My software emails the customer a notice once a day, if the customer
adds the correct email to the configuration.
Tony Thigpen
Charles Mills wrote on 6/30/19 6:40 PM:
Okay, I am "dropping up one level" from my question about persistent WTO
messages. The REAL question is "what would be the best way to tell a
customer that their license is fairly close to expiration?"
Please, may I ask that we not digress into whether license enforcement is a
good idea. That's a valid discussion but it's not this thread. I'm a
contractor on this and it's not my decision. I also happen to think that
software vendors need to get paid and not every customer ponies up
spontaneously. FWIW, there is no CPUID checking in the product, just certain
usage restrictions and an expiration date.
It's a batch product. It's not a huge big deal product, so there is no
"CA-1" that is devoted to license management.
What would be the best way to get the right peoples' attention to let them
know that the license is fairly close to expiration? Let me tell you from
experience three things that do not work well:
- An I message in SYSPRINT with no elevated return code. Put simply, nobody
notices or cares. (Until the product expires, and then all heck breaks
loose.)
- A W message in SYSPRINT with a return code of 4. All heck breaks loose at
that point, because everyone seems to use JCL that checks for a zero return
code, and you break their batch processes with a 4. You might as well return
16 as return 4.
- Having vendor sales management keep track of whether a new license has
been sent, and managing it that way. (1) "A license has been sent" is not
the same thing as "someone actually installed the license"; and (2) not
every sales person is a genius at getting paperwork right.
I was considering some sort of WTO that would require manual attention -- or
at least console automation simulated attention -- but that may not be a
great possibility.
So ... what have you seen that has worked well in your opinion?
Thanks,
Charles
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