Use Case #

For RTILA users who are building and compiling their own Standalone Automation Software and want to sell them and control access to these automation, we have prepared a first version of a License Check Child Project. This Child Project can be inserted at the top of any of your Standalone Automation project and it will add a step whereby it will read the credentials of your client from the credentials.txt file and check with our License API if the license key and email address of your client are matching and active. Only if both the client email address and the License key are valid and matching will the rest of the automation kick off. For the moment this is using our License API but this can be adapted to call/use any other license check APIs

Download Templates & Files #

This content/page needs to be updated as we have changed the way Standalone Bots are launched and release a new free software called RTILA Bot Launcher that facilitates the launch of standalone bots. You can download the Launcher form here: https://github.com/IKAJIAN/rtila-bot-launcher

As for the License check we are preparing the release of a custom command which will facilitate and enhance the License check feature for Standalone bots.

To start experimenting with this feature you need to download this folder which contains the following:
1- The config file, which contains the steps of the automation (do not edit it)
2- The .rtila file with the Child Project so that you can import it into your existing automation projects
3- The license.txt file where the end-user needs to update the email and related license key
4- The binary executable files for Windows, Mac & Linux which will launch the Standalone bot
Download the whole folder from here

Update the License.txt data #

You can experiment with the correct and an incorrect set of email and license key to see how this License check automation behaves. Simply open the .txt file and replace with different email address and or license key. The default email address and license key we are using are valid and will give a positive result. The email address and the license key need to be separated by a “;” with no leading or tailing spaces.

Send Request command to License API endpoint #

We are using the Send Request command which allows us to send a GET request using a URL that calls our License API end point sending it 2 variables; The license key (reading it from the license.txt file) and the standalone DownloadID (will be given by our marketplace once you upload your Standalone).

Check the result received from License endpoint #

Thanks to our “Convert JSON to Html” setting RTILA is converting the JSON response received from the License endpoint into an html table, which you can then use to read the relevant cells and compare their value with static values to build the verification logic. First you need to make sure the “Convert JSON to Html” setting is activated in your project, see below screenshot.

Once the “Convert JSON to Html” setting is active, the response from our License API will appear as table. In the case that the license or email address sent is not valid it will return the table below where the first column gives “invalid” as a response. And from the user side it will show an alert that the License is not valid

Now if the License and email address contained in the license.txt are valid and matching it will then results more information about the license, see below screenshot where the first column (and cell) gives “true” as a result which is a positive response. it will also return the email address related to this license key so that we can compare it to the email address contained in the license.txt file. And you can display a congratulation page or just skip and kick off the Standalone automation.

Conditional logic using API response #

We created a number of static and dynamic variables to be able to compare the response elements we get from the License API and the content of the license.txt file. You can open the nested Conditional logic blocks to learn from our example and modify improve where you see fit. The basic principle is that if both the License key is valid and the email contained in the license.txt file is equal to the email address returned by the License API end point, then we consider that this user has a valid access to this Standalone software, and in that case the automation sequence that follows the license verification block will be called. If not the automation will be stopped and an alert displayed about the invalid status of the license key or of the email address.

Adapt, update and improve #

This is a learning case and a rather simple one using our own soon to be launched Software Marketplace licensing API. But you can use a different licensing system which provides API and also add more sophisticated ways of checking the license validity. You can also use your own verification and results page with your look & feel to personalize the user experience.