FlexNet Operations Reporting Limitations
FlexNet Operations reporting includes the following limitations:
| • | Entities and Relationships Unavailable for Reporting |
| • | State Change History |
| • | Test Entitlements, Devices, etc. |
| • | Served Client Devices |
| • | Device Product License State |
| • | Custom Attributes |
| • | Old, Imported Fulfillment Records |
| • | Required for Reporting Flag |
| • | Security and Authorization |
Entities and Relationships Unavailable for Reporting
The FlexNet Operations reporting model does not support the generation of reports on the following entities or relationships:
| • | Account hierarchies. |
| • | Relationships between user and accounts. |
| • | Product hierarchies, such as the relationship between suites and products. |
| • | Product relationships, such as the relationship between line items and maintenance items. |
| • | Policies, such as the number of allowed rehosts, returns or extra activations. |
Data transformation to the reporting database depends on the state change history records. The data transformation process can mis-handle certain deployment scenarios and entitlement line item imports:
| • | When a line item is deployed, the total number of copies on the line item are recorded in the state change history. If the line item is moved back to the draft state and then re-deployed, the total number of copies on the line item will be recorded again in the state change history. Hence, in the reporting database, the number of copies is inflated for that line item. However, if the count is changed for a deployed line item without a state change, FlexNet Operations records this as a count event in state change history. In this case, the data in the reporting database is accurate. |
| • | If entitlement line items are imported into FlexNet Operations, the count changes on entitlement lines item are not properly captured. Only the final count on a given entitlement line item is recorded. As a result, the reporting database shows the final count on the line item, not the historical count changes. |
Test Entitlements, Devices, etc.
Entities in Test status are not transformed to the reporting database.
Served clients are transformed to reporting in both the DEVICE_DEMENSION and DEVICE_FACT tables but do not contain all the necessary information to create reports. They are not transformed to the DEVICE_ADDON_FACT table.
Details about license state changes for product licenses are not transformed to the reporting database. For product licenses, only events that change the requested copies or consumed copies counts are available for reporting.
FlexNet Operations reporting imposes limits on the names used for custom license model attributes and custom host attributes, the value types used for custom attributes, and the use of host attributes in custom license technologies:
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Attribute |
Description |
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Custom License Model Attribute Names |
If a custom license model attribute is required for reporting, the name of the attribute cannot contain special characters like single quote ('), double quote ("), comma (,) and question mark (?). The maximum length of the attribute name is 29 characters. Note that there are three types of custom license model attributes based on when the attribute’s value is set:
Only entitlement-time and fulfillment-time custom license model attribute types are transformed to the reporting database. |
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Custom Host Attribute Names |
Like custom license model attribute names, if a custom host attribute is required for reporting, its name cannot contain special characters, and additional constraints are imposed on the length of custom host attribute names. When a custom host attribute is loaded to the reporting database, FlexNet Operations combines the custom host attribute name and the entity’s host type to derive a unique value for the custom host attribute’s column name. The column name contains first the host type, followed by two underscore characters, followed by the custom host attribute name: <host_type>__<custom_host_attribute_name> The maximum combined length of the custom host attribute name and the host type is 27 characters. |
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Custom Attribute Value Types |
Not all possible value types for custom license model attributes and custom host attributes are supported for reporting. Specifically, the value types “multi-value” and “long text” are not supported, and these value types are not transformed by the data transformation process. All other value types are supported for reporting. |
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Host Attributes for Custom Licensing Technologies |
Host attributes for non-FlexNet licensing technologies are not transformed to the reporting database. Only FlexNet licensing host attributes are available for reporting. |
Old, Imported Fulfillment Records
Data transformation is incremental and only the new data is transformed. If old fulfillment records are imported into FlexNet Operations after data is moved to the reporting database, the transformation of these fulfillment records requires special handling. To ensure these old records are included in the reporting database, run flexnet loadreportdb to reset the reporting database and start the data transformation again.
Data transformation is an incremental process. Only new or modified line items are copied to the reporting database during transformation. If the Required for Reporting flag on the custom attribute is set to true after data transformation is done, FlexNet Operations does not update custom attribute information on the line items that have already been transformed.
To avoid this issue, consider setting the Required for Reporting flag when the custom attribute is initially created. If all line item records must be updated with custom attribute information, run flexnet loadreportdb to reset the reporting database and start the data transformation again.
Item level security is not enabled. Permissions in FlexNet Operations do not carry over into FlexNet Reporting.
For example, some FlexNet Operations users can be disabled from viewing product information or entitlements. However, these permissions are not included in FlexNet Operations reporting, whether the reports are run as direct SQL queries on the reporting database or in the administrative console. A user who has the View Reports permissions can see all reports and all data in a report.
Important:Producers who are upgrading from FlexNet Operations On-Premises version 2014 or older, and who used device-reporting functionality in that version, please contact Flexera support. Event ID types are no longer used in the data warehouse. This change requires additional steps, after the upgrade, to resolve device-reporting differences.
Version:Only changes made to the reporting database after 2017 R2 is installed will be affected by 2017 R2 software changes. Existing records (i.e. records already transformed before 2017 R2) will not be modified.
Please consult the FlexNet Operations Release Notes for information on known issues with FlexNet Operations reporting.