Upgrades, Renewals, and Upsells
upgrade — Transferring a customer from a specified version of a product to a more recent version of the same product, with potentially new features.
renewal — Extending the expiration date of a license to a later date.
upsell — Transferring a customer to an expanded version of the same product that provides more functionality.
These three processes are supported for FlexNet Embedded licenses and work the same way.
To process an upgrade, renewal, or upsell manually
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Create an entitlement representing the upgraded/renewed/upsold product. For example, if the regular entitlement gives access to a feature, the upgrade entitlement would represent the new or expanded feature. |
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Click Devices > Search Devices. The Producer Portal opens the Search Devices page. |
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Specify search criteria to locate the device you want to change and click Search. |
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From the list of devices, click the ID for device to upgrade/renew/upsell. This link opens the View Device page. |
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Click Licenses > Remove Licenses. |
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Under Licenses Currently Mapped, specify the amount to remove in Qty to Remove, and click Save. The previously assigned counts are added back to the entitlement. The entitlements can now be assigned to new devices. |
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Click Licenses > Map Entitlements. The Producer Portal opens the Map Entitlements page, where you select the upgraded/renewed/upsold entitlement line items for the device. |
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Under Entitlements Available, specify the amount to add in Qty to Add for the entitlements you want to map, and click Save. |
About Automatic Version Upgrades, Renewals, and Upsells for Devices and Servers
For FlexNet Operations to apply the automatic upgrade, renewal, or upsell process, you must create relationships between the two product versions and between the two entitlement line items for those product versions.
When mapping an upgrade entitlement to a device that already has copies of the related pre-installed entitlement, FlexNet Operations automatically reduces the copies of the pre-installed entitlement by the number of copies of the upgrade entitlement being mapped. This is particularly helpful as the copies are shared between the pre-installed entitlement and the upgrade entitlement, and frequently the upgrade entitlement cannot be mapped until copies of the pre-installed entitlement are unmapped (to free up available copies).
The return of the pre-installed copies skips the normal confirmation process, as the returned copies are immediately consumed by the upgrade being mapped. Also, for the same reason, potential limitations for duration based entitlements do not apply.
Limitations:
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You are not permitted to mix the different relationship types within a single parent-child chain of product relationships. |
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The type of relationship—upgrade, renewal, or upsell—you use in the product relationship must be the same as the type of relationship between the entitlement line items. |
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The application does not support multiple upgraded products that have the same parent. |
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The application does not support a child entitlement having a higher license quantity than its parent. In this case, you must create two entitlement lines: one that is for the same quantity as the parent and one that is for the remaining extra quantity. |
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If there are no copies currently available for an upgrade entitlement, the Map Entitlements page does not show the upgrade entitlement as an option to map, even if there are copies of the pre-installed entitlement mapped to the device being acted on (that could be automatically returned to enable the operation to succeed). Activation via capability request does not have this limitation. |
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If both pre-installed and upgrade entitlements are specified in a capability request, the order in which they are listed matters. If the pre-installed entitlement is listed first, the mapped copies are unmapped by the upgrade item listed second (if the upgrade copies requested are greater or the same; some are left if the pre-installed request is for more copies). If the pre-installed entitlement is listed second, it is successfully mapped in addition to the upgrade listed first. When the same is done from the user interface, the result is not well defined. |
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If a device has a device series limiting the copies of a feature in the upgrade/pre-installed entitlement, the feature-limiting logic does not properly take into account the copies being returned in the pre-installed entitlement and may prevent mapping via the user interface. |
Tip:FlexNet Operations can automatically upgrade line items for qualifying products and line items with the Product Version Upgrade job. See FlexNet Operations Alert Types.
FlexNet Operations
2020 R1 SP1
Upgrades, Renewals, and Upsells