Protecting number of users on a network

[frenel]

I'm marketing a large medical database. I need a way to limit the customer to the purchased number client licenses. If they purchase FMP themselves and copy our "Open" file on the client and the plugins how can I monitor clients installed? I was planning on hardcoding reg numbers on the Open file and on the server and compare upon opening by tagging each Open file with the current host name. The problem occurs if an "extra" shows up. Have they decided to move to a different machine or are trying scam the system? How can I monitor this to prevent savvy users from creating additional client sides? Thanks.

[IdealData]

Check out the Get(UserCount) function or possibly Get(AccountName)

Did you try the help system?

[Steven H. Blackwell]

Get(UserCount) will give you the number of [color:red]simultaneously connected users. But it won't tell you how many potential users in the organization have FileMaker Pro installed. Moreover, while you can regulate this via FileMaker Server, you can't readily manage a client's server to assure that the settings remain unchanged.

Steven

[frenel]

Hi Steven, thanks. But as I understand it from the documentation, Get(UserCount) returns the number of users currently using the CURRENT file ( i take that as the file that they are currently in. Now, my app was written in 5 & 6 and has around 20 files. I'm migrating it to 8 but it's going to be a while until I can reduce the number of files. Again, as i read the docs, i might get different counts if some users happen to be "in" different files when I call the function. Or is this a wrong assumption and that if a client has merely opened a file, regardless of what layout in whatever file they happen to be in, UserCount will return a positive value? That would be great and I already have worked out how to manage the total allowed and prevent "customer addons".

Bill O'Keefe

Frenel Solutions

www.frenelsolutions.com