Creating a Product

There are several ways to navigate to the page where a new product is created. When creating a new product from the Package Products page, you can either start a new product from scratch or create a new product from a copy of another product.

To create a new product

1. Click Products > Products. This opens the Package Products page.
2. Click the Add a new product button.

Follow the steps below to create the product.

To copy an existing product

1. Click Products > Products. This opens the Package Products page.
2. Search for a product to copy.
3. Select the product and click the Copy button.

Follow the steps below to create the product.

Note:Required fields are indicated with a red asterisk.

To create the new product

Provide values for the following fields:

 

Field

Description

Product Name

Name to uniquely identify this product. The name can contain spaces.

Description

The characteristics of this product that make it unique. The description can be edited at any time.

Version

A string that can contain any characters up to a maximum of 64, for example, 1.2.3 or SP1.

State

A product can be in one of four states: draft, deployed, inactive, or obsolete.

• Draft: A product is created as a draft that can be modified or deleted; draft products can contain draft or deployed features and feature bundles. Draft or deployed products can be added to a suite in the draft state.
• Deployed: If the suite is deployed, all the draft features, feature bundles, and products it contains are also deployed. After a product is deployed to use in production, it cannot be deleted or modified, except to change the transaction key and to add or remove license models, part numbers, or relationships. A deployed product can be used to create an entitlement.
• Inactive: If a product is made inactive, its features and feature bundles are not made inactive. An inactive product cannot be deleted or modified. An inactive product cannot be used to create an entitlement or to be the parent of a maintenance product, but an inactive product can be activated, upgraded, upsold, or renewed from an existing entitlement item.
• Obsolete: Deployed and inactive products can be made obsolete. Obsolete products behave like inactive products, but can be deleted if they have no entitlements associated with them.

Package

For FlexNet licenses only, specify that this product is a package if you want to:

• Provide a way of distributing one line for a license file that has a large number of features, which share most of the same feature line arguments
• License this product as a suite

Even if a product is specified as a package, if a license model is specified for the product that does not support PACKAGEs (that is, Package Specification is None), the license model takes precedence and individual feature lines are generated.

The count of unique features in a package must be the same. For example, if a feature bundle containing three counts of FeatureA and six counts of FeatureB is added to a product, then for that product to be licensed with a PACKAGE line, three more counts of FeatureA must be added to the product to make the count of FeatureA and FeatureB the same (six).

Package Name

Name to uniquely identify the package: The name must contain 30 characters or less and cannot contain spaces. (The Package Name setting is only shown when Package is set to Yes.)

Package Version Format

Select a Fixed or Date Based version format. See Creating a FlexNet Publisher Licensing Toolkit License Generator (VCG) Configuration for more information about this property. (The Package Version Format setting is only shown when Package is set to Yes.)

Package Version

If a Fixed version format is selected, enter the latest (highest-numbered) version of this package that is supported by a generated license certificate. The version consists of numbers and at most one decimal point, with a ten character maximum, for example, 1 or 1.5. (The Package Version setting is only shown when Package is set to Yes.)

License Technology

The license technology with which this product is licensed. The license technology you choose affects the set of controls you see on the Create a Product page. If you choose FlexNet Licensing, the next control in the list is Can Be Used on a Device. If you choose a custom (non-FlexNet) license technology, the next control in the list is Host Type.

Can Be Used on a Device

Shown when you choose FlexNet Licensing as the license technology, this control allows the user to select usage models.

Yes—displays a drop-down list of available usage models

No—no usage models are displayed

Host Type

The appearance of the Host Type control depends upon the license technology you chose:

• Shown as a drop-down list when you choose a custom (non-FlexNet) license technology, Host Type lists of host types defined for the license technology you specified. Choose one host type from the list.
• Shown as a collection of check boxes when you choose FlexNet Licensing as the license technology, Host Type shows a separate check box for each host type defined for FlexNet Licensing. Click the check boxes for the host types this product will support.

Usage Models

The Usage Models attribute is available when you choose Yes for Can be Used on a Device.

Usage Models shows a drop-down list of possible usage models. These determine the statement interval and reset period for usage reports. (See About Usage Models.)

Important:Products using the same feature must be configured with the same usage model per account. For an account, the usage model that is specified for a product containing a specific feature will be the usage model that is used for subsequent entitlements or products containing that specific feature.

Example:

• Product A (feature f1) and product B (features f1 and f2)
• Account C is first entitled to product A (feature f1) with usage model Monthly Statements (No Reset)
• Account C is then entitled to product B (features f1 and f2) with usage model Monthly Statements (Reset Monthly)
• Account C will use usage model Monthly Statements (No Reset) for both products A and B because they both contain feature f1 which was included in the first entitlement.

If Account C was first entitled to product B (features f1 and f2) with usage model Monthly Statements (Reset Monthly), this usage model would be used for both products/entitlements for the account.

License Generator

The license generator used to generate licenses for this product

Header Resource Bundle Key

If you are creating a certificate-based license, this key allows you to identify certain text that appears as a comment at the beginning of the .lic file that is generated when you fulfill the license.

This field is hidden if the Allow license headers and trailers flag is disabled. Configure this flag in System > Configure > FlexNet Operations.

Header Text

This is the value assigned to the key specified in the Header Resource Bundle Key field. This field only displays the value; you cannot edit the value.

Trailer Resource Bundle Key

If you are creating a certificate-based license, this key allows you to identify certain text that will appear as a comment at the end of the .lic file which is generated when you fulfill the license. This field is hidden if the Allow license headers and trailers flag is disabled. Configure this flag in System > Configure > FlexNet Operations.

Trailer Text

This is the value assigned to the key specified in the Trailer Resource Bundle Key field. This field only displays the value; you cannot edit the value.

FNP Version

The FNP Version check boxes allow you to specify the cross-version signature support required by your product.

Cross-version signatures are required when the product must use the same license for product binaries built with different versions of the FlexNet Publisher Licensing Toolkit, if you want to add license keywords to the product license that are not supported by all the licensing toolkit versions with which your product binaries are built.

Cross-version signatures permit versions of your product built with a license kit that predates the introduction of a keyword to run successfully using the same license and license server as the newer versions of your product that use that keyword. (However, they do not permit the older versions of your product to use the functionality of the newer keyword.)

Select the FNP Version based on the older version of the toolkit used to build the product binaries.

For example, if you are required to use the same license to support the SUPERSEDE_SIGN keyword in product binaries built with toolkit versions 11.5 (when SUPERSEDE_SIGN was introduced) and 11.0, select FNP Version 11.4.

For more information about choosing the FNP Version values and using cross-version signatures, see FlexNet Publisher Versions for Cross-Version Signature Support.

Allow Obsolete Fulfillment Download in Producer Portal

Permits or prohibits the download of obsolete (zero count) fulfillments from the Producer Portal. By default, licenses cannot be emailed or saved for obsolete fulfillments. Click Yes to permit the downloading of obsolete fulfillments from the Producer Portal. Click No to prohibit it.

Allow Obsolete Fulfillment Download in End-User Portal

Permits the download of obsolete fulfillments from the End-User Portal. By default, licenses cannot be emailed or saved for obsolete fulfillments. Click Yes to permit the downloading of obsolete fulfillments from the End-User Portal. Click No to prohibit it.

Start Date

Only used for automatic upgrade jobs, the Start Date value defines the beginning of a date range for which this product qualifies as an upgrade-to product, based on the upgrade relationships as defined when the upgrade job runs. The date range defined by Start Date and End Date has no impact on manually generated upgrades nor on bulk operations.

Start Date is only available for products; it is not available for maintenance products nor for product suites.

End Date

Only used for automatic upgrade jobs, the End Date value defines the end of the date range for which this product qualifies as an upgrade-to product, based on the upgrade relationships as defined when the upgrade job runs. The date range defined by Start Date and End Date has no impact on manually generated upgrades nor on bulk operations.

End Date is only available for products; it is not available for maintenance products nor for product suites.

Email Template to Use for Product Upgrade

Specify the variation of the Product Upgrade Job Email template to use when FlexNet Operations automatically creates upgrade lines as a result of running the Product Version Upgrade job. Producers can choose the default variation, another active variation, or none:

• DEFAULT—FlexNet Operations uses the default variation of the Product Upgrade Job Email template for automatic upgrades to this product.
• None—FlexNet Operations does not send emails for automatic upgrades to this product.
• Another variation—FlexNet Operations uses the selected variation of the Product Upgrade Job Email template for automatic upgrades to this product. (Only active variations of the Product Upgrade Job Email template are available for selection. Draft variations are not shown.)

When automatic upgrade emails are sent, FlexNet Operations sends the upgrade email to the end-customer contact address in the parent entitlement (if one is available). If no end-customer contact address exists, FlexNet Operations sends the upgrade email to any addresses in the Ship To Email field in the parent entitlement as well as to all channel partner contacts in the parent entitlement (if any).

For information about the Product Upgrade Job Email template, see Email Template Types in About Email Templates.

For information about the Product Version Upgrade job, see FlexNet Operations Alert Types.

Continue the product packaging process by adding features (recommended) on this page or moving on to link a license model to the product. Or you can save the product in its current state.

• To add features, click Add Features or Add Feature Bundles. These buttons open a pop-up window for selecting features or feature bundles to add. See Adding Features or Feature Bundles to a Product for instructions.
• To move on to link license models to this product, click Next. The Producer Portal shows the Link License Models to Product page. See Linking License Models to a Product for instructions.
• To save the product in its current state, click Save.