Activate STARLIMS Advanced Analytics 2.0 On Premise based on Qlik Sense Enterprise without internet access

INTERNAL

Category: Infrastructure / Licensing

Applies to: Qlik Sense Enterprise on Windows — on-premise installations without internet access

On-premise Qlik Sense installations that cannot reach the Qlik licensing servers require offline activation. This process involves three parties: STARLIMS opens a Qlik support ticket to enable the offline flag on the license, STARLIMS generates a Signed License Definition (SLD), and the customer applies the SLD and configures the server. The order of steps is critical — applying the offline flag before retrieving the SLD will result in activation failure.

Prerequisites

• Administrator access to the Qlik Sense server(s)
• Access to the Windows Services console and file system on each node
• The Qlik Sense installation must already be complete
• STARLIMS must have an active Qlik support relationship to open the enablement ticket

Process overview

Detailed steps

Phase 1 — STARLIMS: Receive and process the license request

1. Confirm that the customer's installation of AA On Premise is an offline system.
2. Request the offline license key from Qlik via the Qlik Customer Portal: https://customerportal.qlik.com/my-cases
3. Send the license key and these configuration instructions to the customer.

Phase 2 — Customer: Configure offline mode

Perform the following steps on each node running the ServiceDispatcher service. In a cluster environment, this includes all rim nodes — not only the central node. For reference, see the Qlik community article: https://community.qlik.com/t5/Official-Support-Articles/Long-term-offline-use-for-Qlik-Sense-and-QlikView-Signed/ta-p/1713565

1. Open the Windows Services console and stop the Qlik Sense ServiceDispatcher service.
2. Open the following file as Administrator:

C:\Program Files\Qlik\Sense\ServiceDispatcher\services.conf

1. Locate the [licenses.parameters] section and add -offline as shown:

[licenses.parameters]

 -qsefw-mode

 -offline

 -app-settings="..\Licenses\appsettings.json"

Warning: The order of attributes under [licenses.parameters] matters for Qlik Sense February 2024 IR. The -offline attribute must appear after -qsefw-mode and before -app-settings. This ordering requirement does not apply to versions prior to November 2022 or to Patch 2 and later.

1. Save the file.
2. Open the Windows Services console and start the Qlik Sense ServiceDispatcher service.
3. Repeat steps 1–5 on every node in the cluster running ServiceDispatcher.

Phase 3 — STARLIMS: Generate the Signed License Definition (SLD)

1. Using the license key from Qlik, generate the Signed License Definition (SLD) at: https://license.qlikcloud.com/sld
2. Provide the SLD file to the customer.

Phase 4 — Customer: Apply the SLD in QMC

1. Log in to the Qlik Management Console (QMC).
2. Navigate to Licenses.
3. Apply the SLD provided by STARLIMS.
4. Confirm the license is accepted before continuing.

Expected result

• Qlik Sense starts successfully without internet access.
• The license is validated offline using the applied SLD.
• No license-related errors appear in the QMC or in the Qlik Sense log files.

Troubleshooting

Notes

Note: Offline activation is not enabled by default on any Qlik license. It must be explicitly requested through a Qlik support ticket.

Note: After any Qlik Sense upgrade, verify that services.conf still contains the -offline parameter. Some upgrade paths overwrite this file.