Authenticate Jet Reports Reports License

Overview

To use License Activation, each Jet customer is provided with a unique "Activation Code" which is used by each Jet user within the organization. The activation code is emailed to you along with the rest of your licensing information.

With Activation, Microsoft Windows user name authentication is the only method used to authenticate users (with the exception of each each Jet user's "Initial Authentication").  To help users who are transitioning from older versions - where the licensing was based on the Excel user name - that user name can still be used once for the initial authentication.

Designers and Viewers are activated based on their Microsoft Windows Domain\UserID. In cases where no Microsoft Windows Domain exists it will be based on the ComputerName\UserID. To easily find this information you can open the Windows Command Prompt (CMD) and type 'whoami' as shown in the screenshot below.

If your license has unlimited Viewers, or you have free Viewer licenses available, you can simply activate a user and they will get automatically added to the license as a Viewer with their associated Microsoft Windows Domain\UserID or ComputerName\UserID.

Designers need to be added to the license in advance by contacting your regional Jet licensing department.

Site licenses can be configured for customers with unlimited Designers. With a site license a Microsoft Windows Domain is added to the license so that all users who activate from that Microsoft Windows Domain are automatically granted a Designer license without having to be added to the license ahead of time.

Authentication

1. Initial Authentication

   Your organization's license information includes your Activation Code as well as the user IDs for Designers and Viewers.

   When first starting Excel after Jet Reports has been enabled, the user will be prompted for the Activation Code which, along with the domain and Windows user ID and Excel user name, is used to Authenticate the user

   If the Excel user name matches the Excel user name already listed in the license, that Excel user name on the license is then replaced with the Windows user ID, and the current authorization (either Designer or Viewer) is set.

2. Ongoing Authentication

   Approximately once per day, when Excel is started with Jet Reports enabled, each client system re-checks your organization's Jet license.  In this way, any changes that an organization makes to its license (e.g., in regard to renewals, Designers, or Viewers) will be reflected automatically for each and every Jet user - with no need to manually replace license files.