miless2111s
Active Member
- Joined
- Feb 10, 2016
- Messages
- 279
- Office Version
- 365
- 2016
- Platform
- Windows
I have developed a tool which takes information pasted into Excel and drives a Visio diagram. This allows me to copy and paste information from MS Project and drive Visio to produce a high quality Project Summary suitable for all audiences.
The number of times that I have been told "you should sell this" has finally sunk in and I'm moving in that direction.
My question is how to protect, licence and distribute this which I've broken down into three starter questions
How to protect the guts of the tool?
In excel I have a number of inputs and options which the user changes to manipulate the colours, date range, appearance etc or the final report however there are a huge number of calculations, sheets etc which drive the final output sheet.
I would like to be able to protect and hide these so that people can't see how I did it or worse fiddle with it.
I know that I can hide, protect etc using passwords but I am also aware these are rather easy to crack using tools on the internet.
What techniques are available to protect or change the tool so that the Intellectual Property is protected? Note that the final output needs to be in Excel so that the tool actually works!
how to licence the product?
The tool currently consists of a pair of files per report - one excel and one Visio. Each project summary needs a different pair due to the level of customisation which is required (you're report to the board might be half a PowerPoint slide with big blocks and the report for the project team might be a detailed A0 plot).
As such the user needs to be able to copy (at the moment) each pair many times. Alternatively in the future something might generate the pair but I expect it will always be a pair.
How can I licence to an individual and distribute to them?
how to offer a time limited trial
Linked to the licencing issue how can I offer a free trial for same a month to an individual and then either upgrade them to full licence status or shut the functionality down?
Obviously I will either have to learn some new stuff or more likely to pay someone to help me with this however I don't know the questions to ask or the areas to search in at the moment so any suggestions or advice will be gratefully received.!
Thanks in advance
Miles
The number of times that I have been told "you should sell this" has finally sunk in and I'm moving in that direction.
My question is how to protect, licence and distribute this which I've broken down into three starter questions
How to protect the guts of the tool?
In excel I have a number of inputs and options which the user changes to manipulate the colours, date range, appearance etc or the final report however there are a huge number of calculations, sheets etc which drive the final output sheet.
I would like to be able to protect and hide these so that people can't see how I did it or worse fiddle with it.
I know that I can hide, protect etc using passwords but I am also aware these are rather easy to crack using tools on the internet.
What techniques are available to protect or change the tool so that the Intellectual Property is protected? Note that the final output needs to be in Excel so that the tool actually works!
how to licence the product?
The tool currently consists of a pair of files per report - one excel and one Visio. Each project summary needs a different pair due to the level of customisation which is required (you're report to the board might be half a PowerPoint slide with big blocks and the report for the project team might be a detailed A0 plot).
As such the user needs to be able to copy (at the moment) each pair many times. Alternatively in the future something might generate the pair but I expect it will always be a pair.
How can I licence to an individual and distribute to them?
how to offer a time limited trial
Linked to the licencing issue how can I offer a free trial for same a month to an individual and then either upgrade them to full licence status or shut the functionality down?
Obviously I will either have to learn some new stuff or more likely to pay someone to help me with this however I don't know the questions to ask or the areas to search in at the moment so any suggestions or advice will be gratefully received.!
Thanks in advance
Miles
