There are two principal times for you to generate Serial Numbers. You can "pre-generate" and/or "dynamically generate" them.

When you wish to pre-generate Serial Numbers, you will use the GameShield License manager and log-in to the CheckPoint License Server to generate the numbers and then (probably) upload them directly to the server.  You might choose to do this when you are selling boxed software (commercial-off-the-shelf) and need to include a Serial Number in each box. Other reasons exist for pre-generating Serial Numbers. For example, you may wish to do so and distribute them to re-sellers.  Pre-generating Serial Numbers can be done when you know exactly what the Serial Number should Activate in your software and how many permitted and overflow activations you will allow for each Serial Number.

When you wish to dynamically  generate Serial Numbers, you can use either the simple HTTP GET interface or a web-service call.  Both of these types of calls are authenticated. Dynamically generating Serial Numbers is more flexible because you can specify in the call itself how many permitted and overflow Activations will be allowed for this particular Serial Number as well as other customer tracking details. Each call could specify different details.  Similarly, you only populate the database with Serial Numbers for which a sale has been generated, which is more space efficient.  

More Information

If you need more information on actually pre-generating Serial Numbers, see: Generate Serial Numbers.

If you need more information on actually dynamically generating Serial Numbers, see: Generating Serial Numbers Dynamically and SOAP Web-Service Interface.