Creating a Suite

There are several ways to navigate to the page where a new suite is created.

To create a new suite

1. Click Products > Suites. This opens the Package Products page.
2. Click the Add New Suite button.

Follow the steps below to create the suite.

To copy an existing suite

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

Follow the steps below to create the suite.

Note:Required fields are indicated with a red asterisk.

To create the new suite

1. Provide values for the following fields:

New Suite Field

Field

Description

Suite Name

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

Description

The characteristics of this suite that make it unique.

Version

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

State

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

• Draft: A suite is created as a draft that can be modified or deleted; draft suites can contain draft or deployed products.
• Deployed: If the suite is deployed, all the draft features, feature bundles, and products it contains are also deployed. After a suite 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 suite can be used to create an entitlement.
• Inactive: If a suite is made inactive, its products are not made inactive. An inactive suite cannot be deleted or modified. An inactive suite 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 line item.
• Obsolete: Deployed and inactive suites can be made obsolete. Obsolete suites behave like inactive suites, but can be deleted.

Package

Specify that this suite 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 suite as a suite

Even if a suite is specified as a package, if a license model is specified for the suite 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 3 counts of FeatureA and 6 counts of FeatureB is added to a product, then for that product to be licensed with a PACKAGE line, 3 more counts of FeatureA must be added to the product to make the count of FeatureA and FeatureB the same (6).

Package Name

Name to uniquely identify the package. The name must contain 30 characters or less and cannot contain spaces.

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.

Package Version

If a Fixed version format is selected, enter the version of 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.

License Technology

The license technology with which this suite is licensed. The license technology you choose affects the set of controls you see on the Create a Suite 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. Select the check boxes for the host types this suite supports.

License Generator

The license generator used to generate licenses for this product.

FNP Version

Only shown if the newer FlexNet Publisher keywords are used for renewals and upgrades. The FNP Version check boxes allow you to specify the cross-version signature support required by your suite.

Cross-version signatures are required when the suite must use the same license to support the use of newer keywords (such as SUPERSEDE_SIGN and TZ) on binaries built with different versions of the FlexNet Publisher Licensing Toolkit. Cross-version signatures permit versions of your suite built with a license kit that predates the introduction of a keyword to be successfully activated under the same license and license server as the newer versions of your suite that use that keyword. (However, they do not permit the older versions of your suite to utilize the functionality of the newer keyword.)

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

For example, if you must use the same license to support the SUPERSEDE_SIGN keyword in 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.
2. Click the Add Products button to continue creating the suite.

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

• To add products, click Add Products. This button opens a pop-up window for selecting products to add to the suite. See Adding Products to a Suite for instructions.
• To move on to link license models to this suite, click Next. The Producer Portal shows the Link License Models to Suite page. See Linking License Models to a Suite for instructions.
• To save the suite in its current state, click Save.