If you have any code that modifies the FRX's on the fly, you'll need to

account for that.

Tracy

-----Original Message-----

From: MB Software Solutions General Account

Sent: Wednesday, May 28, 2008 5:10 PM

If I wanted to ship a trial version of my software (one where they couldn't

configure/alter it), the best way would be to just include everything in the

EXE, right? So all reports, the INI files, and even the local views

database would be included and hence not available to be modified. Because

this app will run locally and not on a server, I won't have to contend with

the database issues for the views database, either, afaik.

Does anyone see holes in this plan/approach?

(VFP9SP1)

tia,

--Michael

If I wanted to ship a trial version of my software (one where they

couldn't configure/alter it), the best way would be to just include

everything in the EXE, right? So all reports, the INI files, and even

the local views database would be included and hence not available to be

modified. Because this app will run locally and not on a server, I

won't have to contend with the database issues for the views database,

either, afaik.

Does anyone see holes in this plan/approach?

(VFP9SP1)

tia,

--Michael

Tracy Pearson wrote:

> If you have any code that modifies the FRX's on the fly, you'll need to

> account for that.

What I do in my reporting base class is to SELECT from the original FRX

to a temporary readwrite cursor, and code can then modify that.

Paul

Tracy Pearson wrote:

> If you have any code that modifies the FRX's on the fly, you'll need to

> account for that.

>

Excellent point! I had a menu item that allowed the user to modify

reports. I'll have to disable that for TRIAL version users.

THANKS!

Michael

I TOTALLY disagree with what's been previously been said.

You should supply the FULL product in demo form.

Let your prospective customers see the full product, allow "user to

modify reports". It is your job to allow them to see the FULL advantages

of your software.

Do NOT restrict your software.

Remember they will try out your software with, probably, real data. They

will expect the time they have spent entering this to be worthwhile, ie

its still there when they upgrade to the full product.

I assume you have reviewed restricting it to 30 days use etc & decided

it is too easy to get round the restriction.

With CalcPay I offer the FULL payroll product.

I restrict it to 4 periods of use. ie once 4 calculations is entered

onto the P11 table(ie 4 payruns have been done & recorded) I disable the

Payroll Calculator option. This can be for 1 or 10000 employees.

(I also disable the ONLINE END OF YEAR report to send to our beloved

H.M. Revenue & Customs.)

This means that the user can fully evaluate the product.

If you disable, for instance, "allowed the user to modify reports" then

they can not review your product to its full advantage. Do not do this

type of restriction.

25% of my clients are accountants/bookkeepers.

I point out that they can email the payslips to their clients.

I wait 10 secs & then tell them that the PDFs can be encrypted.

The sale is made.

Would you have removed this in your evaluation!

Find a restriction that is a major hindrance.

Is this FabMate!? Can you restrict the Stock/MakeUp table to say 100 items.

They can then fully review your system knowing about this restriction

and then make their own minds up as to whether they should purchase it.

Can you restrict a single major report so that they can only view it?

Keep the restrictions simple & obvious.

They can run the full product.

This of course means they cannot reject it later( because it does not do

what they thought it should do), you have after all allowed them the

full run of the product.

So what happens to a client that can survive with 100 stock items, well

they get a free system.

Get over it. You would have never have got them for the price you are

charging anyway.

You have however allowed potential clients to see see your software in

its best light.

Because your software is good they will buy it!

(If your software is not good then why are you on this list!)

I find if you trust your customers they trust you.

Probably one of the reasons that I come 2nd out of 1,280,000 on a google

search (UK) for 'payroll software'

Give your clients the full product.

Forget about the lost sales, you would not have got them anyway.

Concentrate on your clients, keep them happy.

Ensure you have 95%+ retention of your clients, if not, find out why &

fix it.

Andrew Stirling

01250 874580

http://www.calcpay.co.uk

HMRC Accredited UK payroll program

MB Software Solutions General Account wrote:

> Tracy Pearson wrote:

>> If you have any code that modifies the FRX's on the fly, you'll need to

>> account for that.

>>

>

> Excellent point! I had a menu item that allowed the user to modify

> reports. I'll have to disable that for TRIAL version users.

>

> THANKS!

>

Andrew,

> I TOTALLY disagree with what's been previously been said.

>

> You should supply the FULL product in demo form.

Great post!!

Malcolm

Andrew Stirling wrote:

> Michael

>

> I TOTALLY disagree with what's been previously been said.

>

> You should supply the FULL product in demo form.

I am, for everything except the reporting.

>

> Let your prospective customers see the full product, allow "user to

> modify reports". It is your job to allow them to see the FULL advantages

> of your software.

>

> Do NOT restrict your software.

>

> Remember they will try out your software with, probably, real data. They

> will expect the time they have spent entering this to be worthwhile, ie

> its still there when they upgrade to the full product.

My plan will allow for this, for them to keep their existing inputted data.

>

> I assume you have reviewed restricting it to 30 days use etc & decided

> it is too easy to get round the restriction.

I didn't want the extra administration. I just went for the somewhat

"nag" approach, although as you'll note in my summary below that it's

not really a nag. It's just my MBSS logos instead of his.

>

> With CalcPay I offer the FULL payroll product.

> I restrict it to 4 periods of use. ie once 4 calculations is entered

> onto the P11 table(ie 4 payruns have been done & recorded) I disable the

> Payroll Calculator option. This can be for 1 or 10000 employees.

> (I also disable the ONLINE END OF YEAR report to send to our beloved

> H.M. Revenue & Customs.)

>

> This means that the user can fully evaluate the product.

They'll be able to do that with this version. I'm focused on the

FabMate Lite version at this point as it's basically done and working

for my primary client. It's worked for them since 2003 with hardly any

needed maintenance. In short, it should allow for maximum return of

investment at this point, not requiring much more from me other than to

add their logos to the reports. Hence another reason why I wanted to

embed them rather than have them separate for someone else to circumvent

my deployment approach.

>

<snipped>

> Find a restriction that is a major hindrance.

> Is this FabMate!? Can you restrict the Stock/MakeUp table to say 100 items.

> They can then fully review your system knowing about this restriction

> and then make their own minds up as to whether they should purchase it.

> Can you restrict a single major report so that they can only view it?

Hey, that's a good idea...I could change the report code so that it only

does a PREVIEW and leave out the TO PRINTER option. Simple and

effective, imo!! Thanks for that tip! That was worth the price of the

thread!!! ;-)

> Keep the restrictions simple & obvious.

> They can run the full product.

> This of course means they cannot reject it later( because it does not do

> what they thought it should do), you have after all allowed them the

> full run of the product.

>

> So what happens to a client that can survive with 100 stock items, well

> they get a free system.

> Get over it. You would have never have got them for the price you are

> charging anyway.

> You have however allowed potential clients to see see your software in

> its best light.

> Because your software is good they will buy it!

> (If your software is not good then why are you on this list!)

Good points.

>

> I find if you trust your customers they trust you.

>

> Probably one of the reasons that I come 2nd out of 1,280,000 on a google

> search (UK) for 'payroll software'

>

> Give your clients the full product.

> Forget about the lost sales, you would not have got them anyway.

> Concentrate on your clients, keep them happy.

> Ensure you have 95%+ retention of your clients, if not, find out why &

> fix it.

Thanks for the thoughts. I was going to give them the full product, but

without the customized reports so that they had MBSS logos on them

instead of their own. Likewise, all other non-deliverable (read:

"internal") reports would have the MBSS logo watermark, which would be

removed if they bought the software. I like Dave Crozier's idea of the

sample set of code that just looks for a setting in the registry for

flipping that switch. I'd like to do this somehow remotely via a

setting in a web database that the app would hit up front. The

requirement would be internet connection, of course. That's ok in my

book in this day and age. It's not intensive; it just checks a database

for a simple small query of settings.

Also, I'd like to bundle stuff inside so as to help better protect it as

a single user app. My first idea (and probably what I'm going to go

with) is that I'll simply offer this Lite version for free for single

users...meaning that they can download the software many times at a

company but it will only run on the user's local PC (and look for data

only on that local PC). Paying users would get a license that would

"unlock" the code that only looked locally and instead would use the

setting in the configurations INI file.

So to summarize, I wasn't really restricting anything except the

reports. If they want to create professional proposals that would go

out to their clients, they'd purchase the paid version so that they

didn't have my MBSS monikers all over the documents.

Sound better?

Totally agree with Andrew. I usually give the full system

to potential clients so they can fully evaluate the product

before making the decision to buy but:

1. Program will ask for a key after 30 days of use.

2. As a demo version, everything prints with a DEMO message.

AiR

Aida I. Rivera-Ben=EDtez, MSMIS

AiR Information Systems, Inc.

San Juan, Puerto Rico

www.airispro.com

>Andrew Stirling wrote:

> Michael

>=20

> I TOTALLY disagree with what's been previously been said.

>=20

> You should supply the FULL product in demo form.

Aida I. Rivera-Benítez wrote:

> Totally agree with Andrew. I usually give the full system

> to potential clients so they can fully evaluate the product

> before making the decision to buy but:

>

> 1. Program will ask for a key after 30 days of use.

> 2. As a demo version, everything prints with a DEMO message.

>

> AiR

> Aida I. Rivera-Benítez, MSMIS

> AiR Information Systems, Inc.

> San Juan, Puerto Rico

> www.airispro.com

Yeah, I'm kinda doing that (but without #1). It has my company logo as

the watermark on all reports, and the reports are embedded so they can't

be changed.

On Fri, May 30, 2008 at 7:43 AM, Aida I. Rivera-Ben=EDtez, MSMIS <air@abac.=

com>

wrote:

> Totally agree with Andrew. I usually give the full system

> to potential clients so they can fully evaluate the product

> before making the decision to buy but:

>

> 1. Program will ask for a key after 30 days of use.

> 2. As a demo version, everything prints with a DEMO message.

>

--------------------------------------------------------

I don't do the DEMO message, but if you fail to change the key and can get

it started up, I will replace your company name with mine. :)

If you think you can change it back, you can't succeed. Because at next

invoice run I'll verify that my name will be afixed on the invoice with a

disclaimer.

--=20

Stephen Russell

Sr. Production Systems Programmer

Mimeo.com

Memphis TN

901.246-0159

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