This section is aimed at producers who use the FlexNet Operations Producer Portal as their back office. It walks you through exercises for creating an Elastic Access license model, product, and line items.
The exercises in this section make use of the account and end user created in the early exercises of the section Getting Started with Entitlement Management in the FlexNet Operations User Guide. Before you begin the exercises in this section, it is recommended that you create the account and end user (Barry Photography Studio and Lisa Barry). If you have not already done so, follow the steps in the exercises Creating a Customer Account and Creating a Customer End User, respectively, also in the FlexNet Operations User Guide.
The producer typically performs the following steps in the back office:
- Creating a License Model
- Deploying the License Model
- Creating a Feature for Elastic Access
- Creating a Product for Elastic Access
- Linking the License Model to the Product
- Deploying the Product
- Creating and Configuring an Entitlement with a Line Item
For details about concepts in this section, see:
In this exercise, you create a license model to use with the product to be created in later exercises. You then deploy the license model before proceeding to create a feature.
Click Administer > License Models. This link opens the License Models page.
Click Create New License Model.
If more than one license technology is defined, select FlexNet Licensing, and click Next.
The Create a License Model page opens.
Specify the license model name, description, and expiration setting. For this exercise, use the following values:
- Name: Elastic Access
- Description: License Model for Elastic Access
- Expiration: 1 year
Click Next.
For Type of license model, select Dynamic Monetization.
For Is this an Elastic model, select Yes.
The option No has no underlying functionality.
In the section for the Elastic license model attributes, accept the default options:
- Auto Provision: Accept Yes.
If you select No, line items cannot be provisioned to Elastic Access.
- Rate Table Series: Accept Specify Value at Entitlement Time.
This is the only way to specify a rate table series.
- Auto Provision: Accept Yes.
Click Save.
The license model must be deployed before it can be linked to a product or used in an entitlement line item. In this exercise, you deploy the license model that you created in Creating a License Model.
To deploy the license model
- In the Producer Portal, click Administer > License Models. The Producer Portal opens the License Models page.
- On the License Models page, locate the license model named Elastic Access you just created. If it does not immediately appear in the License Models list, try searching License Models for "Elastic".
- Select the check boxes for the Elastic Access license model, and then click Change State > Deploy.
- Click OK to confirm the state-change operation.
The Producer Portal deploys the license model and refreshes the License Models page to show the new Deployed state.
In this exercise, you create a feature which you will—in a later step—add to a product that will be associated with the license model that you created in Creating a License Model.
The product must contain a feature for historical reasons. The feature as such does not provide any functionality in the context of Elastic Access.
You create the feature in the Producer Portal from the Feature page of the Package Products pages.
To create a feature for Elastic Access
- Click Products > Features. This opens the Package Products | Recently Accessed Features page.
- Click Add New Feature. This opens the Package Products | Create A Feature page.
- For this exercise, specify the following values for your feature:
- Feature Name: ElasticFeature
- Version Format Type: Fixed
- Version: 1.0
- Description: Feature for Elastic Access
- Leave the other fields blank or accept the default values.
- Click Save.
In this step, you create a product for Elastic Access and then add the feature ElasticFeature that you created in Creating a Feature for Elastic Access.
To create a product for Elastic Access
- Click Products > Products. This opens the Package Products | Recently Accessed Products page.
- Click Add new Product. This opens the Package Products | Create A Product page.
- For this exercise, specify the following values for your product:
- Product Name: ElasticProduct
- Description: Product for Elastic Access
- Version: 1.0
- License Technology: FlexNet Licensing
- Leave the other fields blank or accept the default values.
- Click Add Features. This opens the pop-up window Add Features to Product.
- In the pop-up window Add Features to Product, search for "ElasticFeature". When ElasticFeature is listed under Available Features, click the right arrow to move it to the Selected Features list.
- Click Add to add the feature to the product. The pop-up window Add Features to Product closes.
- On the Create a Product page, make sure that the Quantity of the ElasticFeature is set to 1.
- Click Save.
In this exercise, you link the license model (created in Creating a License Model) to the product named ElasticProduct that you created in the previous step, Creating a Product for Elastic Access.
To link the Elastic Access license model to the product ElasticProduct
- Click Products > Products. This opens the Package Products | Recently Accessed Products page.
- Search for product "ElasticProduct", then click its link in the product table. The Package Products | Create A Product page appears with product ElasticProduct information.
- Click Next. The Package Products | Link License Models To Product page for ElasticProduct opens.
- Verify that the Product box displays the product named ElasticProduct.
- Click Link license models. The Select License Models window opens.
- Search for and select ElasticAccess from Available License Models, then click Add ► to move it to Selected License Models.
- Click Add. The Select License Models window closes.
- On the Package Products | Link License Models To Product page, click Save. The product ElasticProduct is linked to the Elastic Access license model. This message appears: "License models linked successfully."
In this exercise, you deploy the product ElasticProduct that you created in step Creating a Product for Elastic Access.
When you deploy a product, the feature it contains is also deployed.
To deploy the product ElasticProduct
- Click Products > Products. This opens the Package Products | Recently Accessed Products page.
- Under Recently Accessed Products, select the check box for the product ElasticProduct.
- Click Change State and select Deploy from the list.
- Confirm that you want to deploy the product.
- The Package Products | Deploy Products page appears displaying deployment information for the product ElasticProduct. Click Deploy to deploy the product ElasticProduct and its feature ElasticFeature. This message appears: "Products deployed successfully."
In this exercise, you create and configure an entitlement for the product ElasticProduct that you created and deployed in the previous exercises.
This exercise is broken down into the following steps:
- Creating an Entitlement with ID "ENT-Elastic"
- Entitling the Customer Account Barry Photography Studio to the Entitlement "ENT-Elastic"
- Configuring the Elastic Access Line Item
- Deploying the Elastic Access Line Item
To create an entitlement for the product ElasticProduct
- Click Entitlements > Create. The Entitle Customers to Licenses | Create an Entitlement page appears.
- Enter the entitlement attributes:
- Entitlement ID: Select Specify from the drop-down list and type ENT-Elastic in the box to the right.
- Keep the default values for all other attributes.
Note that the entitlement is created in the Draft state.
Do not close the page. Continue with the next task, Entitling the Customer Account Barry Photography Studio to the Entitlement "ENT-Elastic".
In this step, you are entitling an account to the product named ElasticProduct that you created in Creating a Product for Elastic Access. The end user is Lisa Barry, and the customer account is Barry Photography Studio. You created both in the exercises in the section Getting Started with Entitlement Management in the FlexNet Operations User Guide. If you have not yet created this end user and account, follow the steps in the exercises Creating a Customer End User and Creating a Customer Account, respectively, also in the FlexNet Operations User Guide.
To entitle the customer account to the product ElasticProduct
- On the Entitle Customers to Licenses | Create an Entitlement page, under End Customer And Channel Partners for entitlement ENT-Elastic, click Add. The End Customer And Channel Partners window opens.
- On the Customers tab, search for and select Barry Photography Studio as the account to receive the entitlement, then click Next.
- Under Contacts, search for and select Lisa Barry as the end user to receive the entitlement email message.
If you have not yet created the end user Lisa Barry, you can create them now: Click Create, then type in a first name, last name, and an email address you control. This is the customer’s End-User Portal login user name and the email account to which FlexNet Operations sends the customer's initial credentials and entitlements.
- Click Save. The End Customer And Channel Partners window closes, and the Entitle Customers to Licenses | Create an Entitlement page shows Barry Photography Studio as the end customer and Lisa Barry as the contact.
Do not close the page. Continue with the next task, Configuring the Elastic Access Line Item.
To configure the Elastic Access line item
- On the Entitle Customers to Licenses | Create an Entitlement page, on the Line Items tab near the bottom of the page, click New Line Item. The Configure Line Item wizard opens.
- In wizard step 1, Select Product, search for and select product ElasticProduct, then click Next.
- In wizard step 2, Select Part Number & License Model, review the settings:
- Selected Product: ElasticProduct, Ver 1.0 (read only)
- License Model: ElasticAccess
- Rate table series: Type PublicationApps.
Click Next.You create the rate table using the REST API. For procedural information, see Creating a Rate Table.
- In wizard step 3, Configure Product, enter these line item attributes:
- Quantity per copy: 1 (accept the default, 1)
- Description: Tokens for Elastic Access
- Order ID: 1234
- Order Line Number: [leave blank]
- Qty: 1000. This is the number of tokens that you are entitling the customer to.
- Start Date: Select Specify Value Now from the drop-down list and select today's date.
- Expiration: Select 1 year from the drop-down list. Click Next.
- For the remaining wizard steps, keep the default value. Click Next.
- In the last wizard step, click Save to save the line item and close the Configure Line Item wizard.
- On the Line Items tab, click inside the field for the Activation ID and change it to "ACT01-Elastic".
You have now created an Elastic Access line item that expires after 1 year, has a total quantity of 1000 tokens, and is in the Draft state.
Do not close the page. Continue with the next task, Deploying the Elastic Access Line Item.
You must deploy the entitlement so that it is provisioned to the Elastic Access instance. Once the entitlement has been deployed, the line item named ACT01-Elastic is automatically provisioned to an Elastic Access instance for the customer. (It is not possible to deploy individual line items.)
To deploy the Elastic Access line item
On the Entitle Customers to Licenses | Create an Entitlement page, near the bottom of the page, click Save & Deploy.
The line item will be automatically deployed to Dynamic Monetization so that Elastic Access can allow applications to request items and consume tokens.