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Sell License Keys with Easy Digital Downloads and Asura

oxygen

Selling design sets or plugins means every buyer needs a license key, and handing them out by hand doesn't scale. In this last chapter of the Asura Academy series, we connect Easy Digital Downloads to an Asura license generator. Buyers get their license key on the confirmation screen and in the receipt email, and a customer account is created for them automatically.

The starting point: design sets ready to sell

You can only sell licenses once the design sets exist and your shop is connected to them. From the earlier chapters we have an installation called Design Set 1 with three design sets that can be sold separately: Utility, Blog and Shop. Our e-store (the Asura manager site) already has remotes and generators set up for it.

Important: install Easy Digital Downloads on the e-store, not on the design set installation.

Install Easy Digital Downloads and Auto Register

By default a buyer checks out as a guest and has no account to come back to. The free Auto Register add-on creates a WordPress user account at checkout from the buyer's email address. They can then log in to your store later and find their license there.

  1. On the e-store, go to Plugins → Add New, search for easy digital downloads, then install and activate Easy Digital Downloads – Simple eCommerce for Selling Digital Files.
  2. Download Auto Register from easydigitaldownloads.com (its page says it "Automatically creates a WP user account at checkout").
  3. Go to Plugins → Add New → Upload Plugin, choose the Auto Register zip, install and activate it.

Enable the EDD integration in Asura

Asura needs to know it should generate licenses for EDD orders and show them to the buyer. Go to Aether → Asura → Settings. In the Easy Digital Downloads section, tick all three options:

  • enable the integration
  • print the license
  • print the license in the receipt email

Then Save Changes.

Create a download linked to a generator

Each product needs to point to the right remote and generator so the buyer gets a key for the design set they paid for.

  1. Go to Downloads → Add New and give it a title. We used Design Set 1 - Utility.
  2. In the Asura License metabox, tick Automatically generate license keys under Generate? and Allow license key renewal under Renewal?.
  3. Open Aether → Asura in a new tab. On the Remotes tab, copy the ID of the Design Set 1 remote (for us it's 1) into Remote [id].
  4. On the Generators tab, copy the ID of the generator (our des-set-1_utility generator has ID 2) into Generator [id].
  5. Under Download Prices, we set the price to 0.00 so we could test without setting up payments.
  6. Click Publish.

The Remote dropdown on the Generators tab switches between installations. We have a second installation, Design Set 2, but no generators exist for it yet, so that list is empty.

One generator covers one product. Our des-set-1_utility generator has Design Set 1 - Utility selected under Terms. To sell the Blog or Shop set, create another generator, select that term, and link its ID to a new download. A generator can also include more than one term if you want to sell a bundle.

What the buyer sees

We tested as a new visitor in an incognito window, with no account:

  1. Open the product page and add Design Set 1 – Utility to the cart.
  2. At checkout, enter an email (we used a test address) and click Free Download.
  3. The confirmation page shows the license key right away.
  4. The buyer also gets a Purchase Receipt email with the license key, plus a Verify your account email from Auto Register. Admins get a New download purchase notification.

With WooCommerce you have to verify the purchase manually. Easy Digital Downloads skips that step, so the key goes out as soon as the order completes.

Check the customer and order

Under Downloads → Customers, the new customer appears with status pending verification until they click the link in the email. After a refresh, the user shows as created, and Downloads → Payment History lists the order as Complete.

Who is this for

  • Oxygen Builder design set sellers using Asura who want an EDD store instead of WooCommerce.
  • Plugin or template authors who want license keys issued automatically on every purchase, with no manual step.
  • Shop owners who want buyers to have accounts without asking them to fill in a separate registration form.

FAQ

Where do I install Easy Digital Downloads, on the design set site or the shop? On the shop (e-store). The design set installation only connects to it through Asura remotes.

How does Asura know which license key to generate for a product? Each download has an Asura License metabox with Remote [id] and Generator [id]. Copy those IDs from the Remotes and Generators tabs in Asura.

Do buyers need an account before they can buy? No. With the Auto Register add-on, EDD creates an account from the buyer's email at checkout. They then get an email to verify it.

Where does the buyer find their license key? On the purchase confirmation page and in the receipt email, as long as both print options are on in Asura's EDD settings. After logging in, they can also get it from their account.

What's different compared to WooCommerce? With EDD you don't need a manual purchase verification step. The license goes out as soon as the order completes.

Get Asura → dplugins.com

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