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[INTERNAL] Procedure: How to extend a SITE (or EDU) TLA contract without creating a new one

Berangere Casson

 

TLA contract renewal (i.e. maintenance expiration date extension) requires creating a brand new contract so new activation codes will be generated for the new period of validity. If not, existing activation codes are reactivated for the new period of validity which is a security issue.

For SITE (and some EDU) contracts, for which the products are defined in the Maintenance Contract Product area, there are some ways to extend the existing TLA contract without creating a new one, so the contract ID can be kept and new activations codes are created.

These procedures are only valid for contracts with defined Maintenance Contract Products (i.e. all SITE and some EDU contracts).  For all other contracts, the standard procedure with new contact creation is still mandatory.

Important Note: the product lines in the Maintenance Contract Products area should never be deleted from the CRM as it will break the link between CRM & FNO and can cause reactivation of lines that are supposed to be inactive in FNO.

The procedures below require Tech Support actions: indeed part of these procedures have to be completed directly in the FNO producer portal.

 


Procedure 1: re-identification of the contract in the FNO

The advantage of this procedure are

  •  It does not duplicate the contract in the CRM so the contract ID is preserved
  •  The old licensing portal will be still functional afterwards. 
  •  It creates a new entitlement in FNO with the same contract ID
  •  New activation codes are generated.

It is recommended to use this procedure to extend  TLA SITE contract only. It is not recommended to use it with perpetual site contracts or mixed site contracts (i.e. including both perpetual and TLA licenses) for which activation code should not be modified.

1. step1 (Sales/Order processing): be sure the "Create/update Flexnet Entitlement" box is not checked in the CRM.

2. step 2 (Sales/Order processing): extend the expiration date of the contract both in the Expiration Date and Eval Exp. Date area of the CRM.

3. step 3 (Sales/Order processing): contact Tech Support prior to push the contract to FNO. If not the activation codes will not be updated. If any update/change should be made in the product list (Product number, Quantity...) please let Tech Support know about these changes. Please do NOT update the product list in the CRM without contacting Tech Support first.

4. step 4 (Tech Support): deactivate the existing contract in FNO. This can be done in 2 ways:

  • From FNO by editing the entitlement - Edit > Edit this Entitlement - and changing the status of each product line from Active to Inactive Status. Then save the entitlement using the Save blue button at the bottom of the page.
  • It can also be done by voiding the existing contract in the CRM -  i.e by changing the license Status from its existing status to Voided Licenses - and then pushing the contract it to FNO. It will automatically deactivate all product lines. If this second option is used the contract would need to be reset to its original Licenses status in the CRM afterwards (for example "Leased Software")

The activation codes corresponding to Inactive lines in FNO could no longer be used to activate new licenses. The licenses already activated using "old" codes will expire at the expiration date set in the Inactive product lines.

5. step 5 (Tech Support): re-identify the entitlement in FNO. To do that click on the option Edit > Reidentify, then change the ID of the entitlement by adding "-VOID" to its existing name in the Entitlement ID field. The contract is now fully voided in FN0

6. step 6 (Tech Support):  In the CRM reconfigure the existing contract as needed - update products if needed as well as expiration date if not already done - and then repush the contract to FNO: a new entitlement is created with the original ID of the contract. The voided entitlement is not updated. New activation codes for each product lines are created in the new entitlement.

 

 

 

Procedure 2: deactivation of the product lines in the CRM & FNO

The advantage of this procedure are

  • It allows to update only some product lines in a given contract.
  • The contract ID is preserved in the CRM 
  • New activation codes are generated for updated product lines.

It is recommended to use this procedure to extend  TLA licenses included in contract which mixed perpetual and TLA licenses so activation codes of perpetual licenses will be preserved.

However this approach could affect the behavior of the old licensing portal (the counter will no longer work as expected). It also duplicates the lines in the Maintenance Contact Product area in the CRM which can make the contract difficult to read/interpret in the CRM. Thus this procedure should be used with cautious and procedure 1 should be preferred if possible.

1. step1 (Sales/Order processing):  be sure the the "Create/Update Flexnet entitlement box" is not checked in the CM.

2. step 2 (Sales/Order processing): extend the maintenance expiration date of the contract in the CRM.

3. step 3 (Sales/Order processing): contact Tech Support prior to push the contract to FNO. If any          updates should be made in the product list please let the Tech Support know about these changes. Please do NOT update product list in the CRM without contacting Tech Support first. 

4. step 4 (Tech Support): Inactivate product line in the CRM. For each product line that need to be updated in the Maintenance contract product area (they should be TLA lines as new activation codes will be generated):

  • Open each line in a new tab
  • Set the status to Inactive in the CRM by clicking on the Deactivate button in the top menu and save the form.
  • Set the Suppress Member email option to Yes so no emails will be send to customers
  • Save the contract and push it to FNO
     

5. step 5 (Tech Support): check the corresponding product lines in FNO. They should be automatically set to Inactive status.

The product lines that needs to be updated are now inactive both in CRM and FNO. This is really important to NOT delete them from the CRM.

6. step 6 (Tech Support): create new product lines in the CRM (if needed).

  • Reconfigure  the product number and quantities for TLA products
  • Set the Suppress email member option to No so updated activation codes will be delivered to the customer.
  • Save the contract and push it to FNO
  • Check in FNO if the contract is well updated: new lines should have been created with new expiration dates. Inactive lines should still be set to old expiration date. 

Note that the CRM does not currently display the status of each product line which can make the contract difficult to read (add an alert to explain the updates).

 

Updated by CS (6/18/2020)