Simple Object Designer Documentation
Index

Registration and Licensing

Simple Object Designer requires a license to publish to a production environment. This page explains registration and licensing.

Licensing Model

Demo Mode (Unregistered)

When you first install SOD it runs in demo mode:

  • Design features are available — fields, pages, features, APIs, calc fields, etc.
  • Publishing is restricted to sandbox environments only
  • Publishing to a production environment is blocked with the message:

The demo version of Simple Object Designer can only publish to sandboxes. In order to publish to production environments, please register

  • There is no fixed evaluation countdown — demo mode persists until you register

There are no time limits on using SOD in a sandbox. The free version's restrictions are exactly these:

  • No .app file when publishing
  • No Download Source from the Setup page
  • No Import App / Export App from the Setup page
  • No Download Source from a published app in Extension Management

Everything else is available. In particular, SOD has no feature that makes anything read-only — read-only behaviour is never a trial restriction. If the designer appears read-only, see Common Issues.

Import and Export are greyed out in demo mode. This is a licensing restriction, not a permission problem: the actions stay greyed out even with SUPER and Extension Management – Admin permissions. Applying a valid license enables them.

Registered (Licensed)

After registering with a valid license:

  • Publishing is enabled in both sandbox and production environments
  • Import App / Export App and source download become available
  • The Registration page displays the license expiration date

License Types

Per-Tenant License

License covers:

  • One Business Central tenant
  • All users in that tenant
  • All environments (sandbox/production)

One license covers every environment in the tenant. A new production environment created in the same tenant needs no additional licence — register it with the same key. A trial validated in a test company can be licensed for production under the same tenant.

The license is linked to the tenant, not the environment. If an environment is migrated to a different tenant, the license does not travel with it, and SOD licensing fails in the new tenant until the license is reassigned.

Transferring a License to a New Tenant

Someone from the licensed organization must email sales@hougaard.com with the new Tenant ID. Hougaard then adds that tenant to the license.

Note that the license key cannot be viewed from inside Business Central. Depending on how it was bought, it is in the purchase confirmation email or on the invoice.

Plan the reassignment around your migration timing so licensing is restored promptly after the environment moves.

Subscription Model

License is subscription-based:

  • Annual renewal
  • Continuous access
  • Updates included

Why SOD is a subscription: Microsoft continuously obsoletes and removes fields and objects in Business Central. SOD is updated continuously so it always generates extensions valid for the current and next Business Central version. That ongoing maintenance is what the subscription pays for.

Compare it with the traditional approach, where a developer must check roughly every six months that extensions are still valid against the new BC version. Every BC extension needs a maintenance budget in a continuously changing cloud environment; with SOD, that work is done for you.

Registering Your License

Accessing Registration

  1. Open Simple Object Designer
  2. Click Buy/register the Object Designer in Information section
  3. Or open directly via search

Registration Page

The registration page shows:

  • Current license status (registered or demo)
  • License expiration date (only visible once registered)
  • License entry fields

Entering License Key

  1. Obtain license key from Hougaard
  2. Enter in the License Key field
  3. Click Register/Validate
  4. License is verified

Paying for a subscription does not by itself unlock production publishing. After purchase, Hougaard issues a license key — five groups of five alphanumeric characters, XXXXX-XXXXX-XXXXX-XXXXX-XXXXX. Until that key is entered here and validated, SOD keeps behaving as unregistered and blocks production publishing.

Applying the key in a sandbox

The same key is used in sandboxes as in production, because the licence is per tenant:

  1. Open the Simple Object Designer Setup page in the sandbox
  2. Paste the license key — the same one used in production — into the License Key field
  3. Use the Activate License action

This enables full, non-demo publishing in the sandbox, so you can develop there and produce an .app file for production. That is the recommended workflow — see Environments.

Finding an existing registration key

The registration key is a GUID (xxxxxxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxxxxxxxxxx).

Method 1: open SOD in an environment where it is already registered and go to the registration page — search for "Buy/register the Object Designer", or find it in the Information section. The license details should be shown there.

Method 2: search your email for the purchase or renewal message from Hougaard.

If neither works: the confirmation email does not always contain the key, and it is not always visible on the register page. Contact Hougaard support — they can look up the registration key from your tenant information.

License Validation

Online Validation

SOD validates licenses by:

  • Contacting Hougaard license server
  • Verifying key validity
  • Checking tenant match
  • Confirming active subscription

Validation Requirements

Requires:

  • Internet connectivity
  • Access to check.hougaardlicense.com
  • Valid license key
  • Matching tenant

Viewing License Status

Current Status

The registration page shows:

  • License type (demo vs registered)
  • Expiration date (when registered)
  • Validation status

Demo Status

In demo mode:

  • Design tools are available
  • Publishing is allowed only to sandbox environments
  • Import App / Export App and source download are disabled
  • The production-publish guard surfaces a registration prompt

When License Expires

What Happens

If a license expires, SOD reverts to demo behavior:

  • Existing customizations continue working
  • You can keep designing in SOD
  • Publishing to production environments is blocked again until you re-register

Your Extensions Keep Working

An expired license only stops you publishing new changes. It does not disable or remove anything already installed.

  • Already-installed extensions are not technically linked to SOD. They keep working even if SOD is not installed in the environment at all.
  • SOD does not need to be present for your existing extensions to function.

What can eventually break an extension is Microsoft obsoleting and deleting fields and objects in Business Central — not the licence. The consequence of letting a subscription lapse is that you cannot republish existing extensions to keep them valid against newer BC versions.

Get warned in advance: Microsoft sends an email when you have an extension that cannot be upgraded. Make sure notification emails are configured in the Business Central Admin Center — worth verifying as a preventative step, and especially before letting a subscription lapse.

Renewing

To restore access:

  1. Renew subscription with Hougaard
  2. Receive new license key
  3. Enter in SOD
  4. Full access restored

Purchasing a License

How to Purchase

  1. Visit https://hougaard.com/shop — this is the authoritative place to complete a purchase
  2. Review pricing and options
  3. Complete purchase
  4. The license key is issued immediately — there is no wait for a follow-up email or a sales call

Pricing and purchase are self-service; no sales call is needed to obtain pricing or a key.

What You Receive

After purchase:

  • License key
  • Receipt/invoice
  • Support access
  • Updates for subscription period

Adding +Reports to an existing license

Adding the +Reports (Report Layout Designer) capability to an already-registered SOD license is handled as a license swap. Email sales@hougaard.com to arrange it. This applies to Business Central cloud/SaaS customers.

No license change is needed for sandbox use, or during the 90-day free production trial for existing SOD customers. The swap is what enables continued +Reports production use afterwards. See Report Layout Designer Overview.

License Troubleshooting

Validation Fails

Causes:

  • Invalid key
  • Network issues
  • Expired subscription
  • Wrong tenant

Solutions:

  • Verify key entry
  • Check internet connectivity
  • Contact Hougaard support

Key Not Accepted

Check:

  • Exact key entry (no typos)
  • Key matches this tenant
  • Subscription is active

"Please purchase a subscription before publishing to a production environment"

Full message: "Please purchase a subscription before publishing to a production environment. You can publish to a sandbox without a subscription."

Cause: the subscription has been paid for, but the issued license key has not been entered and validated in SOD — or the subscription is not linked to the tenant you are publishing to.

Resolution: obtain the license key from Hougaard (issued after purchase; contact support with your subscription/order number and account email if you did not receive it), enter it on the SOD Registration page and click Register/Validate. Production publishing is enabled once it validates.

Also check the tenant. A subscription is tied to a specific production environment/tenant. If it was activated for a different tenant from the one you are publishing to, publishing stays blocked — verify the environment name and tenant ID against the subscription.

"License Key has exceeded its allowed tenant count"

Seen when registering or validating a key on the Register SOD Hgd page. (Danish: "Licensnøgle kan ikke bruges, årsag: License Key has exceeded its allowed tenant count".)

Meaning: the key has been bound to more tenants than it permits.

Resolution: contact Hougaard support to be issued an updated license key.

Do not assume you have over-used your allowance. This can occur even with a single tenant — one production environment plus sandboxes — and moving to a new production environment can trigger it. Ask for an updated key.

When contacting support, include the diagnostic information from the error dialog (message text and session IDs). Support will typically respond with an updated license key by email.

Import / Export Greyed Out

Not a permission problem — these actions require a licensed environment. Apply the license key and they become available. Note that when moving customizations between environments, the key must be applied to both the source and destination environment.

Expired Warning

If seeing expiration warning:

  • Renew subscription
  • Contact Hougaard for assistance
  • Plan for continuity

Support and Help

License Issues

For license problems:

  • Contact Hougaard support
  • Provide tenant information
  • Describe the issue

Documentation

  • hougaard.com/designer
  • hougaard.com/shop (purchase)
  • Support forums
  • Email support