Entitlement Management Enhancements in 2024.05
The following enhancements to entitlement management were added in the 2024.05 release:
| • | Automatic Renewal of Entitlement Line Items |
| • | Reduced Requirements for Feature Count Aggregation |
| • | Displaying Version Date for FlexNet Embedded Line Items |
Automatic Renewal of Entitlement Line Items
This release introduces new functionality that enables producers to automatically renew line items using a job called Line Item Auto Renewal. The job gathers all line items that are marked for renewal and extends their expiration dates according to the renewal expiration date or duration that you set.
Producers can configure selected entitlement line items that can be automatically extended for an additional period. Entitlement line items can be configured for renewal based on a specific renewal cycle (for example, the number of years) or a specific duration.
The automatic renewal of entitlement line items can be controlled via the Producer Portal (see Setting a line item’s renewal date using the Producer Portal UI) or the EntitlementOrderService web service, version 7 (see the FlexNet Operations SOAP Web Services Guide).
Considerations
| • | A line item’s expiration date is updated only if the item’s Auto Renew check box is selected and the Line Item Auto Renewal job is active (see Setting a line item’s renewal date using the Producer Portal UI and Configuring the Line Item Auto Renewal job, respectively). |
| • | Permanent entitlement line items and permanent maintenance line items will not be automatically renewed. |
| • | The Line Item Auto Renewal job renews line items that have already expired, line items that will expire on the same day and line items that expire on the next day that the job runs. |
| • | A line item cannot have a renewal date that is earlier than its expiration date. |
| • | The Line Item Auto Renewal job only renews deployed line items. Line items with any other status are not renewed. |
To use the new functionality, you need to select the Auto Renew check box and set the line item’s renewal date, and activate the Line Item Auto Renewal job. Both steps are described below.
Setting a line item’s renewal date using the Producer Portal UI
The Configure Line Item wizard now includes a new Auto Renew check box (on the Configure Product page). Select the check box to indicate that the line item should be automatically renewed. The Renewal Expiration field is displayed, where you select one of the following options:
| • | Specify Expiration Date—Use the date picker or type the date when the line item should expire after it’s been renewed. |
| • | Specify Duration—Set the duration after which the line item expires after it’s been renewed. |
The renewal expiration date is calculated based on the line item’s expiration date. For example, if the line item is set to expire on May 20, 2025, and the renewal expiration is set to a duration of 1 month, the line item’s expiration will be extended by 1 month, with a renewal expiration date of June 20, 2025.
Configuring the Line Item Auto Renewal job
By default, the Line Item Auto Renewal job is set to Inactive.
You configure the Line Item Auto Renewal job on its Configure Alert/Job Schedule page (click Administer > Configure Alerts/Jobs, navigate to the Line Item Auto Renewal job and click Configure). Set the job status to Active and schedule the interval when the job should run (default: run daily). The job runs on the schedule until it is set to Inactive.
After you have set the behavior of the job, you can set up email subscriptions for the corresponding alert type.
Changed SOAP Web Services Files
To control this new functionality using web services, this release introduces version 7 of the EntitlementOrderService SOAP web service. For a list of files that have been changed for this functionality, see Change Log for 2024.05.
Reduced Requirements for Feature Count Aggregation
The 2024.03 release introduced an enhancement which enables producers to aggregate feature counts using the aggregation types SUM and MAX to support various business models.
In this release, the list of entities that must have identical values to allow feature count aggregation has been reduced to make it easier to aggregate counts.
From the 2024.05 release onwards, all of the following entities must have identical values:
| • | Name |
| • | Version |
| • | Vendor String |
| • | Notice |
| • | Serial Number |
| • | Expiration Date |
| • | Issuer |
| • | Version Date |
Note:For more information about the feature count aggregation functionality, see Feature Count Aggregation Support.
Displaying Version Date for FlexNet Embedded Line Items
When a publisher creates and activates a FlexNet Embedded line item with the field Version date when choice populated using the option Use Activation Date to compute Version Date, the Line Item Details pane in the Producer Portal and the End-User Portal now display the Version Date (computed using the entered duration and the activation date).