Expiry Dates

The script to tell you what license is installed on your Genero system is fglWrt -a info license.  That can output a number of different lines with a date and the question we get is will my Genero application still run after this date or do I need to do something to the license?

Below are a few messages you may see in the output of fglWrt -a info license or with Genero Studio > Genero Configuration Management -> Show License button.

Possible fglWrt -a info license output lines with dates/days

This temporary installation will expire in 30 day(s).

This message indicates that the license has only been installed temporarily.  Your system will run but after the number of days specified it will stop.

Installing a license has three basic stages or steps, some of which can be combined so you don’t see them as distinct steps.

1. install a license key and license number onto your Genero installation
2. tell us what server and directory the license has been installed on by sending us the installation number, and receiving an installation key in return
3. telling the Genero installation that you have told us by installing the installation key into your Genero installation

This serves to make sure that a license is only installed in one place.  A Temporary license state occurs between 1 and 3.  After you have initially installed a Genero license, you then have 30 days to formally activate the license.  During this time the license is said to be Temporary.  Sometimes there are valid reasons to be in that state but you should not be in it for more than 30 days.  You should be telling us where the server is installed at the earliest convenience by formally activating the license.

This license is date limited and expires the 2024/12/31 (Year/Month/Day).

When you are a prospective customer, you maybe offered an evaluation license that will stop on a certain date.  If you see a message that says “This license is date limited and expires …”, this is a hard stop with no grace period.

You may also see this message on licenses that have been issued for a specific purpose and have an expiry date so that they cannot be then used forever.

End of subscription date: 2024/12/31 (Year/Month/Day).

With subscription licenses, your Genero installation will eventually stop running if you do not pay the subscription every year.  The installation thinks you have paid upto the date specified.  Every year it is upto your system administrators to apply a new subscription key in your Genero installation after your payment has been processed.  It is important to note that this step must occur every year.

As per this page on managing subscription licenses, there is a grace period of 60 days.  So with the example above it will be around 28 February /1st March that the installation will stop  but you don’t ever want to be in a position to find out.

For a system administrator, that date 60 days after is the date you want to be on high alert to find the system you have not updated the subscription key on!!!

End of maintenance date: 2024/12/31 (Year/Month/Day).

With a perpetual license, as the name implies you can use that license forever on the server for which it was installed.  The restriction is if you do decide to stop paying maintenance, you cannot use newer versions of Genero, you are stuck with the version you are on.

If the only date you see is in this End of Maintenance Date line i.e you don’t have a “date limited” license as mentioned above, or the exception below with Genero Report Writer,  means that you do NOT need to panic about your system stopping on this date.  Your system will continue to run.

        - DVM License under maintenance

This is a message you may see when checking the license used with Genero Report Writer (GRW).

When Genero Report Writer was first launched, it was offered with a very generous offer for existing Genero customers, see the note from the release announcement  and a number of customers are still taking advantage of that offer.   This message means that the GRW License is tied to the Genero maintenance expiry date.  The date you need to look up is the “End of maintenance date”  on the Genero installation.

As per this section of documentation, If maintenance has lapsed there is a 60 day grace period before Genero Report Writer enters a degraded mode and stopping 30 days later.

If you forget to install a maintenance key, you will find that your Genero installation will continue to run, but after the 60/90 day grace periods Genero Report Writer will degrade and stop.

Accounts Payable –> Our Licensing System –> Your Genero Installation

It is important to realise that the process is not instantaneous between when your accounts payable department has paid our invoice, and when a new maintenance date is available for download from our web page or via the auto option.

You should allow a few days for normal business processing to take place.

After installing a new maintenance key or subscription key, you should be in the habit of running fglWrt -a info license, or equivalent flmprg command and verify that the date is what you expect.

Automation

Both fglWrt and flmprg commands  have syntax such as “auto” and “batch” that mean these commands can be run without human intervention.

For many years, some clever customers have had cronjobs running that call scripts such as fglWrt -m auto. If you do this, the suggestion is to set this up to run twice a month, and what we do ask is that you pick an odd time in the middle of the night for this to run.  This is just so that we don’t have a peak number of calls at the stroke of midnight!

More recent versions of our licensing tools have a verb “batch“, you may find that previous scripts that used input redirection can be replaced with commands using “batch” instead.

Warnings

At the moment, other than the warning you see with Genero Report Writer where an extra page is printed with a warning, there are no warnings output to either end users or system administrators advising that an expiry date is to be triggered.