About managing entitlements

What is an entitlement?

An entitlement is a set of rights to a publisher's product granted by the publisher to a customer or channel partner. There are several different types of entitlements. The entitlement type is based on the type of product the entitlement is created for. Types of entitlements include:

• License entitlements, usually used to provide access to licenses. Users activate license entitlements in order to install and use the licenses. When license entitlements are activated, certificates are created.

  One type of license entitlement is called an enterprise agreement (EA) entitlement. While most entitlements are for a specific quantity, EA entitlements may have an unlimited quantity. When users activate a specific quantity from an EA entitlement, Poetic creates both an entitlement and an activated item for that quantity.

  Some entitlements require the publisher to authorize all activations. In this case, the activated item is not officially active until the authorization is completed.

• Maintenance entitlements, used to provide access to upgrades for license products. A maintenance entitlement is usually linked to a license entitlement
• Technical support entitlements, used to provide access to technical support for license products. A technical support entitlement is usually linked to a license entitlement.
• Physical entitlements, which provide access to physical products such as CDs or documentation
• Upgrade entitlements, created when customers purchase upgrade products. Activating an upgrade product implements the upgrade of the appropriate license entitlements and certificates.

Elements of an entitlement

Each entitlement is associated with:

• A product
• A quantity

• Up to three parties:

  • The sold-to company, the company that purchased the entitlement
  • The dealer company, the company that handled the sale of the entitlement. May be the publisher or a channel partner such as a distributor.
  • The end customer, the company that actually uses the entitlement

Functions for managing and activating entitlements

From Poetic, depending on your security privileges, you can:

• Create entitlements
• View information about an entitlement
• Edit information about an entitlement
• Disable an entitlement
• Split an entitlement among a company's groups
• Move entitlements to a different group within a company
• Transfer assigned entitlements to a different company or group
• Transfer unassigned entitlements through the channel structure
• Activate entitlements. See About the activation process.

There is also an Asset Dashboard to manage a company's assets.