Managing offerings

Using Offerings

Adding an offering

The offerings are located under the "Product Catalog" > "Offerings" on the left menu.

To add a new offering, click 'Add Offering' on the button in the right corner.

In order to create an offering, you will need to ensure you have already added all the various products, editions, and plans you need to build them.

Next, build up the offering from the "parts" discussed above, starting with the "product" in the system you want to use for this offering, choosing from the dropdown menu.

Next, name the offering something easy to use or the same as your price list description.

Adding your SKU record

Add an SKU that matches your product item in your billing, CRM, ERP or, accounting systems etc.

In the context of software licensing, a SKU is a code or number that identifies a specific software product or licensing option.

For example, a software vendor might use a SKU to differentiate between different versions of their software, such as a basic version and a professional version, or to track the number of licenses that have been sold for a particular product.

SKUs can also be used by resellers and distributors to track their inventory and sales, and to ensure that they are ordering and selling the correct products.

Then, choose from your "edition" list to match the edition you want to offer.

Next, choose the appropriate plan option.

Choose the optional "maintenance."

You can add maintenance to your offering or skip this step if it is unnecessary.

If you wish to use the maintenance option, click the drop-down box to "enable" the option.

If you also chose a "perpetual" plan type, you can add the maintenance period's length.

You will not see the length option unless you choose a perpetual plan.

Set the seat limit

Now, set the seat count (the number of activations or seats allowed per the entitlement (e.g., 1 or 2 is normal for a B2C desktop app. so that a user can install it on one or two devices before they are prevented from further usage, etc.)

Seat count is the number of seats available on an Entitlement that has been set from the Offering with which this entitlement has been created, but it can be amended at the Entitlement level.

Seats used - currently used seats.

Seats - overview of seats used from seat count, presented in the form of 3/21 in the UI.

Set the concurrency mode

Plus, the type of concurrency mode: Concurrent or Node Lock (i.e., a pool of licenses or single device type license).

• Node lock licenses are meant to be permanently activated against a given machine/seat and are not returned upon terminating the application. They are persistent licenses (not to be confused with perpetual licenses).

• Concurrent (also called ‘Floating’) licenses allow a maximum number of concurrent seats active on the entitlement at any one point in time. Upon startup, the application would attempt to check a seat out of the license pool and check it back in once the application terminates. If the application dies without explicitly returning the license, the seat will automatically be returned once the lease expires.

Overdraft seat limit

Finally, set the "overdraft seat limit" if you plan to use this option.

Overdrafts, as the name suggests, allow you to set a soft limit of seats that match the order from the customer with a higher hard limit (or no limit at all = unlimited).

If the user customer installs more than they purchased, you can track and alert both sales and your users about their overuse (overdraft) and potentially offer an upsell to a different offering or upgrade.

In this example, we set a seat limit of a single seat but allowed the user to install up to three seats, as soon as they install seat two or three they will be in "overdraft" and you will be able to track that and use that data to offer an upgrade.

See this article for details on overdrafts and their use to drive new revenues.

NOTE: even though you can select a single seat with a % overdraft option, we will simply round the number using math functions to avoid odd situations like 50% of a seat, etc

The last step

Click 'save'.

Repeat until all your offerings are set up.

Now you can add entitlements to your offering, simply click "add entitlement" on the offering page or go to the entitlements section in the left navigation.

Once you have an offering set up, think of it as a template from which you can now produce your entitlements. These entitlements can be modified post-creation to make them unique, but offerings allow for a fast and controlled way to create entitlements quickly and in bulk as required.

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Editing an offering

Pick one from the list to edit an offering

Click on the row.

Click the edit button top right of the first section.

Edit as required.

Click save.

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Deleting a offering

To delete an offering, pick one from the list.

Pick the 'three dots' icon on the top right.

Select 'Delete offering.'

An additional layer of "security" has been added to ensure the user understands the consequences and has to take various actions before deleting the object.

Confirm you wish to delete when prompted for confirmation.

Now, the user will see a second layer of security as three objects are attached (entitlements) to this one, so deleting this will also delete those other objects.

In this case, to delete, you must select the two warning radio boxes and type in the name of the offering. Here, that's "Test Offering."

Then click delete to complete the process.

Any form of deletion CAN NOT BE UNDONE. BE VERY CAREFUL WHEN DELETING.

Next, we move on to the final step in setting up your ability to start testing or selling entitlements and the associated activation codes.

To learn what each of the values above means, refer to the Glossary here