What is teamviewer?
JZerb said:So say i have someone in the field with Rockwell software installed on their laptop, but their 7 day grace period since the dongle was last plugged in has lapsed, what can i do?
Going into the field with only a Grace Period Activation is not really professional, in my opinion.
If you are really stuck then you could perform a "Rehost" of the licence Activation(s) to remove the association with the hardware Host ID of the USB Dongle and Rehost it with say the Hard Disk Drive (HDD) of their workstation laptop to act as the new Host ID.
Later, back at base, you "should" be able to perform another Rehost yourselves to change the Host ID back to the USB Dongle. I say "should" because you can only perform 3 x Rehosts in 12 months for a product licence. If this were the case, then you can contact Rockwell and ask them to do it or allow it. It's usually not a big issue.
For future remote software use - issue a licence (or this licence) that is tied to a USB Dongle for this specific purpose and make sure that the travelling programmer brings the USB Dongle with them. Or, as mentioned, setup a licence on a computer acting as a Server which may be remotely accessed by the programmer so that they may remote in and borrow the licence from the Server computer. You must make sure a licence is available at the time they remote in. If others happened to be using the licence at the time it will not be available. Which ever method you might choose to use, this is why I say to dedicate a licence for this purpose so it should always be available to travellers. Anyone can still use the licence at base when no one is travelling.
Personally, I prefer to have a USB Dongle with me as option 1 as there is less messing around with remoting in to the Server from some locations. Option 2, if say the USB Dongle was lost/stolen/forgotten, is to fall back to remoting in to the Server. I also use TeamViewer (v12 at present). I use it for a number of local and remote services and it is very reliable.
Going into the field with only a Grace Period Activation is not really professional, in my opinion.
Regards,
George
JZerb said:I completely agree with the USB dongle being taken into the field by the tech, the issue here is that i AM the tech and usually the one in the field it just so happened that i was booked to be elsewhere, with the USB dongle in my bag lol, then someone else with minor laptop skills was sent to another site.
I am going to try and install the VPN driver on teamviewer and then point the field laptop FT activation manager to look at my laptop, which ill attach the USB dongle to, to get the license file. if that doesnt work, rockwell is normally very good with helping out in these matters with ideas and/or just giving you a temp activation code for the software.
if the TeamViewer VPN works ill be sure to share.
Aabeck said:I have to add this:
NOTE TO ALL PLC MAKERS:
The use of remote desktop sessions in this industry is increasing, and will continue to increase. Please have your engineers start working on a way for a licensed installation of your software to be able to somehow activate a [remote/borrowed/???] license so we can get online with the PLC and troubleshoot the operation or make remote updates.
My company has an OEM Toolkit, so we use a License Server running on one of our headquarters file server computers. If I can connect over VPN to my office (which I need to do daily for timesheet and archives), then I can perform a "Borrow" to activate my RA software.
Usually I remember to do an Activation Borrow before I leave. And usually I don't stay longer than my Activation Borrow was set to last.
But in JZerb's case, the options are
1. Get the dongle physically to the person in the field
2. Connect the dongle virtually to the field computer (Eltima FlexiHub)
3. Ask RA for a temporary activation or re-host to the computer in the field.
We have enterprise TeamViewer subscriptions and I use Eltima FlexiHub to connect USB dongles for other software to computers in the field. Both are worth the price.