FlexNet Operations 2018
You can import and export entities from FlexNet Operations database into other Operations databases. This allows you to migrate data between different FlexNet Operations installations. In addition, data export can be helpful when troubleshooting issues. For example, problematic entities can be exported to a file and then sent to tech support for review.
Imports can be either contained in packages or Unicode text. Packages are .jar files that contain an XML meta-file to describe the contents of the package and the order in which the content files should be loaded, and content XML files for the entities. Unicode .txt files are saved from Data Import Templates in .xlt format. Blank Data Import Templates can be downloaded from the Data Import Templates tab. (See Using Data Import Templates.)
Exports can be in either .jar or Data Import Template (.xlt) format. With a Data Import Template, modification of the data is simplified with tools designed to ensure compatibility with the FlexNet Operations database. (See Using Data Import Templates.)
Importing and Exporting Overview
When importing or exporting, you can select a single entity, specific entities, or all entities of a certain type. For example, you can export a single product, selected products, or all products. If you export an entity, you can also choose to export its dependent entities (dependencies). For example, if you export an entitlement, and you select its dependencies, FlexNet Operations can also export the entitlement’s dependent product, features and other associated entities.
Permission to view an entity also includes permission to export it.
Important • Only the .jar package mechanism supports importing and exporting of feature bundles.
Importable and exportable entities include:
| • | License Technologies, License Models and License Generator Configurations |
| • | Publishers and publisher identities |
| • | Custom Attributes |
| • | Features and feature bundles |
| • | Part Numbers |
| • | Transaction Keys |
| • | Products and Suites |
| • | Product relationships to license models, features, feature bundles, license models, part numbers and other products |
| • | Simple entitlements and line items |
| • | Bulk entitlements and Web register keys. |
| • | Fulfillments, including fulfillment vendor names. (Import limitations apply. See Fulfillment Import Limitations.) |
| • | Consolidated licenses |
| • | All business objects in FlexNet Operations (including account units, license technologies, products, suites, features, feature bundles, license models, entitlements, and fulfillment records). |
Important • You cannot import or export test entities, such as test entitlements.
Note • Administrative entities like roles and domains, and records like history and audit trails cannot be exported or imported.
System Configuration
Imports and exports are processed as background jobs. Before importing or exporting, you should configure an alert for the background queue.
To configure alerts for background queue processing
| 1. | Click Administer > Configure Alerts. |
| 2. | Under Export and Import Background Jobs, click Configure. |
| 3. | On the Set Alert Handlers page, set your alert handlers. |
| 4. | If desired, set a value for the interval at which FlexNet Operations will check for background jobs. The default is 5 seconds. |
| 5. | Click Save. |
| 6. | Subscribe to the alert as usual. |
Exporting Entities
To export an entity or set of entities from FlexNet Operations as JAR file
| 1. | On the landing page for the entity, do one of the following: |
| a. | To export selected entities, select one or more entities, then click Export > Export Selected or Export Selected with Their Dependencies. |
| b. | To export all entities in the list, click Export > Export All Entities or Export All with Their Dependencies. |
| 2. | The selected entities are exported to a jar file. If you chose to include dependencies, the dependencies are included. |
To export the entire FlexNet Operations database
| 1. | Click Administer > Export Data Objects. |
| 2. | On the Export Business Objects page, click Export. |
| 3. | Click Yes to confirm export. |
| 4. | All exportable business objects in FlexNet Operations are exported to a .jar file. Your job is assigned a request number, and an alert is sent when processing is completed. You can check the job status on the Status page. See Import/Export Job Status for more information. |
To export a set of entities from FlexNet Operations as Data Import Template file
| 1. | On the landing page for the entity, click Export > Data Import Template. |
Note • For Users and Accounts, click Export > Data Import Template from any tab. All user or all account data will be exported into the template file. For Download Packages and Files, go to the Products > Search Download or Search Files page and click the Search button to access the Search Results page, then click Export > Data Import Template. All Download Packages or all Files will be downloaded into the template file regardless of the filtering on the search page.
| 2. | A message similar to the following appears: |
Request 43 to export all Products successfully submitted. An alert will be sent after the request is processed.
| 3. | Go to Administer > Import/Export Status. |
| 4. | When the request has completed, select the check box next to its Job ID and click the Download exported file button. The selected entities are exported to a Data Import Template (.xlt) file. Data for all the tabs in the template are included in the downloaded file. |
Note • The Products download does not include the Create/Update Product line tab data available in the blank Data Import Template. Save each tab of the downloaded .xlt file as a separate Unicode text file for uploading to another instance of FlexNet Operations. The Create-Update Features data is included as a separate tab in the PackageProducts.xlt export as well as a standalone tab in the FeatureExport.xlt export.
Importing Entities
To import a set of entities into FlexNet Operations
| 1. | Click Administer > Import Data Objects. |
| 2. | In the Import Settings tab, under Upload Type, select either Unicode of Data Import Template or Jar file. If you select Unicode of Data Import Template, skip to Step 6. , otherwise go to Step 3. . |
| 3. | If you are importing a JAR file larger than 2 MB in size, click the Run job in background? check box. |
| • | If Run job in background? is selected (default setting), FlexNet Operations processes the import job asynchronously. FlexNet Operations submits the job for processing and assigns the job a record number. (You can check the status of the import job on the status page. See Import/Export Job Status for more information.) |
| • | If Run job in background? is not selected, FlexNet Operations processes the import immediately. |
See Configuring Alert Behavior for more information on configuring background jobs.
| 4. | For Error handling, select one of the following options: |
| • | Continue with errors—The import process continues even if errors are encountered. |
| • | Stop import job—The import process stops upon encountering an error. |
| 5. | For Duplicate record handling, select one of the following options: |
| • | Update record—If the entity already exists in the database, the record is updated with the information in the import file. |
| • | Skip and Generate Error—If the entity already exists in the database, it is not updated and an error message is generated. |
| 6. | For File Name, click Browse. Browse to the Unicode .txt or .jar file containing the data you wish to import. |
Note • When importing a large number of Web Register Keys, it is recommended to limit each job to a maximum of 1,000 keys to optimize performance. If necessary, split the task into multiple jobs to stay within the recommended limit.
| 7. | Click Import. The file is imported into FlexNet Operations. |
Import Order
If copying data from one instance of FlexNet Operations to another, dependencies such as Transaction Keys, License Technologies and License Models must be imported first. Use the Selected Items with their Dependencies (if available) or Selected items to download a JAR file from their respective entity page and upload them before uploading a Product Packing or Entitlement Management Unicode text file. See To export an entity or set of entities from FlexNet Operations as JAR file, and To download a Data Import Template for more information.
Note • Not all entities have an export option. For any entity page that does not include an Export option, data will need to be manually entered into the new instance of FlexNet Operations
The following lists the order each type of entity should be uploaded.
| 1. | Dependencies must be uploaded in the following order: |
| a. | License Generator |
| b. | License Technology |
| c. | License Model |
| d. | Hosts |
| e. | Accounts |
| f. | Users |
| g. | Product Lines |
| h. | Custom Attributes |
| i. | Custom Host Attributes |
| j. | Custom License Attributes |
| 2. | Product entities must be uploaded in the following order: |
| a. | Features |
| b. | Products |
| c. | Maintenance Products |
| d. | Part Number or Product Relationship |
| 3. | Entitlement entities must be uploaded in the following order: |
| a. | Simple and Bulk Entitlements |
| b. | Maintenance Line Item |
| c. | Web Reg Keys |
Fulfillment Import Limitations
If updates on import are allowed, the following limitations apply:
| • | Existing on-hold fulfillments can be updated only to active by import. |
| • | Existing active fulfillments can be updated only to obsolete by import. |
| • | Existing obsolete fulfillments cannot be updated by import. |
Data Import Templates enable you to do a batch import of data into FlexNet Operations. You can add new entities or modify existing ones. This approach may be preferred if there is a lot of data to be added or modified.
Templates for entitlements, accounts and users, and products can be downloaded and populated with data that can be imported into a FlexNet Operations database using the import function (see the task: To import a set of entities into FlexNet Operations). Features of the templates include
| • | Color coded column headers based on transaction type, account, user, entitlement, line item, product and feature. |
| • | Column headings of required fields for a transaction are in bold. |
| • | Column heading comments containing information about the data expected for the column and any other column dependencies associated with this column. |
Any Custom Attribute fields you have configured will be included in the templates. Unique Custom Attributes and License Model Attributes and Policies utilize the following heading name conventions:
| • | License Model Attribute: LM[<LicenseModelName>|<AttributeName>] |
| • | License Model Policy Attribute: PO[<LicenseModelName>|<AttributeName>|<PolicyAbbreviation] |
| • | Custom Attributes: CA[<Entity>|<AttributeName>] where Entity = USER, PROD, ENT, or LINE |
To download a Data Import Template
| 1. | Click Administer > Import Data Objects. |
| 2. | Click the Data Import Templates tab. |
| 3. | Click the appropriate Download link for one of the following template types: |
| • | Account and User Template—Accounts and users |
| • | Product Packaging Template—Products, features, and other data associated with product packaging. |
| • | Entitlement Management Template—Entitlements, maintenance line items, bulk entitlements, web register keys and other data associated with entitlements. |
| • | Download Packaging Template—Download packages, files and other data associated with download packages. |
| 4. | Save the .xlt file |
Editing and saving a Data Import Template
| 1. | Open the .xlt file in Excel (or another compatible spreadsheet application). |
| 2. | Fill in the spreadsheet columns as appropriate. |
Important • CreateUpdate transactions may blank existing data. If you upload a file containing transactions of these types, FlexNet Operations assumes any columns you include contain the desired value. If a column contains all empty values, then when FlexNet Operations updates the records any existing data is lost. If you do not want to provide values in a column, then remove the column from the spreadsheet.
When working with spreadsheets, mind the following guidelines:
| • | Do not change heading names. If they are changed the transactions will be processed but values in the columns whose names have been changed will not get assigned to the corresponding fields in the database. |
| • | Only columns with a heading in bold text are required. |
| • | Hover over the heading to see comments on how to populate the field and to determine if there is a dependency requiring other columns to be completed. If there is more text in the comment that can be viewed by hovering over the heading, right click the heading and select Edit Comment to open the comment box and use the arrow keys to scroll up or down. |
| • | For Users, see Time Zone Settings for correct construct of the time zone attribute. |
| • | For Accounts, self-registered accounts cannot be imported into the Producer Portal. |
| • | Products and Entitlements contain multi-valued attributes such as features and line items. In order to have multiple features and line items, they cannot be set in a single row but must be added on separate rows repeating any identifier fields for the product or entitlement. Data that is only needed once for the transaction type is taken from the first row and data that can have multiple values is aggregated from the succeeding rows, which is why you cannot change a field using multiple rows of data for the same product or entitlement in the same Data Import Template file. |
| • | If you want to change a field for products or entitlements, it should be uploaded in a separate Data Import Template file. |
| • | When importing a large number of Web Register Keys, it is recommended to limit each job to a maximum of 1000 keys to optimize performance. If necessary, split the task into multiple jobs to stay within the recommended limit. |
| 3. | Once all changes are made, save the file as a Unicode .txt file. |
One of the attributes that can be set for creating/updating users is the time zone for that person. Use the following table to determine the correct time zone configuration.
|
Time Zone |
Setting |
|
Midway Island, Samoa |
GMT-11.0DST0 |
|
Hawaii |
GMT-10.0DST0 |
|
Hawaii-Aleutian Daylight Time |
GMT-10.0DST60 |
|
Marquesas Time |
GMT-9.5DST0 |
|
Gambier Time |
GMT-9.0DST0 |
|
Alaska Daylight Time |
GMT-9,0DST60 |
|
Pitcairn Standard Time |
GMT-8.0DST0 |
|
Pacific Time |
GMT-8.0DST60 |
|
Mountain Standard Time |
GMT-7.0DST0 |
|
Mountain Daylight Time |
GMT-7.0DST60 |
|
Central America |
GMT-6.0DST0 |
|
Central Time |
GMT-6.0DST60 |
|
Ecuador, Columbia, Peru Time |
GMT-5.0DST0 |
|
Eastern Time |
GMT-5.0DST60 |
|
Venezuela Time |
GMT-4.5DST0 |
|
Guyana, Bolivia Time |
GMT-4.0DST0 |
|
Atlantic Time (Canada) |
GMT-4.0DST60 |
|
Newfoundland Daylight Time |
GMT-3.5DST60 |
|
Argentine Time, French Guiana, Uruguay Time |
GMT-3.0DST0 |
|
Brazil, Greenland Time |
GMT-3.0DST60 |
|
Mid-Atlantic |
GMT-2.0DST0 |
|
Cape Verde Time |
GMT-1.0DST0 |
|
Azores Time |
GMT-1.0DST60 |
|
Coordinated Universal Time |
GMT0.0.DST0 |
|
British Time |
GMT0.0DST60 |
|
Antarctica/Troll |
GMT0.0DST120 |
|
Western Africa Time |
GMT1.0DST0 |
|
Western European Time |
GMT1.0DST60 |
|
Central African, South African Standard Time |
GMT2.0DST0 |
|
Israel Daylight Time, Eastern European Time |
GMT2.0DST60 |
|
Arabia Time |
GMT3.0DST0 |
|
Iran Daylight Time |
GMT3.5DST60 |
|
Mauritius, Seychelles Time |
GMT4.0DST0 |
|
Georgia, Armenia, Azerbaijan Time |
GMT4.0DST60 |
|
Afghanistan Time |
GMT4.5DST0 |
|
Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan, Pakistan, Maldives Time |
GMT5.0DST0 |
|
India Standard Time |
GMT5.5DST0 |
|
Nepal Time |
GMT5.75DST0 |
|
Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Bhutan Time |
GMT6.0DST0 |
|
Myanmar Time, Cocos Island Time |
GMT6.5DST0 |
|
Indochina, Christmas Island Time |
GMT7.0DST0 |
|
Krasnoyarsk Time |
GMT7.0DST60 |
|
China, Malaysia, Hong Kong, Singapore, Phillippines, Western Australia Time |
GMT8,0DST0 |
|
Irkutsk Summer Time |
GMT8.0DST60 |
|
Pyongyang Time |
GMT8.5DST0 |
|
Central Western Standard Time (Australia) |
GMT8.75DST0 |
|
Japan, Korea Standard Time |
GMT9.0DST0 |
|
Australia Northern Territory Time |
GMT9.5DST0 |
|
South Australia Time |
GMT9.5DST60 |
|
Papua New Guinea |
GMT10.0DST0 |
|
Tasmania, Victoria, New South Wales Time |
GMT10.0DST60 |
|
Load Howe Summer Time |
GMT10.5DST30 |
|
New Caledonia, Vanuatu, Solomon Island Time |
GMT11.0DST0 |
|
Fiji, Marshall Islands Time |
GMT12.0DST0 |
|
New Zealand Time |
GMT12.0DST60 |
|
Chatham Daylight Time |
GMT12.75DST60 |
|
Phoenix Island Time, Tonga Time |
GMT13.0DST0 |
|
Enderbury, Fakaofo, Tongatapu Island Time |
GMT13.0DST60 |
|
Line Island Time |
GMT14DST0 |
You can view the status of data import or export operations executed in the background on the Import/Export Status page.
Note • You should first configure the Export and Import Background Jobs alert on the Configure Alerts page. The default setting for this alert is a Detection and Notification interval of 30 days with a status of inactive. See To configure alerts for background queue processing for more information.
To check the status of an import or export job
| 1. | Click Administer > Import/Export Status. |
| 2. | The Export & Import Job Status page opens with a table which includes the following: |
|
Column |
Description |
|
Job ID |
Auto generated unique identifier. |
|
Request type |
Import or Export. |
|
Export type |
The type of business object being exported. If downloading all business objects, the value is FlexNet Operations. |
|
Submitted by |
The ID of the user making the import or export request. |
|
Submitted on |
Date and time of the import or export was submitted. |
|
Input filename |
Name of the file being imported or exported. |
|
State |
Failed—All of the entities failed on import. Completed—At least one of the entities succeeded on import. |
|
Completed time |
Date and time the import or export was completed. |
|
Error |
If some or all of the entity transactions have failed, the following message appears: Some of the entities have failed. Please view the error log for details. Download Error Log There will be a link to a zip file containing the download error log in xml format. If there were no failures, this column is blank. |
| 3. | To delete a job from the historical record, select the job and click Delete. |
| 4. | To download a job log to a local file, select the job and click Download Exported File. |
FlexNet Operations Producer Portal Help LibraryFebruary 2018 |
Copyright Information | Flexera Software |