsoft-Hosting DLS , you can either contact sales@dynamsoft.com to add quota or log in the customer portal and place an order for extra quota yourself. Rest assured that the Handshake Code remains unchanged during the process, so no code change is required to your application once the quota is added.

If you are hosting your own DLS , all you need to do is purchase another license, import it in the DLS and configure it to the Handshake Code you have been using.

Can I renew my license before its current expiration date?

Yes, you can log into the customer portal to renew your license by credit card or PayPal any time before it expires. Alternatively, you can contact sales@dynamsoft.com if you prefer other payment methods (wire transfer or check).

If you are using Dynamsoft-Hosting DLS , the new license will be automatically configured to the same Handshake Code that you have been using, so no code change is required to your application.

If you are hosting your own DLS , you need to download the new license file after the renewal, import it in the DLS and configure it to the Handshake Code you have been using.

Can I purchase a license valid for more than one year?

Yes. Please contact sales@dynamsoft.com with your request.

Will the unused quota be rolled over to the next period?

No.

What is counted as a single application?

Definition of a single application >

Policies

Learn more about our policies ›