You activate a standard Templater license from the Licensing tab in Templater Preferences, with your product key and an internet connection. If the machine has no internet, you swap the connection for two XML files and a trip to the Dataclay website on another computer. Deactivating has an offline route too.
That covers most cases. This guide walks through each path in order, from the first launch to moving a license to a new machine, plus the command line route for machines that boot without anyone at the keyboard. It also covers what to try when activation refuses to work. One note up front: everything here is about standard, node-locked licenses. A floating license follows a different route, which we explain near the end.
Registering, trial mode and what activation changes
Two things happen before a license is live, and people often blur them together. Registration comes first. Activation comes second.
Registration tells Dataclay who is using Templater. When you open the Templater panel in After Effects for the first time after a fresh installation, a registration dialog appears. Your full name and email address are required. Your company name is optional, and you can choose whether to let the Dataclay team contact you about your experience. Dataclay does not share the personal information you submit with third parties. Registration is requested once per machine. If you reinstall your operating system or run Templater from a newly created user account, it asks again.
Once you click Register, you can start using Templater in trial mode. Trial mode is a fully featured version with minor limitations, and it runs for thirty days from the date of installation. When the thirty days end, every feature in Templater stops working. Two limits apply while you are in trial. The Templater Settings effect puts a graphical watermark on all rendered layers. And you can only replicate target compositions if the “Send Replicates to the Adobe Media Encoder” preference is turned on. Activation removes both limits.
Activation is the step that turns on the edition you bought, whether that is Rig, Pro or Bot. It is worth knowing the difference, because the edition’s features stay locked until the license is activated. If you are not sure which edition fits you, the Templater page describes them, and our Templater licensing guide goes deeper on the licensing options.
A common surprise shows up here. During the trial you get everything, including features that belong to Templater Bot. If you then buy and activate Rig, the Render and Replicate functions are not available, because those functions are not available in Rig. Nothing is broken. The license is simply doing what the edition includes. If you need those functions, you can upgrade your license.
Activating a standard license online and offline
Start with the online route. It is the standard way to activate.
Open After Effects. In the Templater panel, click Preferences. If you do not see the main Templater panel, go to the Window menu and select Templater 3.jsxbin near the bottom. If you would like the panel to open with every project, click and hold its tab and drag it to a spot where you want it docked. In the Preferences dialog, click the Licensing tab, and then click Activation in the Online Management group. Paste your product key into the Product Key field and click Activate License.
To confirm it worked, click License Info in the Preferences dialog after the process finishes. Then save any changes to your project file, quit After Effects and relaunch it. Templater runs in activated mode after the restart.
If the trial watermark still shows on a layer after you restart, purge After Effects’ memory. Choose Edit, then Purge, then All Memory and Disk Cache. Next choose Edit, then Purge, then Image Cache Memory. Restart After Effects one more time and check that the watermarks are gone.
Now the offline route. It exists for a machine that cannot reach the internet, such as a render machine in a locked-down network. It uses two files and a second computer that does have a connection. Here is the order.
In Templater Preferences, open the Licensing tab and click Offline Activation & Deactivation in the Offline Management group. In the Templater Offline License Management dialog, find the Create a Request File group and enter your standard license key in the License Key field. Click Generate Activation Request File. Templater writes a file named Templater-Activation-Request.xml to a folder you choose. Copy that file to a computer with internet access.
On that computer, open a browser, go to dataclay.com and sign in with the email address tied to your license key. Go to Account, then Licenses and Billing. Click Activate, then Choose File, and select the Templater-Activation-Request.xml file. Click Upload. Wait while the request is processed. When it finishes, a file named activate-response.xml downloads to that computer. Carry that file back to the offline machine.
Back in After Effects, reopen the Offline License Management dialog if it is not still open. In the Activate License group, click the ellipsis button to open a file picker and select activate-response.xml. Click Activate. When the process completes, the license is active. Save your project, quit and relaunch After Effects, and purge memory if a watermark lingers, as described above.
One detail matters a great deal for subscribers. If you have a recurring subscription, you must reactivate Templater offline after each billing period. Put it on the calendar.
Here is a worked scenario, built from the documented steps and not from a customer story. A studio keeps one render machine off the network because of its client’s security rules. The producer generates the request file on that machine, walks it over on a USB drive to a laptop, uploads it on the Dataclay website, and walks the response file back. Once the response file is loaded, the render machine is activated. Because the studio pays by subscription, the producer also adds a reminder to repeat the same trip every billing period. For teams in that position, our post on why on-premise matters for video automation explains the thinking behind keeping machines inside your own network.
When activation fails, check the simple causes first. Templater has to reach a licensing server to verify your key, and antivirus and firewall software can block those requests. Our advice is to temporarily disable that software so Templater can activate. On Windows, you may also need to run After Effects as an administrator so the request goes through. If you see an error even though you typed the key correctly, there are three usual explanations. A one-month license may have expired, so contact Dataclay. The machine may have no internet connection, in which case the offline route above is your workaround. Or you may hold a key from a reseller that predates version 2.5, which is now out of date. The latest release only recognizes newer keys, and your reseller can get you a new one at no cost. If none of those fit, contact Dataclay support.
Deactivating, moving a license, and activating from the command line
Each Templater license key can have one or more activations, which we also call seats. Each seat can be active on only one machine at a time. So moving Templater to a new computer always has the same shape: deactivate the old one, then activate the new one.
Before the steps, one warning that has caught people. Deactivating Templater does not cancel a recurring subscription. You have to cancel through the vendor you bought from. If you bought from Dataclay, sign in to your account, go to the Licenses & Billing page, open the Billing tab and use the Manage Orders and Account link. There you can cancel recurring subscriptions and, if you like, remove your payment method under the Payment Method tab. If you bought from aescripts + aeplugins, you cancel in your aescripts account instead.
From Templater’s Preferences. This is the standard method, and in most cases the one you want. Open the Templater panel from Window, then Templater 3.jsxbin, and click Preferences. Go to the Licensing section and click Deactivate in the Online Management group at the top. Click Yes to confirm. That frees the seat for use on another machine.
Offline, from the machine itself. Use this when you still have access to the machine but it cannot talk to the internet, or a firewall interferes with the connection to Dataclay’s licensing server. Open Preferences and the Licensing section, then click Offline Activation & Deactivation in the Offline Management group. Leave the License Key field empty. Click Generate Deactivation Request File and save Templater-Deactivation-Request.xml somewhere you will remember. When you close the confirmation dialog, it opens the folder holding the file. On a computer with a browser, sign in at dataclay.com and open Account, then Licenses & Billing. Under the heading Trouble activating your key?, click Deactivate to open the Deactivate Offline window, pick your XML file and click Upload. A success message means the license is deactivated. Back in After Effects, click Cancel to close the dialog.
This offline method is not meant for machines you can no longer reach. If an operating system was reinstalled or a machine is lost, use the website method below.
Several machines at once. From any activated installation, you can deactivate other machines that share the same license key. In Preferences, open the Licensing section and click List Activations in the Online Management group. Wait a few seconds for the Activated Machines dialog. Choose the rows you want, holding Ctrl to select more than one or clicking Select All, and click Deactivate Selected. Machines activated with a different key code need to be handled separately.
From the Dataclay website. This works when you cannot reach the machine at all, and it works for both standard and floating keys. It suits a license stuck on a broken computer, a machine whose operating system you reinstalled without deactivating first, or a virtual machine that needs clearing after a reboot. Sign in through the Account icon on dataclay.com, open the Account menu, and choose Licenses & Billing. The first tab lists your license keys. Any key with a current activation has a twirl-down arrow that shows the activated machines. Click the trash icon for the machine you want to remove, then confirm by clicking Yes. A second dialog confirms that the license was deactivated, and you can activate the key elsewhere.
If your license list is empty, the cause is almost always the email address. Dataclay accounts are not created automatically at purchase. Creating one links any licenses and the billing account that match the email address. If you purchased with a different billing email than the one on your account, the licenses will not be linked. If you bought through a reseller such as aescripts, create a Dataclay account with the same email address and your keys link automatically, though the billing details stay on the reseller’s platform. Keys can also carry status tags such as floating, expired and revoked. A key marked expired can still be activated, but it will not turn on Templater’s features, since the subscription behind it has ended.
From the command line. Some machines need a license before anyone opens After Effects, for example a machine with a script that runs at boot. The route depends on where you downloaded Templater. If you downloaded from aescripts + aeplugins, the Templater Settings effect must already be registered and activated before Templater Bot can be activated or deactivated from the command line. To activate, open templater-options.json, set the bot_activate property inside the tasks object to true, and make sure every other property in tasks is false. Then launch Templater from the command line. To deactivate, set bot_deactivate to true instead and leave the rest false. If you still need to register and activate the Settings effect from the command line, ask aescripts + aeplugins for a utility through a help ticket. If you downloaded from Dataclay, email support@dataclay.com and ask for a command line utility, including the name, email and product key Templater was registered under. For the larger picture on unattended work, our post on how Templater handles batch rendering shows where Bot fits.
The floating license is the exception to everything above. Floating clients are not individually licensed. You activate a floating key inside DataclayLM, a license manager that you install and configure yourself, and Templater leases a seat from it behind the scenes. Deactivation therefore happens on the server machine, not on each workstation. If that setup sounds like your studio, the Dataclay learning pages are the place to start, and the Templater help page on registering and activating (https://support.dataclay.com/templater/content/introduction/registration/registering_and_activating_templater.htm) explains that a floating license is activated inside DataclayLM and not in Templater itself.
The short version
Register once, activate with the key and restart After Effects. If the machine is offline, use the request file and response file, and remember that a subscription needs that trip again every billing period. When you move a license, deactivate first, and use the website when the old machine is out of reach. Deactivating never cancels billing, so cancel with the vendor you bought from. For unattended machines, ask Dataclay or aescripts for the command line utility. When activation fails, check a firewall or antivirus block, a missing internet connection, an expired one-month key and a reseller key that predates version 2.5 before you open a ticket.
That is the full path. Here are the questions that come up most often when people activate or move a license.
Frequently Asked Questions
How do I activate Templater on a machine with no internet?
Use offline activation. In Templater Preferences, open the Licensing tab, click Offline Activation & Deactivation, enter your license key and generate Templater-Activation-Request.xml. Upload that file on the Dataclay website from a connected computer, under Account, then Licenses and Billing. Download the activate-response.xml file it produces, then select it in the same dialog on the offline machine and click Activate. Restart After Effects afterward.
Why does the watermark stay after I activate?
After Effects may still hold trial-mode images in memory. Save your project, quit and relaunch After Effects first. If the watermark remains, choose Edit, Purge, All Memory and Disk Cache, then Edit, Purge, Image Cache Memory. Restart again and check your layers. Activation itself removes the trial watermark, so a leftover watermark is worth a memory purge.
Does deactivating Templater cancel my subscription?
No. Deactivation only frees the seat so you can activate on another machine. To cancel a subscription bought from Dataclay, sign in, open Licenses & Billing, go to the Billing tab and use the Manage Orders and Account link. If you bought through aescripts + aeplugins, cancel from your aescripts account. Cancel with the vendor that bills you.
How do I move Templater when the old computer is dead?
Deactivate through the Dataclay website. Sign in with the email tied to your purchase, open Licenses & Billing, expand the key to see its activated machines, click the trash icon beside the lost one and confirm. The offline deactivation method is only for machines you can still open, so it will not help here. After deactivating, activate the key on the new machine.
Why can’t I see my license keys in my Dataclay account?
The billing email you used at purchase probably differs from the email on your account. Licenses link to an account by matching email address. If you bought through a reseller such as aescripts, create a Dataclay account with the same email your license was issued to, and your keys link automatically. Billing for reseller purchases stays on the reseller’s platform.
Can I activate Templater without opening After Effects?
Yes, from the command line. If you downloaded from aescripts, the Settings effect must already be registered and activated. Then set bot_activate to true in the tasks object of templater-options.json, set every other task to false, and launch Templater from the command line. If you downloaded from Dataclay, email support@dataclay.com for a command line utility and include your name, email and product key.
What happens when the 30-day trial ends?
Every feature in Templater stops working at the end of the thirty days, counted from the date of installation. Until then, the trial is fully featured, with a watermark on rendered layers and a replicate restriction. Activating a license removes both limits. Enter your key in the Licensing tab of Preferences and restart After Effects to use Templater in activated mode.
