Your Partner for Software Business Growth ∵ 2005

Nalpeiron came first. We are the leader in cloud-based software licensing, launching the first commercial platform 20 years ago when the cloud was new.

The Nalpeiron Growth Platform currently has two applications, Zentitle2 and Zengain, to help you drive revenues and control your products.

• Zentitle2 offers Software license management, entitlement management, analytics, and monetization capabilities.

• Zengain offers your revenue-facing teams with sales-orientated, actionable usage analytics and tools to drive more revenue across the lifecycle.

Unlike our competitors, we have two issued US patents on our technology, and we will be your long-term partner, not just a supplier.

Many of our customers have been with us for over ten years, and we have helped them grow from startups to IPO/M&A. Thanks for trusting us to help you!

Welcome to the Zentitle2 documentation hub.

Here, you will find in-depth information on all aspects of the Zentitle2 platform, covering topics such as utilizing the Zentitle2 dashboard to set up and configure your products and offerings, integrating Zentitle2 into your back-office for process automation, and leveraging the Zentitle2 licensing APIs seamlessly within your applications.

Thank you for choosing our platform, and let's start on this journey of software monetization excellence.

What is Zentitle2?

Zentitle is a comprehensive enterprise-class “Software Monetization as a Service” for SaaS, IoT, and On-Premise Software vendors.

The Zentitle platform currently hosts hundreds of millions of monthly transactions with over $1B+ Software Protected. It saves our customers time and money when they want to go to market fast.

Zentitle empowers you to monetize the software you have created.

Quick links

Zentitle2 is located in the Ohio availability zone in the US.

Zentitle can be hosted in any AWS availability zone.

It can also be hosted in Europe at these locations (at this time):

• Europe (Frankfurt) eu-central-1

• Europe (Ireland) eu-west-1

• Europe (London) eu-west-2

• Europe (Paris) eu-west-3

• Europe (Stockholm) eu-north-1

1. Fixes frustrations with existing hard-coded approach

2. Helps drive new revenues with actionable analytics

3. Reduces customer frustrations/high support costs/manual effort

4. Removes wasted time, money, and roadblocks to innovation – decouples engineering from business

5. Speeds up order > cash by streamlining operations

6. Saves $ with automation and operational efficiency

Our clients rely on us to keep their data secure.

Our approach to security runs through our product design, policies, and our procedures.

Incident response and monitoring

Zentitle2 implements a protocol for handling security events and other operational issues, including escalation procedures, rapid mitigation, and post-mortems.

Industry Standard Security Certification

Reliability, scalability, trust, and security are core to our customer commitment. Our enterprise-grade security features and comprehensive audits ensure we're aligned with industry best practices. Zentitle2 adheres to data security, availability, and confidentiality standards developed by SOC 2. AWS and Azure are certified by SOC2 and ISO-27001.

We combine best practices to keep your data safe.

See our page on our security policies here:

Learn more about our application security on the next page.

We'd love to hear from you! Here's how to contact us for assistance, feedback, and other topics!

Get Support

To get support, follow the Help menu in Zentitle2, where you can raise a Support Ticket.

Product Feedback

We love to hear your feedback on our products. It helps us improve them.

Billing

Anything else

Let's jump on a call and discuss how we can help. Contact your account manager today.

Zentitle2 meets the standards for scale, security, and operational excellence demanded by enterprise-class software companies. Zentitle allows you to quickly launch new pricing and packaging models.

• Cloud-based, enterprise-class “Software Monetization as a Service” platform designed to drive revenues.

• Monetize and control any kind of Softwar: On-premise, Server, SaaS, Hybrid, mobile, Hardware & IoT.

• Release any business model or monetization method without the need for re-engineering.

• A single source of truth and control for any entitlement, maintaining the business state, pricing & packaging logic.

Designed to:

• Reduce costs

• Drive revenue

• Go-to-market fast

Zentitle2 Feature Highlights

• Easy to use: Modern UI/UX/APIs

• VMs: Superior VM Management

• Drive revenue: ZenGain add-ons

• Dark sites: Local License Server

• Identity: OIDC based integrated iDP

• Cashflow: Finance control of entitlements

• Self-serve: Customizable end-user portal

• Analytics: Actionable data options

• Easy to integrate: OpenAPI Interfaces

• 1 pane of glass: single source of truth

Zentitle2 Platform Summary

• Built from the ground up for SaaS, hybrid, on-prem and hardware applications

• New architecture, both single and multi-tenant, with TurboScaling

• Fast, auto-scaling, super flexible, and API-driven new monetization platform

• Supports every business model, online or offline, for hardware or software

• Kubernetes/docker & open source

• All key stakeholders have defined roles

• Advanced End-User Portal

• Next-Generation VM Management

• …Built for all the future holds

Complete control

Enable your product team to experiment with new monetization strategies, finding the ones that rapidly drive up your revenues.

Proven business models

From subscription, to pure consumption, to hybrid models and everything in between. Usage-based licensing can be layered on top of existing models.

Flexible and agile

Immediately allow design of new pricing and packaging to drive growth and improve margins. Empower product management and sales to launch profitable offerings without engineering.

Speed and reduced costs

Easy-to-integrate APls mean your development team doesn't waste time self-building licensing from scratch and avoids all the demands of ongoing development.

Zentitle2 is a software monetization platform that incorporates a range of functionality; below is a quick summary of the capabilities of a software monetization platform.

Software pricing and packaging

• License model flexibility and business model agility

Software protection and compliance

• Software license compliance and protection against VM cloning

Software license and entitlement management

• Centralization and automation – a single source of truth

• End-user enablement and deployment in any environment

Software usage tracking

• Capturing actionable analytics data

• Providing tools to different roles to empower revenue growth

• Predictive analytics for future planning and action

Security is a top priority for Nalpeiron. We use various methods to protect your data from unauthorized access and tampering, including our own tools and those of third-party security providers. These tools continuously monitor our cloud infrastructure for potential misconfigurations. In addition, we have a suite of automated tests (unit and integration) that are automatically executed after each commit to the repository and block deployments if a fault is detected.

Further, we maintain various systems that continuously monitor everything from the software pipeline to our infrastructure in layers to prevent problems and security issues.

Zentitle2 uses robust security checks on our Repository, Cloud, Container, and Domain.

Our tools integrate with our compliance suite, Drata for SOC2.

SAST

Zentitle2 runs a SAST engine based on best-in-class open-source scanners. This module's goal is to find security issues in our code and run reports for our Customers' cybersecurity reviews.

Reports

We can generate reports that can be used as part of your cybersecurity assessment. The documents include SBOM (Software Bill of Material) and SAST (Static Application Security Testing is performed automatically on all production repositories and docker containers) reports that form part of our Software Development Lifecycle.

To request the latest Nalpeiron security audit report, follow the Help menu in Zentitle2, where you can create a Support Ticket and ask for a secure link to the latest reports.

Application Security

Zentitle uses various unique parameters in the verification process.

The client application is verified based on using a Nalpeiron-issued tenant ID & product ID (these are embedded in the app client code) and the activation code (license code) issued to an end user (customer) that is private to the application user.

The development process embeds the tenant ID & product ID in the application (see our licensing client examples), and the activation code unlocks the transaction, acting like a password in the process. The Licensing API processes the various unique components and responds with the access token, which is then used to authenticate refresh requests.

Additionally, all communication takes place over a secure HTTPS connection.

Application Activation Process

Our APIs use SSL endpoints with valid certificates to establish secure connections.

This way, we guarantee that data is encrypted in transit and can not be tampered with or listened to.

Offline activation process

We generate key pair on the client for offline activation to perform a two-way token exchange.

The public key is available on the API Credentials page and can be used for encryption and verification. The private keys are kept secret and stored in an encrypted database in our highly secure infrastructure.

First, the application creates a new key pair. The public key is embedded in the offline activation request and encrypted using the server's public key. Next, on the server, we decrypt the request, perform the activation, and encrypt the response using the client's public key. This way, only the client can decrypt this message.

Webhook payload signature

We use asymmetric encryption with unique key pairs for each customer.

Webhook payloads are signed with the private key stored in our system, and this signature can be verified using the public key to prove that the webhook call is coming from the Zentitle2 system.

Management API

Zentitle2 Management API uses OAuth2 over HTTPS to manage authentication and authorization.

OAuth2 is an open standard for authorization that enables applications to access resources from other apps or services securely. We use client_credentials in the API.

Licensing API

Licensing API doesn't use OAuth2 to authenticate requests. Instead, authentication is based on tenantId, productId, and entitlement Activation Code. The first call to the Activate endpoint returns an access token, which is used in later requests.

We also use the concept of Nonce. It's a random value generated and returned in headers with each call and must be sent in headers in the next call to the API.

See our API docs for more details on authentication:

HTTPS data exchange explained:

Observability and accountability, supported by comprehensive logging practices, are essential components of modern software systems. By prioritizing these aspects, organizations can improve system reliability, enhance user experience, and maintain compliance with regulatory requirements.

These are keys to any modern and effective Entitlement management system (EMS); however, they are lacking in most EMS offerings today. These tools are also essential to your compliance efforts and, in the case of Zentitle2, in our SOC2 type2 certification.

Nalpeiron offers a range of tools to help, including our "Change log" feature, which allows customers (a premium feature) to track changes in key areas of Zentitle2. Changelog currently tracks two critical business objects: Customers and Entitlements.

Change logs play an important role in helping your team manage and secure their workspaces. They provide:

• Better security: Notice any strange activity or unauthorized access in your workspace.

• Accountability: Track who did what, when, and why to have a clear record of user actions.

• Compliance: Keep detailed records to meet regulations or company requirements.

Observability & Accountability in Software Usage

Observability and accountability are crucial in software development and usage in ensuring system reliability, performance, and user satisfaction. These concepts are closely tied to logging activity, which provides valuable insights into software behavior and user interactions.

Understanding Observability

Observability refers to the ability to understand the internal state of a system by examining its outputs. In software, this typically involves:

• Monitoring key metrics and performance indicators

• Collecting and analyzing logs

• Implementing tracing to follow requests through the system

By enhancing observability, developers and operators can quickly identify and resolve issues, optimize performance, and improve user experience.

The Importance of Accountability

Accountability in software usage ensures that actions within the system can be traced back to specific users or processes. This is essential for:

• Security and compliance purposes

• Auditing and troubleshooting

• Understanding user behavior and needs

Implementing robust accountability measures helps maintain system integrity and builds trust with users and stakeholders.

Logging Activity: The Key to Observability and Accountability

Logging is the practice of recording events, actions, and errors that occur within a software system. Effective logging strategies support both observability and accountability by:

• Providing a detailed record of system activities

• Enabling real-time monitoring and alerting

• Facilitating post-incident analysis and debugging

• Supporting user behavior analysis and feature optimization

Zentitle2 is the abstraction layer, it removes the business state, pricing & packaging logic that doesn’t belong in the application.

Engineering gets the ability to release features without having to consider monetization.

Product teams get control over how offerings are packaged, priced, and managed.

Companies that utilize an entitlement management service unlock efficient growth by monetizing flexibly vs. the standard “hard-coded” entitlement model of most SaaS companies.

Zentitle2 is critical infrastructure for software vendors to effectively manage and control the licensing and entitlements of their software products.

This documentation provides a comprehensive guide on leveraging Zentitle2, empowering software vendors to streamline their licensing processes and enhance customer satisfaction.

By adopting Zentitle2, software vendors can efficiently manage various aspects of their licensing ecosystem, including user management, product configuration, license generation and activation, reporting and analytics, and customer support.

This system simplifies the complexities associated with licensing, allowing vendors to focus on delivering their software products and maximizing revenue.

With the help of Zentitle2, software vendors can enhance their operational efficiency, protect their intellectual property, gain valuable insights through analytics, and deliver a superior experience to their customers.

This documentation equips you with the knowledge and tools necessary to harness the full potential of Zentitle2 and drive success in your software licensing endeavors.

Zentitle Dynamic Entitlements

Watch this short video demonstrating the functional difference between Zentitle2 and legacy systems (home-built license management systems or platforms like Flexera and Gemalto).

Specifically, this video will help you understand our innovative concept of “dynamic entitlements,” which make Zentitle a powerful and modern licensing tool.

One of the key benefits of 18 years of expertise in the Software space is the understanding of the complexities of managing licenses and users and keeping their rights accurate and up to date. It's not easy, especially when using non-specific tools like a CRM.

In addition, many Software companies have many products - many of which are across legacy platforms, OnPrem, SaaS, and even hardware - all with different types of business models and tech stacks.

Zentitle has been designed to cover all these use cases - hybrid software business models and deployment types - be they OnPrem or SaaS - all in one "pane of glass."

A custom-designed system that serves as your single, reliable source of truth for your licenses and customers.

With every initial sale, we include an onboarding workshop to help your organization prepare to use Zentitle2 and maximize your investment.

The Zentitle On-Boarding Workshop is an 8-hour session that combines lecture and hands-on experience and best practices for configuring and using a basic Zentitle deployment.

The goal is to accelerate the time-to-value for a basic deployment. The session is also useful to educate additional stakeholders for an existing deployment.

Nalpeiron also offers a la carte advanced topic modules.

Audience:

• Product Management and Business Leaders responsible for Licensing and Monetization

• Developers that will integrate the Zentitle SDK into the customer software

• Operational and IT integration personnel who will configure and use the Zentitle to manage the deployment of trials and production entitlements

• Support and Test personnel who use Zentitle in the performance of their roles

The key differences that are critical in working in secure sites/offline type environments - our specialty.

• Most technology for controlling secure sites is old, expensive to install, maintain, and run, and only supports "concurrent users" as a business model—we set out to solve all those problems with Zentitle2 (the most modern licensing platform).

• Firstly, the cost of installation:
• 2nd, support of business models:

  • LLS supports all the same models that you might offer over the internet. i.e., you can not only run concurrent licensing but also (node) individual installations and trials, change models, and upgrade users in the field without an engineer visit. This enables your team a lot of business model flexibility, simplifies everything, and makes upgrades and upsells easier.

• 3rd, security and control of virtual machines:
• 4th, ongoing operational and maintenance costs:

  • This is a vast unknown area, and many clients love Nalpeiron as we remove much of the need for costs upfront in training, integration, testing, and deployment. Then, ongoing field maintenance - often where other competitors' products need engineers to go to the site; in most cases, we can control everything via our cloud = offering massive savings, often way more than the actual costs of the licensing system. This is why Spacelabs love Zentitle. We manage their hospital hardware products (critical infrastructure), often in secure locations. Before, they had an engineer do everything, and now they can do almost everything remotely saving time and showing an instant ROI on their investment with Nalpeiron.

V10 and Zentitle2 can be used side by side as end users upgrade to the new system to avoid downtime, i.e., as they upgrade from your V10 application to your Zentitle2 application. Once upgraded to Zentitle2 functionality, end users must reactivate the client.

Zentitle2 has a new library and API compared to V10, so these systems are incompatible with the client and back office integration sides. Therefore, your client-side binaries will need to be updated to use the new Zentitle2 library (for purely online clients, you can use the Zentitle2 licensing API directly rather than the new library). If necessary, this will mean replacing the existing V10 library in your client-side binaries.

Other changes if you use the feature:

• V10 Profiles, if used, will need to be re-mapped onto Zentitle2 plans, editions, and offerings

• V10 LAN daemon is to be replaced by Zentitle2 LLS (local license server) as a docker container.

• Datastreamer functionality is currently unavailable in Zentitle2, and a brand-new suite of analytics capabilities is available in Zengain.

• Reseller functionality is currently unavailable in Zentitle2 but will be added in the future.

• NSA client-side analytics is currently unavailable in Zentitle2; a brand-new suite of analytics capabilities is available in Zengain.

• Passive Licensing is currently unavailable and not required in Zentitle2 due to its more flexible design.

• V10 trials (with no License Code) are not supported in Zentitle2 out of the box. Please use subscription-type licenses; these can be isolated using Zentitle2 Editions.

• V10 Saas Licensing calls will map to Zentitle2 Licensing API.

In addition, any back-office integrations using the V10 management APIs will need to be replaced with Zentitle2 management API calls.

If required, you can move existing V10 license codes to Zentitle2 by exporting (or extracting using API calls) the V10 License codes and metadata (Features, Application agility variables, companies, customer info, etc.) and then importing this data into Zentitle2 via its management API calls.

V10 License code activity (current and historical) is not compatible with Zentitle2 due to the changing generation of client computer IDs and cannot be migrated to Zentitle2.

If you're using the V10 End User Portal, this will also be superseded by the new Zentitle2 End User Portal, including the the V10 offline activation portal if used.

For V10 ABL (account-based licensing) users, this will need to be recreated in the Zentitle2 system. As V10 ABL user passwords are encrypted, your users must recreate their passwords for security.

Please log a support ticket in V10 to discuss your use case and steps to migrate to Zentitle2; we are here to help.

Unlock the Full Potential of Zentitle with Our Expert Professional Services

At Nalpeiron, we understand that adopting a next-generation entitlement management system like Zentitle is just the first step toward optimizing your software licensing operations.

To help you maximize the value and ensure a seamless implementation, we offer a comprehensive range of professional services tailored specifically for Zentitle:

1. Strategy Services: Guiding Your Path to Success

2. Implementation Services: Seamless Integration, Smooth Transition

3. Training and Knowledge Transfer: Empowering Your Team

4. Ongoing Support and Maintenance: Your Partner for Success

Zentitle2 represents a superset of most of Nalpeiron's V10 platform concepts. However, the APIs and data models are somewhat different.

This section shows how the V10 concepts map into the Zentitle2 platform and terminology.

In V10, License Codes provide a specific set of license rights to a customer. In Zentitle2, the more general term of 'Entitlement' is used rather than a 'License', as this applies to both SaaS as well as on-premise applications.

In Zentitle2, entitlements may have one or more "Activation Codes" (the strings used to activate a seat against a license). They can be removed or added during the lifetime of an entitlement - whereas in V10, the License Code is always a 1:1 name for the license itself and cannot change.

In Zentitle2, editions, plans and offerings are used to represent standard sets of rights, making it easy to define 'good', 'better' and 'best' variations of a given product. In V10, these are represented by license code profiles.

Application Agility fields in V10 have been replaced by a more flexible 'Attributes' capability, where each key/value pair can now be one of a number of types (string, number, date).

Standard features (on/off), Floating Features, Element Pools and Consumption Tokens are all supported as they are in V10.

Watch the webinar

Click here to register:

FAQs for V10 > Z2

-Nalpeiron can help you migrate your data but recommends adding to a new release

-Z2 will have a different set of plans, but the pricing will remain similar to V10

-Yes, you can have products on both platforms or move exclusively to Z2

-There are no plans to end-of-life Zentitle V10 for at least two years

- We will allow you to move and credit you any time left on the old contract.

Zentitle2 naming conventions and descriptions

It only takes days to get up and running with a cloud account.

• Zentitle2 is built from the ground up as API first.

• There are two different APIs: one for licensing (on-prem focus) and a management API (OAuth2 protocol) for SaaS-type applications.

• APIs allow for fast and simple integration between systems and your application.

• Example code and test harnesses speed up integration.

• Code “kits” (wrappers) for C++ and C# streamline the integration of applications.

• Use the OpenAPI specification to generate a Client SDK for the most popular platforms.

• Complete set of Webhooks for bi-directional communications between apps.

• Zapier and e-commerce integrations for back-office connectivity.

Every Zentitle customer has a unique login page.

This will be formed when your account is created on the Zentitle backend, and therefore all your users will need the specific link vs a generic one when logging in.

Logins are managed in our OpenID Connect-based IdP.

These are emailed to each user of the Zentitle platform and need to be saved by each user.

You can log in using either your email or username. By default, the initial user will be set up with the "admin" username.

Initial access

Users will receive an access email when you add them to Zentitle.

The email includes a password update link. When users click this link, they are redirected to the login page, where they can set their own password.

Once that is set, they can access Zentitle based on the permissions you previously set.

Logging In after the first time

SaaS-based entitlement management, On-Premise licensing, hardware-based licensing, or a hybrid is possible with Zentitle2.

Discussion of the differences

Two types of licensing models are primarily widely used in software: SaaS (Software as a Service) and On-Premise. These two models represent fundamentally different approaches to accessing, using, and managing software, and each has its unique set of considerations concerning licensing and monetization.

The SaaS model is a modern approach to software delivery. Under this model, users use the software via the Internet, often on a subscription or usage basis. The software is hosted on the provider's servers, and users can access it using a web browser. The key advantage of this model is that it eliminates the need for organizations to install and run applications on their systems.

On the other hand, the On-Premise licensing model is more traditional. In a perpetual or subscription model, it often requires the purchase of a license for each piece of software. The software is then installed on the company's servers and each user's system in the case of a B2C desktop application. Once installed, it can be offered as part of a floating pool of licenses where the applications are shared or on an individual-use basis. Installing on both servers and desktops means having to deploy the licensing code embedded into the application, and that alone requires more time, testing, and consideration of security issues.

In conclusion, both the SaaS and On-Premise models have their advantages and trade-offs, and from a software licensing standpoint, a different approach from engineering and product teams.

From a software licensing and monetization standpoint

The SaaS application deployment model differs from on-premise as the security requirements differ significantly. SaaS deployments tend to be driven by connectivity to various systems and often to identity as the means of authentication and connection with the end user. They mostly consume API calls and don't require as much testing or engineering to roll out.

SaaS deployments still get all the benefits of Zentitle2 in creating an “abstraction layer” that frees the engineering, product, and other teams to be more agile, price, and package easily and go to market faster. These deployments may be easier, but they can also go to market in sophisticated ways with business models that allow a mix of subscription, usage, and other modern models easily and quickly.

On-premise deployments tend to be far more varied and complex, often requiring deployment into dark (offline) sites, with pools of concurrent network seats and millions of user desktops in the B2C model. In each case, there's more security, often the need for SDKs and specific OS targeting, and issues relating to virtual machine cloning and piracy.

In addition, entitlement management tends to have more moving parts, often including license codes (activation codes) distributed via channels, a store.

Or the need to enable a network-based license server in a corporate network that needs activating and deploying to control volume licenses.

In these cases, Zentitle2 enables fast and simple deployment, as we provide the connectivity between your application and our licensing cloud. As with SaaS, we not only provide APIs but also all the other infrastructure, security, and client-based SDKs needed to roll out effectively.

Summary

In summary, Zentitle2 allows you to authenticate users in any way you wish, to deploy via s SaaS or on-premise use case, and to offer a B2C desktop, seat, or a large network of users on an intranet. You can sell via seats, usage, subscriptions, perpetual, or a blend of any pricing model you wish. You can connect Zentitle to other systems like CRM, ERP, billing, and e-commerce to automate the whole lifecycle.

Zentitle2 is:

• A “single source of truth”.

• One platform for any product, model, customer, business case, and go-to-market strategy.

• One repository for all your product entitlement data and insights.

• The entitlement database of record.

Zentitle2 removes the business state, pricing & packaging logic that doesn’t belong in the application and enables your team to go to market fast no matter the deployment model.

February 2025

• Old end users were renamed and migrated into Contacts with ABL credentials, so nothing got lost.

• There are two new tabs on a Customer:

  • Contacts - with all contacts, no matter if they have or don’t have ABL credentials defined.

  • ABL (contacts) - where we show ONLY contacts with ABL Credentials defined. This table is focused on those credentials, e.g., if you want to find a contact with a specific Claim ID.

• Now you can delete ABL credentials and keep the Contact or create a contact before you have ABL credentials for a user.

• There has been a change in the flow. Now, you need to create a contact and extend these contact details with ABL credentials. You can’t try to define credentials for a non-existent contact.

• Two ways an old “end user” / now contact can be added:

  • Go to the Contacts tab, first add Contact, and then add ABL credentials to this contact.

  • Go to the ABL tab and search for the Contact to whom you want to add ABL credentials (search by contact email). If this contact doesn’t exist, we will redirect you to adding a contact form, and once it’s added, we will bring you back to continue adding ABL credentials.

October 2024

In October 2024, we introduced a new navigation approach to accommodate our latest Application, Zengain, so now we have two applications on the Nalpeiron Platform.

As part of this exercise, we centralized admin functionality shared between the apps; this will be explained on each doc page for each set of functionality in the docs.

Admin moved to the top left navigation from the left navigation:

All the admin functions except the "Local License Server" setup page have moved from the left-hand navigation to a central location.

The menu name Connections was changed to Integrations.

The Security and Custom fields tabs now have their own pages.

Branding was removed as a tab and moved to the drawer available from the EUP and ABL pages, and the API credentials were expanded with new tabs.

Finally, the permissions for User Roles are expanded to separate Administration and Zentitle2 roles in the Apps and Admin functions.

Profile moved from the top left to the top right:

June 2024

The initial dashboard has been improved, and sections have been moved to make it easier to understand and use.

• What was "configuration" is now called "Product catalog."

• The "end users" section is now all under "account settings."

• Some account settings have been moved to their own "Integrations" section and account is now called "Account settings."

Zentitle2 uses a range of ways to enable your business model in the field, from a simple SaaS-type deployment to a more complex on-premise or network deployment.

In a SaaS deployment, the APIs are used to authenticate your applications. In contrast, on-premise apps require a more complex client-server relationship between installed components on a desktop or in a network.

Zentitle2 covers all the bases and can mix and match them all within our platform in a single "pane of glass," so it doesn't matter if you use one or a mix of ways to deploy your products. You can pick the best way for your use case.

In general, no matter the deployment model, you will have a go-to-market strategy that uses a range of ways to describe the buying model you use for your customers. Again, we allow you to create a multi-layered, flexible way to "describe" your model and make it easy to map that to the "entitlements" that you sell.

It works like most other login screens to reset a lost or forgotten password or to change it regularly.

Zentitle has a very powerful and fast search function to help your support (and other) teams manage products, customers, etc.

To search for a given object, click on the magnifying icon in the search box at the top left of the toolbar and enter the search phrase into the search box.

All objects found that match the given query will be displayed as results.

These are the currently supported search objects:

• product id

• offering id

• entitlement id

• activation id

• customer id

• contact id (by first name, last name, and email)

Each result can be clicked on to go to that object to edit or to see details.

Search is very useful for customer support. Here is an example using an activation code a customer may need help with.

Zentitle2 provides a variety of report tables throughout the user interface.

These tables allow the user to customize, export, sort, and filter the contained information.

The icons on the top right and the columns themselves can be customized to your needs.

Exporting data

To export the table data in Excel format, click on the leftmost icon ('Export selected rows'), which will automatically download an Excel format file of the selected rows of the table (or all rows if no specific rows are selected).

Choosing data

To select which columns should be included in the table, pick the second icon ('Column Chooser') and drag and drop column names/titles into or out of the column chooser window.

You may also drag column titles from one place to another to set the column order.

Sorting data

To sort by the values in a given column, click on the column name/title. Click on the column name again in order to reverse the sort order.

Filtering data

To filter the values of a given column, click on the row below the column name and select the desired filter type. The list of options will depend on the type of data within that column (dates, numbers, strings, etc.)

Reset filters

To reset the filters back to the initial state, click on the third icon in the top right ('Reset grid filters').

To restore the table back to its original settings, click on the fourth icon ('Reset grid layout').

Zentitle2 has been designed to be simple and fast to use.

Zentitle has several functions, including setting up and managing your products and customers. However, almost everything can be done using APIs, not the user interface.

Top navigation

You can select between our applications (Zentitle and Zengain) and the central administration sections.

Account setup is also a one-time setup in most cases. This is about adding your internal users and getting the credentials the engineering team needs to integrate your apps with Zentitle.

Zentitle2: Left navigation

The left-hand navigation is made up of 5 main areas.

6. Help and support.

Using the dashboard is helpful for quick access to at-a-glance data and click-through to detailed reports.

Importing your customers and their associated end users is another essential option for mapping entitlements to your customers so you can manage them via Zentitle2.

This section holds all your entitlements, and you can manage your customers and their use of your products here. Entitlements are often also called "licenses" for on-prem applications.

When using Zentitle2, your product team must configure your products into the system. Products have several constituent parts, such as plans, and when combined, they are called "offerings," which are equivalent to your product pricelist items or SKUs.

Once products are set up, you can issue entitlements to customers.

The Zentitle2 Local License Server (LLS) allows the vendor to deploy a docker-container-based server to an end customer who does not want to (or cannot) allow an ongoing connection with the Zentitle2 cloud-based license server. This may be useful to your organization, or you may not require this premium feature.

Help and support

Use the help and support links to access the support team and the docs/API reference guides.

To release a product to your customer with Zentitle2, you tend to follow a simple multi-step process:

Log in to the Zentitle dashboard as an admin and add a product and any features, custom attributes, and advanced features you want to control with your licenses.

To sell your products, you will want to match your product catalog by creating editions, plans, and offerings depending on your pricing strategy. Then, create entitlements for distribution to your customers with any associated license codes/activation codes (if you use that model) or access to use via your iDP using Account Based Licensing.

• For software on-premise, embedded in hardware, or in a Network: You will use the Zentitle client library or our Licensing API to add licensing to your application. We support many platforms and coding languages.

• For SaaS applications: You won’t need to install the Zentitle client library; you can use our Management API to manage your licensing.

You can automate license provisioning in your order processes, e.g., e-commerce flows, payment processors, and CRMs, and integrate Zentitle with back office tools, e.g., ERP, Billing, etc. using our Management API. You can also use 3rd party tools such as Zapier to help with connectivity and automation between systems.

Zentitle2 has a UI that allows you to configure, set up, and manage the various activities required to monetize your end users.

The prime functions of the UI are described here - they are essentially set up at the beginning of the journey, followed by testing and release. Once you have customers on the platform, you can manage them and their rights here.

The dashboard provides useful charts and data to help control and grow your business.

Every function outside the initial setup here can be done outside the portal using our APIs.

Getting Set Up (Basic)

The first step in using Zentitle2 starts with setting up a "product catalog" in the Zentitle2 UI.

You cannot wire up your apps and get testing until you have a primary product, its associated parts, and an associated entitlement.

The product details found on the Zentitle2 UI, plus API keys, are required to connect to Zentitle2 and make your apps work, so start with that process first.

Add your internal users and manage them and their permissions

In order to wire up your app., you will need API keys and access to the SDKs or API details.

These are the key first tasks. You can also start to add your end-user customers now too.

You can manually add or bulk import "customers" to the database in the Zentitle2 UI.

Getting Set Up (Premium)

Once the basics are set up, you can explore options for your production deployment. Zentitle2 has several more advanced features that save time and money or allow for deployment into offline environments, be they node or network-based.

Setting up an End User Portal (allowing users to self-manage)

You can customize and deploy your end-user portal to help users self-manage licenses.

Setting up for Network deployments (Local License Server)

Using our Local License Server option, you can deploy Zentitle into offline dark sites that require an internal network.

Adding Offline Activation options to your product

You can deploy our offline license option for node-locked end users in offline environments.

Management (Post shipping)

Management of Customers

Once you are in production, the portal becomes helpful in managing your end users. You can manually add or edit their details in the portal.

Management of Entitlements

Once you are in production, the portal becomes helpful in managing your end users' entitlements. You can manually add or edit their details in the portal.

Upselling Customers

Changing offerings on an entitlement is an important workflow for a Software Vendor. It means upgrading or downgrading the end users' rights, which needs to be fast and easy for both parties.

Driving more sales via usage tracking

The Overdraft tracker is a great way to grow sales. It provides an "evidence-based" approach for the sales team to discuss options with customers and upsell them to new revenue tiers (if that's your business model).

The administration section is a shared area between the applications on the Nalpeiron platform: Zentitle2 and Zengain.

This area allows you to create internal users, integrate the platform with other applications, manage security, APIs, branding, and more.

It's a great place to get started.

User roles and permissions

The table below illustrates the various granular roles and their permissions in the UI and the API.

The roles have been grouped by group role, e.g., 'Product management," as well as by individual role, e.g., admin, sales, support, and viewer, to match "jobs to be done" and their related permissions.

Role names and description

Permissions (per roles above)

Legend:

EUP = End User Portal;

LLS = Local License Server;

ABL = Account Based Licensing.

If your users need a new invite to join Zentitle, you can simply resend the invite sent when you added them to your account with the "Resend invitation" link next to their record in the Users page found on the left-hand navigation.

The users referred to here are your internal Zentitle2 users from your organization.

Adding

The "Users" section is located under the "Administration" > "Users" on the top Administration menu.

Editing users

Deleting users

See the next page for the user permissions levels you can set per user.

The "API Credentials" section is located under the "Administration" > "API Credentials" on the top Administration menu.

Zentitle2 has two APIs: a licensing API and a management API.

The API credentials for the management API are an essential part of the setup and testing phases, and they form part of the critical data required to "wire up" your apps to Zentitle2.

In addition to these details, for the licensing API you will also need a Product ID key from the "products" you add to Zentitle2 and an Activation Code to test with, depending on your use case.

This page also shows your Tenant ID (needed for calls to the Management API), along with the URL of your Management API endpoint and the OAuth URL to use.

About Webhooks

Our webhooks are a more efficient way of managing events than using the management API to query information that changes over time. Instead of constantly polling for updates, a webhook is set up once and is only triggered when a specific event occurs. The main advantage of webhooks is that they provide real-time data updates on the various parameters used in license management.

Webhooks are callback mechanisms that web applications use to provide real-time notifications to other systems. Essentially, a webhook is a way for an application to send data to another application automatically when certain events occur.

The basic idea behind webhooks is that one application sends an HTTP POST request to a URL specified by another application, indicating that a certain event has occurred. The receiving application then processes the data in the request and takes appropriate action based on the content.

Webhooks are commonly used in a wide variety of applications, such as:

• Integrating with third-party services to receive notifications when specific events occur

• Triggering custom workflows or automation tasks in response to user actions

• Updating data in real-time across multiple systems and applications

• Automating data synchronization between different systems

In essence, webhooks operate in contrast to APIs, which require the client application to continuously request updates from the server. With webhooks, the server proactively pushes data to the client, eliminating the need for the client to check for updates and reducing the server's workload constantly.

Security

Each webhook call is sent with the N-Signature header in the HTTP Post request. This header contains a signature of the webhooks payload message created with your account's RSA key. It's a good practice to create a signature from the payload received and compare it with the header value. If it matches, it means the webhook was sent by the Zentitle2 service and not by a malicious actor.

Managing webhooks

Adding a webhook

Webhooks are located under the "Administration" > "Webhooks" on the top menu.

Editing a webhook

Deleting a webhook

Testing

This action generates a new WebhookEvent and triggers a call to the listener URI. The payload of this call is empty; the resource id contains the ID of the listener:

Using webhooks

Examples and payloads

Webhooks logs tab

This tab shows an overview of all webhook calls from Zentitle2 for your account. It provides important information about the webhook call. You can also drill down to an individual log to see more details.

Resend a webhook

You can manually resend the webhook by clicking the 'Resend' button. This is especially useful when a webhook exhausts its retries count or when you are testing your webhook handler implementation.

Download report

For further processing or archiving, you can 'Download report' of all webhook calls in CSV format.

Individual log detail

By clicking a single log, you can display additional information about the selected webhook call. This includes the URI, payload, and message representing the handler's response content.

You can browse the call history of an individual webhook in case it was retried multiple times.

This document provides a step-by-step guide to setting up an integration between your Zentitle2 account and FastSpring.

The integration between Zentitle2 and FastSpring is designed to provide a seamless experience for customers, from purchase to activation, in less than 10 seconds. The partnership between Nalpeiron's Zentitle2 and FastSpring unites world-class licensing and e-commerce for a powerful customer experience. The integration with FastSpring adds speed that simplifies the whole purchasing and licensing process.

Setup your Zentitle2 account

You need to contact your sales representative to enable the FastSpring integration. The configuration will be fully available after it is enabled.

On this page, you can see:

• The Private Key - This is used for signing the payload sent between the two platforms

• Integration Endpoint - The endpoint that is used to generate new license codes

• TenantId - The account ID used in the integration

You need to define your Private Key to be used later in the FastSpring Store interface.

The Integration Endpoint and TenantId will be required in the FastSpring Store setup.

Setting up FastSpring

The critical component of the integration is the Zentitle2 offering SKU, which must be set in the FastSpring Store. The integration uses the SKU sent from FastSpring to match the offering used to create the new entitlement.

1. From the Dashboard, select the Products menu.

1. Click the Products, Bundles, or Subscriptions tab, depending on the product for which you want to set up Nalpeiron integration.

2. Click the product, bundle, or subscription for which you want to set up Nalpeiron integration to open the product’s details.

3. In the product details, click ADD FULFILLMENT.

1. In the Add Fulfillment Action dialog, select Generate a License.

1. In the resulting drop-down list, select Remote Server Request.

1. Click NEXT at the lower right-hand corner of the page.

1. Paste the Integration Endpoint copied from the Zentile2 platform in the URL field.

1. Leave the rest of the fields as default and click CREATE.

1. Go to the Security tab and paste the Private Key copied from the Zentitle2 platform.

1. Go to the Parameters tab and use one of the custom values to create a new parameter.

   a. Name: tenantId

   b. Value: The Tenant ID copied from the Zentitle2 platform.

1. Press Save in the left corner of the screen.

To verify that the integration has been set up correctly, you can use the Test button.

The only field required for testing is the SKU.

Once you enter a valid SKU value, a message box will appear indicating that a license has been acquired, and an entitlement with this activation code will be created on the Zentitle2 platform.

This serves as proof that the integration has been successfully set up.

The above steps should be repeated for each product.

The integrations section is for specific integrations with various external systems. The Zentitle2 integrations are designed to provide a fast and easy way to add third-party vendors to your entitlement management processes, from commerce to CRM. We aim to make it easy for you to build the best workflows for your organization.

See the following pages for our integrations.

Webhooks work very well with Workflow automation software like Zapier, Make, Couplerio, Integrately, Celigo, Tray.io, Pabbly Connect, Parabola.io, Pipedream, Stitchdata, Singer.io and Workato (etc).

These tools allow for effective integrations between many systems and Zentitle.

For example, Zapier can be easily used to push useful data into Slack. Here, we show Zapier being used to push webhook events into a Slack channel.

A quick example in action with Zapier

Below, we are using Zentitle webhooks and Zapier (to post to Slack). This assumes you have already set up what you need in the Zentitle backend per the previous docs on webhooks. It also assumes you know how Zapier works and how to use its tools. It's just meant to give a flavor of what's possible.

Sign up, open your Zapier (or whatever service) account, and add a new Zap.

You will create a sequence as above.

At each stage, you will test and proceed as with any Zap creation and then check the expected results, in this case, in Slack, as events occur, they are posted, etc.

This is a very simple example to show you how using 3rd party tools with our webhooks can build many types of workflows to automate your processes.

Key to our strategy is integration of Zentitle with SalesForce and other leading CRMs. Zentitle is undergoing several such integration initiatives. We are investing heavily in our SalesForce Integrations.

Our current API allows for effective and easy integration with SalesForce. We have a dedicated team developing multiple products for Salesforce, including an installable package, direct integrations baked into our products, and a special solution for certain use cases.

Here we provide an easily-installable SalesForce sample integration package. Once deployed and configured within your SalesForce account, this solution will enable you to perform the following, frequent, Zentitle-related tasks from within SalesForce:

• Create/update Zentitle customer

• Create/update software entitlements

• View/manage software activations

• Synchronise updates between SalesForce and Zentitle

Here we will see how to create an Account in SalesForce and how to sync this with Zentitle2, upon which it will become a new Zentitle2 Customer.

Login to SalesForce. On the Sales dashboard click the Accounts dropdown and select New Account.

This will take you to the New Account page where you can fill in the details of your new account. Only the Account Name is compulsory: you can fill in as many of the other fields as you wish. Click Save when you are done.

The SalesForce page for your new account will now open and near the top of the page you will see a Create Account in Zentitle button.

Click this button and confirm the action by clicking the Create Account in Zentitle in the subsequent dialog.

After a few moments, if the customer creation has been successful, you should see a popup confirming the Zentitle2 customer creation informing you of its Zentitle2 customerID.

You can verify the creation of your new Zentitle2 customer by logging into Zentitle2 and navigating to the Customers page, where you should see it listed:

Clicking on this record will take you to the details for this customer.

A Customer created in Zentitle2 this way will have its Account Reference ID populated. This is actually the unique Account ID of the corresponding Account in SalesForce, analogous to the unique Customer ID of this Customer in Zentitle2. Both platforms having both IDs enables seamless and unambiguous synchronisation between the two systems.

Nalpeiron currently offer a sample integration between Salesforce and Zentitle, available on our GitHub repository, and this detailed set of tools and code will allow for a sophisticated use of Salesforce and Zentitle2:

We have set up a GitHub Salesforce Deploy Tool to enable easy integration. Please follow the above link to the sample GitHub repository. Deployment is easily accomplished by clicking the Deploy to SalesForce button as shown below:

You will then be invited to complete some details concerning your deployment.

Following which the deployment will proceed automatically.

Configuring the SalesForce dashboard for Zentitle Customer Creation

Adding the 'Create Account in Zentitle' action

You can now configure the SalesForce integration to perform common tasks with which you may be familiar from the Zentitle2 user interface. First, a word on terminology:

We start by adding the Create Account In Zentitle action to the Account page layouts. Login to SalesForce and, on the Setup page, go to Object Manager and find the Account item as shown:

Click this link and go to Page Layouts in the Account menu. A list of the page layouts that have been defined for accounts will now be displayed, where there is a link for each item, e.g.

For each page layout, drag the Create Account in Zentitle field from the Mobile and Lightning Actions menu into the Salesforce Mobile and Lightning Experience Actions panel.

It may be necessary to disable Feed Tracking on Accounts. To do this, in the SalesForce quick find box, Feed Tracking as shown:

You will be presented with a menu where you should select Account and uncheck the Enable Feed Tracking box.

Assigning users the Software_Entitlements_Admin permission set

In order to use the SalesForce Zentitle integration sample, your SalesForce users must be granted appropriate permissions. To do this, in SalesForce go to Users in the quick find box:

This will display a list of your SalesForce users. For each user to be granted Zentitle integration permissions, click their name link which will take you to the user edit page. At the top of this page you will find the Permission Set Assignments link.

Click this link and on the subsequent page, click the Edit Assignments button.

The following page shows two lists: Available Permission Sets and Enabled Permission Sets. Add Software Entitlements Admin from the available list to the enabled list and click Save.

NOTE CONCERNING SALESFORCE SANDBOXES: If you are deploying to a SalesForce Sandbox, in the quick find go to Setup > Custom Labels and select the label named Zentitle_Sandbox_Override. Click Edit, change the Value to TRUE, then click Save

Having seen how to create a new Zentitle customer in SalesForce, let us now see how to create a Software Entitlement for this customer.

In the 'waffle' (app launcher in the top left) search for Software Entitlements.

Clicking the Software Entitlements item will take you to the corresponding page.

Click the New button to create a new entitlement. This will take you to the New Software Entitlement page.

Set the Entitlement Type as Single. Set the Offering to be SKU of the corresponding offering which can be found in the Offerings page in Zentitle.

To obtain this, in a separate browser window, login to Zentitle and, on the Zentitle dashboard, select Product Catalog>Offerings from the main menu options:

On the Offerings page you will see a list of available offerings as shown below.

Copy the one required and paste it into the Offering box in SalesForce.

Set the Entitlement Seat Count to be the number of seats for the license and the Account to be the account you just created in SalesForce, i.e. "TestCustomer". Finally, click Save.

Wait 1-2 minutes for provisioning, then refresh the page; you should see, e.g. by editing the entitlement, the record with all the information populated:

Notice that a name for the entitlement has been automatically generated. You can also confirm in Zentitle that the new Entitlement has been created, by going to the page for your new Customer "TestCustomer" where you will see that the number of Entitlements has increased from 0 to 1:

and you can view the details of this entitlement directly on the Entitlements page (select Entitlements on main Zentitle menu.)

All syncs to and from Zentitle2, successful or unsuccessful, are logged as tasks on the Software Entitlement record. You can view these under the Integration Log tab on the Entitlement page in SalesForce:

Basic Editing Tasks

Having seen how to create a software entitlement in SalesForce, we shall now see how an entitlement can be edited from within the SalesForce dashboard.

The title bar has four buttons as shown below:

which enable you to carry out the following four basic tasks:

• Refresh Entitlement: This updates any changes made to the current entitlement on the Zentitle platform to SalesForce.

• Edit: This enables basic editing of the current entitlement (specifically of the 'Information' and 'System Information' data - see below.) Saving such edits to SalesForce will also make the corresponding updates to Zentitle.

• Clone: Makes a copy of the current entitlement, with the same 'Information' and 'System Information' data but a different name. Saving creates the clone in Zentitle.

• Delete: Deletes the current entitlement from SalesForce and Zentitle.

Detailed Editing Tasks

The full scope of the editing functionality is made available on the Main tab on the entitlement page. This is divided into four categories, all of which can be accessed by scrolling down the page. At the bottom of the page are Cancel and Save buttons, which respectively abandon any unsaved changes, and save any such changes to both SalesForce and Zentitle.

The four edit categories are:

• (Basic) Information

• Software Attributes

• Software Features

• System Information

We shall proceed to look at these in turn.

(Basic) Information

This is basic information concerning your entitlement (Offering, seat-count etc.)

Software Attributes

Software Features

System Information

This is 'housekeeping' data pertaining to the SalesForce integration.

In the configuration section, you can Import Customers, set up Account-Based Licensing and your End User Portal, add Custom Fields, and set up Security for your internal users.

Viewing Software Activation Codes

To view the activation codes you have created for your entitlement, click the Activation Codes tab on the entitlement page. In the example as shown below, there is one activation code. When there are several, you may view them all by clicking the View All button.

Clicking View All will display a list of all activation code in form shown below . On this page this is a filter button, useful when you have a large number of activation codes, which you can use to filter the results by substring of either/both the activation code name or the activation code itself, as shown.

Each activation code has a drop-down menu which you can use to Edit or Delete the activation code.

Editing Software Activation Codes

Each activation code in the View All list has a dropdown menu with the Edit and Delete items, which you can use to perform these operations.

You can also edit an activation code by clicking the activation code name link in the Activation Codes tab. Doing so will bring up the details page for this activation code:

You may then edit the activation code by clicking the Edit button as shown above. Either way, the Edit page for this activation will then be displayed:

You can edit both the Software Entitlement and the Activation Code itself and then either Save or Cancel your edits using the corresponding buttons shown. The Save & New button will save the current, edited activation following which the New Software Activation Code dialog is launched, in which you can save a new Activation code:

Viewing and Managing Software Activations

Details of the actual activations of a software activation code can be viewed by clicking the Manage Activations tab on the Entitlement page. This will show a list of the activations for this code, as shown below.

You can filter the search results by entering into the search box indicated a substring of the Seat id, which will then return only those activations whose Seat id's contain this substring.

You can also perform server-side deactivations. This is achieved by checking some or all activations using the corresponding checkboxes on the left and clicking the Deactivate Selected Activation button.

Account Based Licensing is the process of managing users’ accounts and giving users access to software or an application, typically via a username and a password or an external identity management solution such as Microsoft Azure AD, Okta, OneLogin, Ping Identity, ForgeRock, Auth0, and Oracle Identity Manager.

Zentitle2 enables both types of application access and also allows you to choose the best-of-breed identity provider you or your customers are using.

• Accounts replicated from the vendor's authentication platform are called "OpenID Token authentication."

• Accounts created and managed within Zentitle2 are called username/password authentication.

How OpenID Token Authentication Works

Our platform needs a reliable way to determine and verify the identity of users who successfully sign into the application, which requires license/entitlement activation.

The server-side resources like APIs then use the token to verify the user's identity and access rights. With proper configuration done on the identity provider's side, the same JWT token can also be used for the license activation.

Importing Customers

Adding customers in bulk can be an effective way to add your customers to the system in bulk to save time. To import customers, click the vertical ellipsis next to the "Add Customer" button to begin the process.

The import customers page is located under the "Administration" > "Configuration" > "Import customers" on the top menu.

From the next screen, download the template file as a CSV file.

Open the CSV file in the appropriate application (typically MS Excel).

Fill in the worksheet with applicable data.

Once the worksheet is created with the appropriate data, click "Upload customers from CSV file".

To avoid painful data cleanup, we recommend first uploading a smaller sample of a few customers and checking to ensure no errors.

Once you have successfully uploaded your file, you will get an alert in the UI.

Once the data has been successfully imported, you can review what happened and if it was successful or failed in the Customers Import page at the bottom in the import status box.

Finally, navigate back to the main customers section on the left navigation and review your imported customers for accuracy.

Bulk update customers

In addition to adding customers to Zentitle2, you may wish to update the data already in the database—to do that, you must use a unique account reference ID for each customer.

To update the database in bulk, repeat the above processes with the fields you wish to update. Always include the "account reference ID" field along with the changes or additions in the header row. This will process an "insert" function to update or add new data.

Troubleshooting

When importing data, if the data and field requirements are not met, the report at the bottom of the import page will show you the results - with a red warning icon if the data import was unsuccessful.

For example, if you didn't put any data into a mandatory field, you use duplicate data like the same email when you set it to unique, etc

The red button will allow you to download a report file with all the data in the file and the issues with the import so you can fix the issues.

Fix the errors shown in the download report and then retry your import, now it should import as required.

Having carried out the required configuration steps to connect the SalesForce integration sample to Zentitle, we are now in a position to establish this connection.

Go to Salesforce Setup. In the quick find box, search for Named Credentials.

Click the Named Credentials link. On the next page, select the Named Credential named Zentitle API.

Follow this link and click the Edit button that appears at the top right of the new page

which will take you to the Edit page for the Zentitle API Named Credential.

At this stage, you are required to enter into SalesForce some details about your Zentitle2 account. In a separate browser window, login to Zentitle2. On the sidebar, go to Administration>API Credentials. On the API Credentials page, click the Management API tab to view the Management API Details:

Take a note of the following information:

• Tenant ID

• API URL

• OAuth URL

Keep this browser window open at the current page as we shall return to it shortly.

Go back to the Edit page for Zentitle API in SalesForce.

Ensure that the form is populated as shown above. Set the URL to be the API URL from your Zentitle Account. (i.e., https://sf-demo.api.zentitle.io) and click Save.

Back on the Zentitle API edit page, go to the Custom Headers section and click the New button.

Under the Custom Headers section click Edit to change the N-TenantId, and replace the value with the Tenant ID found in the API Credentials page of your Zentitle Account and click Save.

Go back to the Named Credentials page and click on the External Credential tab. Click on the External Credential named Zentitle Api.

In the Actions dropdown, click Edit to update the External Credential.

This will take you to the edit page.

Set the Identity Provider URL to be the OAuth URL value found on the API Credentials page of your Zentitle Account, appended by /protocol/openid-connect/token (i.e., https://sf-demo.keycloak.zentitle.io/realms/sf-demo/protocol/openid-connect/token), click Save.

This will take you to the Edit Principal page.

Now return to the go to the API Credentials page of your Zentitle Account and click Add API Client.

Set a name (Client ID) of your choosing and click Save.

You will be now be asked to save the Client Secret as shown. Please do so.

Back in the Salesforce Principal edit page, enter the name you used for the Client ID, copy the Client Secret from Zentitle2, enter it and click Save. This completes the setup of our Salesforce integration sample.

The End User Portal (EUP) facilitates the review of entitlements and any "offline" activation that may be required. The entitlement screens can be restricted so users can't see the usage graphs—see setup.

The URL for the EUP is unique to your company, and that is what you will issue to your end-users for access e.g., https://yourco.eup.zentitle.io/

The portal can be customized using your logo and styled via CSS per the previous page. In our examples, we will use the fictitious company "Elevate Software."

Login page

Here is the login page the end user will see once you issue them the custom URL to the EUP mentioned above. The custom logo has been added.

You can see the two methods for logging in—the first is using the "internal" username and password from Zentitle2, and the second is using your iDP via single sign-on (SSO).

Using an iDP

Here is an example of an ISV like you setting up Auth0, which is the second option—you must set up this option in settings before it will function, obviously.

EUP Dashboard

When your end-users log in, the main page shows a list of their entitlements and the opportunity to perform an offline activation process. The end-user can filter their entitlements and download reports quickly and easily.

Permissions

Offline Activation

Reviewing Entitlements

Clicking on an entitlement will provide details on the features and capabilities they purchased.

Using the internal tabs on the entitlements: "activations" and "activation log," will allow your user to review their usage and any attached activation codes.

The activations tab shows the end user who is in their organization, which is attached to the entitlement and the status of that user.

The activation log shows the end user the activity on the entitlement over time.

Logging out

In the top right-hand corner, the user can easily log out or reset their password.

Your company logo will be used in End User Portal and Account Based Licensing emails and pages.

The branding section is located under the "Administration" > "Configuration" > "Account-Based Licensing" on the top menu.

Upload a logo

To upload a logo, click the "upload" button and select a PNG file from your desktop of less than 1Mb in size.

This logo will now be branding your end user-facing pages.

What is the End User Portal?

The end user portal (EUP) is an option to help your end users manage their entitlements and do "offline" activations/de-activations.

A pre-built way for users to manage their entitlements saves support time and costs.

The end user portal can be customized to fit in with your branding. See below.

About the End User Portal configuration page

The End User Portal configuration page allows the vendor to easily upload a custom logo (via settings) and add a CSS stylesheet.

It also provides a convenient way to set the custom End User Portal URL.

Customizing the End User Portal

The End User Portal (EUP) setup page is located under the "Administration" > "Configuration" > "End User Portal" on the top menu.

Change the URL and permissions.

Click the "edit" button in the top right of the first section to change the URL's name and allow a graph of activations to be displayed to the customer.

Upload custom CSS

To upload your CSS, click the "upload" button and select a CSS file from your desktop.

Here is an example of what you should customize.

Adding your logo

Accessing the End User Portal (EUP)

You will need to add "end-users" to Zentitle2 on a customer-by-customer basis for them to access the portal. Simply adding them will set off a process to invite them to set their own credentials and EUP access.

Setup Account Based Licensing with OpenID tokens.

Please follow the next steps for successful account-based licensing integration within Zentitle 2 using OpenID tokens.

In the UI, go to the Account Based Licensing page (inside the Administration section).

The Account-Based Licensing page is located under the "Administration" > "Configuration" > "Account-Based Licensing" on the top menu.

• Click the "add" button in the top right of the page to add the iDP details.

Now enter the required information:

• IDP URL - root URL of the identity provider.

The URL is required to retrieve the IDP details from the OIDC metadata endpoint. The most important information is the cryptographic keys used to sign the JWT tokens - so that the licensing server can verify the authenticity and integrity of the tokens provided by the client application.

• Username claim - the name of the claim inside the token, which should be used to retrieve the username associated with the seat when activating the license (email, name, user_name, etc.).

• Authentication claim—the claim that holds the user's unique identifier, which will be used to match the JWT token with a specific account. The name of the claim depends on the configuration done in the Identity Provider service.

Certain integration calls must be executed to enable authentication when a new entitlement is created. Assuming that the entitlement has been created, including customer assignment, the following actions must be executed:

• Create an identity in the vendor's authentication platform.

• Add an end-user account under the same Zentitle 2 customer with the authentication type set to OpenID Token and claim value stored under the authentication claim for this specific identity in the authentication platform.

• Assign the newly created account to have access to the currently processing entitlement.

After the ABL has been configured and integration has been set up, the seat can be activated using the JWT token obtained from the Identity Provider when performing the user authentication in the client application.

To do so, execute an API call [POST] {licensing_api_url}/activate with body

The rest of the client application logic related to licensing is the same as when using the activation code for seat activation.

Nalpeiron has two containers for Customer data -

• A "customer" is the same as an account, a business, or a client. These are all the highest-level entities in the customer tree.

• A "contact" is the same as an end user, consumer, or user. It's the second level down, under the "customer." Contacts all roll up into a customer container and are found under that heading in the UI.

  • Nalpeiron has a number of contact "types":

    • A contact is simply a name in the system. It can be used in Zentitle or Zengain—it has no rights attached per se. It could be a lead in the CRM, for example, but not yet a paying account.

    • An "ABL contact," on the other hand, is a user whose Account Licensing Credentials are defined with Zentitle. These credentials allow for access and rights to your software. Typically, these users can access rights and additional options as the End User Portal Zentitle offers.

These are shared components between all products in the Nalpeiron platform. This means you can use either product or both together to help manage your business, drive new sales, or manage entitlements.

Contacts are very useful as you can manage a customer's lifecycle from before they purchase, i.e., they are in a trial or POC all the way through to the end of life. Contacts without ABL can be used just for the analytics component using your own entitlements or a third party. Or you can bundle both Zentitle and Zengain and then take advantage of both entitlements and analytics in a single platform—the choice is yours.

Setup Account Based Licensing with username/password

The second option for account management is to utilize the built-in capabilities of the Zentitle2 platform. This option provides a comprehensive suite of tools for creating and managing user accounts.

The logical flow is to add your "customers," i.e., companies, manually or by import.

Then, within the customer area, add contacts/end users and their associated account authentication details, i.e., "password," in this case vs. Open Id Token when using an iDP.

Then, entitlements can be allocated to these contacts/end users, and they can access the entitlement via their username/password vs. a license code, etc.

The following actions are included in this suite:

• Sending an email with the initial password setup action: Once an account has been created, the platform automatically sends an email to the user. This email contains instructions for setting up their password, providing a secure method for users to establish their account credentials.

• Locking the account after too many invalid login attempts: To protect against unauthorized access, the platform will lock a user's account if there are too many unsuccessful login attempts. This security measure helps to safeguard user accounts from potential threats.

• Resetting the password: The platform provides a reset method if users forget their password or their account is locked out. This can be initiated by the account owner or vendor support, ensuring that users can regain access to their accounts when necessary.

Please follow the subsequent steps for successful account-based licensing integration within Zentitle 2 using the username/password flow.

Configure Password-based ABL

The Account-Based Licensing page is located under the "Administration" > "Configuration" > "Account-Based Licensing" on the top menu.

• In the UI, go to the Account Based Licensing page (inside the Administration section).

• Create a "customer" or select an existing one.

• Navigate to the "ABL" tab under the customer section.

• Click the "add" button on the top right of the page.

• Now, you can either select an existing contact from the dropdown list (one with ABL attached yet) or add a fresh contact by clicking the "add contact" button.

• In this example, we will pick one from the existing contacts list.

• Then select if they are a "user" or an "admin," and the "Authentication type" is set to Password.

• Click save to add this contact to the ABL list.

  • Zentitle2 will immediately send an invitation email to the user at the provided email address, which will also be used as the username for authentication.

Attach the contact to an entitlement.

Once the ABL contact (under a customer) is in the system and ready to use, they must be attached to an entitlement in Zentitle if they want to access their software rights.

• Create an entitlement, or use an existing one, and allocate it to the customer to whom the contact belongs. This is a required step.

• You can't allocate an entitlement to an end-user unless the parent company is attached to an entitlement first.

• Once on the entitlement you wish to allocate to a user, navigate to the "ABL" tab at the top of the page.

• Then, select the end user to assign from the dropdown list in the top right of the page.

• Then click the "add" button to the right of the drop-down box to allocate the user to the entitlement.

• The task is complete, and you can see the end-user associated with the entitlement. They can access it via the set username and password they were emailed. On first use, they will authenticate with Zentitle2 and be able to start using their application and associated rights per the entitlement.

Password policy

The default password policy for all tenants with

• min length: 8

• require one lowercase character

• require one uppercase character

• require one number

• require one special character

Setting up your client application

To enable your app. to authenticate end users via password type ABL, execute an API call in your app. as below:

[POST] {licensing_api_url}/activate with body

{
  "productId": "prod_vs1ueDlrLU61_HIIeDrTjA",
  "activationCredentials": {
    "type": "password",
    "username": "user",
    "password": "pass"
  },
  "seatId": "demoSeatId",
  "seatName": "demoSeatName"
}

The rest of the client application logic related to licensing is the same as using an activation code to enable a user on an entitlement.

We understand that everyone's business is different, and you and your team have specific needs for how you will use Zentitle to accomplish your software monetization goals.

There are many use cases for custom fields, especially related to your customers and what data you like to connect with them, such as account numbers, tax details, and links to other records in your systems, such as CRMs, ERP, billing, and in-house back-end systems. Custom fields are also great for storing extra data relating to the customer for analysis, contract numbers, additional contact details, sales stages, sales rep name, region, territory, support contracts, and all manner of data valuable for the sales and support teams.

You may also wish to create fields that act like internal "tags" where you have codes to identify groups of clients (e.g., VIP) or where you want to segment them in some fashion - it's all easy to do with custom fields.

The same idea applies to what you sell (offerings). You can go beyond a basic SKU and add specific codes for the offering that ties back to your systems, such as accounting, CRMs, ERPs, billing, and in-house back-end systems.

You can also group (string with a limit of 50 characters, optional) these fields to make them more logical, as in the example below, where custom address fields are added to a group called "Address."

To access custom fields, click the "Administration" > "Configuration" > "Custom Fields" link in the top navigation.

Creating Custom Fields

To add a new custom field, click the "Add" button on the right side of the screen. A sidebar menu will open to help you create the new attribute.

Provide the necessary information for your new custom field.

Select the object for which you'd like to create the custom field. You may create a custom field on either the Customer or Offering object.

Custom fields for the Customer object

In this example, we create custom fields on the "Customer" object.

• If your custom field is part of a group (a collection of custom fields you want to categorize), provide a Group Name.

• Provide your new custom field with a field key, which will be the field's name as it's stored in the database in lowercase. Do not use spaces in this name.

• Next, provide a display name as the field should appear in Zentitle.

• Lastly, specify whether the field should enforce unique values.

Finally, click Save to create your custom field.

Your custom field is now live in the system and can be used in the object in which it was created.

Reviewing the Customer page with custom fields added

Once you have added custom fields and grouped them, the customer page in this example lays them out in the groups as sections on the page so your data is tidy and logical.

In the example below, we created two groups, "address" and "contact," as you can see, the new custom data now shows two new sections on the customer details page.

Custom fields for the Offering object

In this example, we create custom fields on the "Offering" object.

• If your custom field is part of a group (a collection of custom fields you want to categorize), provide a Group Name.

• Provide your new custom field with a field key, which will be the field's name as it's stored in the database in lowercase. Do not use spaces in this name.

• Next, provide a display name as the field should appear in Zentitle.

• Lastly, specify whether the field should enforce unique values.

Finally, click Save to create your custom field.

Your custom field is now live in the system and can be used in the object in which it was created.

Reviewing the Offerings page with custom fields added

Once you have added custom fields and grouped them, the offerings page in this example lays them out in the groups as sections on the page so your data is tidy and logical.

In the example below, we created a group, "backoffice" and "ERP ID Key," as you can see, the new custom data now shows two new sections on the customer details page.

Editing Custom Fields

To edit a custom field, click on the field from the list of custom fields. The sidebar menu will open in edit mode. Enter the information you wish to edit and click Save.

Deleting Custom Fields

To delete a custom field, click on it from the list of custom fields. The sidebar menu will open in edit mode. Click on the three dots icon and select "Delete custom field selection."

A One-Time Password (OTP) or two-factor authentication should be set up by your Admin.

The setting is located under the top left main navigation button, then "Administration" > "Configuration" > "Security"

All existing users and all newly created users are now required to configure Two-factor authentication on their next login. This also applies to any pending user invitations.

Next login experience for all users

Using this screen, you will set up your secure login details.

Mobile Authenticator Setup

You need to set up a Mobile Authenticator to activate your account.

Install one of the following applications on your mobile device.

1. Microsoft Authenticator

2. FreeOTP

3. Google Authenticator

In this example, we use Google Authenticator.

Finish setting up your security.

Your Authenticator is now ready to use to log in.

Login using OTP (2FA) Codes

Your account should be set up and ready to use your OTP codes.

You should now have a secure two-factor login process established.

As a matter of policy in Zentitle, you can "hard" delete many of the areas of setup, e.g., products, plans, editions, entitlements, customers, etc.

Having a hard delete policy allows you to have the ability to remove things, often important things, and these actions cannot be undone. Flexibility with responsibility.

Another issue with deleting is the cascade effect. For example, if you delete a product, it will simultaneously delete all the other objects attached to it. That could be a lot of time and data that could be lost as a result.

Using the delete options in the UI

The option to delete is visible in the top right corner of the Object Details page or in the Object Edit drawer.

Clicking the three dots shows the delete option. This is an example of one of the most "dangerous" objects to delete (products), as it will delete almost everything related to a product simultaneously.

It's likely a better option to start lower down the "chain" of objects (e.g., an edition or an entitlement) for safety unless a product really needs removing, such as the testing phase where no real data or users are involved.

Clicking on the Delete option shows one of two popups:

An additional layer of "security" has been added to ensure the user understands the consequences and has to take various actions before deleting the object with a "chain" of objects connected to it.

In this case, as you can see, the consequences are made clear in the warning popup box.

The words must be typed in the box to prevent an accidental click for deletion.

DO NOT DELETE THIS TYPE OF OBJECT WITHOUT VERY CAREFUL PLANNING AND THOUGHT!

Setting up End User Portal (EUP) access

To enable your end users to access the End User Portal (EUP), you will need to add them to your customers in the system.

When you add them, and you have access to the EUP functionality on your plan, you will see an option to set them up with EUP access. They will receive an email to access the EUP and self-serve offline activations, along with the opportunity to review the products on their account.

Granular permissions allow you to see who can view what on the EUP dashboard—the end user's admin level allows them to see more details.

To add an end user to the EUP, first add an end user under a customer per the docs on customers, etc

Zentitle2 fully supports offline activations, enabling your customers to activate a seat when the machine has no internet connection.

Applications using the Local License Server can make use of all Advanced Features.

Activate an offline machine.

Using the client SDK, generate an offline activation request token within your application and move it to a connected machine (such as using a USB key, copy/paste, or other technique). See Step (1) above.

In order to test this, you will need an activation code associated with the product and entitlement tested. This can be found in the "entitlement" section in the Zentitle2 UI.

Transfer activation request to the offline portal page

Now, you need to access the "end user portal" page related to your account.

Use the offline token with the "offline" machine to activate

Go back to the offline machine (Step 2) and use the client SDK to ingest the response token in order to complete the offline activation sequence.

The offline machine is now "activated" with the required entitlement.

Deactivate an offline activated machine.

Similarly, a user can de-activate an "offline activated device" by calling the DeactivateOffline API in the client SDK, which will immediately invalidate the locally cached license and simultaneously generate a Deactivation Credit token, which can be copied/moved to a connected machine using a USB key or other means and pasted into the End User Portal in the 'Deactivation' section.

Deactivate an offline machine.

Using the client SDK, generate an offline deactivation request token within your application and move it to a connected machine (such as using a USB key, copy/paste, or other technique). See Step (1) above.

Transfer deactivation request to the offline activation portal page

To add a new contact (end-user) to a "customer" account, navigate to the customer and select it in the "customers" section of the left-hand navigation.

• Navigate to the "contacts" tab under the customer section.

Adding contacts (to a customer)

• Click the "add" button on the top right of the page.

• Add a contact for a customer and their details: First name, last name, email, title, and any CRM reference ID (or other means to ID this contact).

Once the contact is added, you can add them to an entitlement

Editing a user

• As before, navigate to the contacts tab for a customer.

• Find the contact to edit from the list and click that line item.

• Click the "edit" button on the contact.

• Edit the details as required.

• Click save.

Deleting a user

• As before, navigate to the contacts tab for a customer.

• Find the contact to edit from the list and click that line item.

• Click the ellipsis on the right of the the details.

• Click "delete contact."

• If the contact doesn't have any entitlements, it will simply be deleted; however, if it has entitlements attached, it will undergo a further layer of security, as below.

• Click the radio buttons confirming this action and enter the confirmation text.

• Then click delete again to remove the contact.

Removing ABL from a contact

Contacts can have ABL rights or not. These two states can be moved back and forth.

We have shown how to add rights to a contact, below you can see how you can easily remove the ABL rights.

• Edit a contact (as above) and review the ABL credentials in the right-hand box.

• In the top right are the three dots you can click. Click those.

• To remove the ABL access, "delete" the credentials, and that will remove them.