CREATING AN EDITION

PROCESS

SLASCONE is built considering the entire licensing lifecycle and the different organizational roles of software vendors.

In a typical SLASCONE scenario:

1. Product managers define the product master data which are features, limitations, variables and heartbeat frequency etc. This usually happens during the initial setup. After initialization, products are edited only in case of product structural changes (e.g., new feature).
2. Based on this data, the next step is to create editions. This can be a frequent process, since product managers might define new or special product editions, trial packages or bundles.
3. License creation based on an edition. You can not create a license without an edition.
4. The license properties/values might change. This can happen during an upgrade or a renewal. The end user does not get a new license key. You just need to update the current license.

FUNDAMENTAL PROPERTIES

When creating an edition, you need to define the provisioning mode and the client type. These two are fundamental properties of the edition that cannot be changed. These properties have a huge impact on the way the underlying licenses behave.

• Provisioning Mode
  • Named
  • Floating
• Client Type
  • Devices
  • Users

ADJUSTABLE PROPERTIES

Editions provide enormous flexibility in terms of license creation. This is based on the notion of adjustable properties. Assume the following example based on a product feature. In the edition you can choose between the following 2 options:

Adjustable: When creating a new license, the value (on/off) is pre-populated, but the license creator is able to change it.

Not Adjustable: When creating a new license, the license creator is not able to change the value of this feature.

The relationship between editions and licenses is perpetual. Every change in the edition has immediate effect on the underlying licenses.

• All properties are Not Adjustable: The edition is so restrictive, that the license creator can just create a license but not change anything.
• All properties are Adjustable: The edition is just used for value initialization. The license creator can change everything.
• Mixture of Adjustable and Not Adjustable properties: Provides great flexibility. The license creator can change only the values, that the edition allows.

IMPLICATIONS

• New Feature: If the next version of your product contains a brand-new feature, you can control what happens with existing licenses. Typically, you would set this feature as not adjustable in the edition and set the value (on/off) according to your product management decisions. The value might be on in an edition and off in another one.
• Premium to Standard Feature: Assume a feature that was very innovative (premium) some years ago, but standard nowadays, which means you can not charge extra for this anymore. Instead of having to iterate over all licenses to set its value to on, you can just set its value to off/not adjustable in the edition.