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Software products with licensing
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| What is the best practice to create products with licensing. Our company has
many software products that have all different licensing defined. I think
the way to go is to create product variant for each licensing type. Is there
another way to do this so that I can define diffenet licensing types and then
select one of the type for a product ? This way I wouldn't have to insert
every product separately with catalog manager. Is there any problems with
this solution when adding product to the basket (it has only one price)?
| |
| Vinayak Tadas[MSFT] 2005-03-02, 6:02 pm |
| Have you considered adding custom properties to the product definition and
associate the different licensing types with these properties?
--------------------
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From: "=?Utf-8?B?a3Y=?=" <kv@discussions.microsoft.com>
Subject: Software products with licensing
Date: Wed, 2 Mar 2005 06:43:07 -0800
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What is the best practice to create products with licensing. Our company
has
many software products that have all different licensing defined. I think
the way to go is to create product variant for each licensing type. Is
there
another way to do this so that I can define diffenet licensing types and
then
select one of the type for a product ? This way I wouldn't have to insert
every product separately with catalog manager. Is there any problems with
this solution when adding product to the basket (it has only one price)?
Thanks
Vinayak Tadas
Microsoft
http://blogs.msdn.com/vinayakt
This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.
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reserved.
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Get Secure! For more info visit http://www.microsoft.com/security. Please
reply to the newsgroups only. Thanks
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| Thanx for the fast reply, I don't understand exactly what you mean though. I
wrote the previous post in a hurry so I try to define my problem with a
little more detail.
Our company has many products with different licensing. eg.
Product 1
1 license - 100.-
2-10 licenses - 500,-
11-50 licenses - 1000,-
1 license with support - 120,-
2-10 licenses with support - 550,-
11-50 licenses with support - 1200,-
We have different licensing models and many products have the same licensing
model.
One way to do this would be to create a product called Product1 and another
one called Product 1 with support. Then I would add variants to these
products with the name "1 license" - "2-10 licenses" ... etc. In this way it
is possible to make this solution but we have a LOT of products and it
requires quite a lot of work to create and manage all the products with
catalog manager.
Another way I can see is to add a property for the product which defines the
pricing type (type1, type1-support, type2..etc). This way I could make an
external table to contain the pricing models and bind this table to the
catalog. This way works but I don't know if there's a problem with the
pipelines and discounts etc when the price of the product doesn't come from
the commerce server product catalog.
""Vinayak Tadas[MSFT]"" wrote:
> Have you considered adding custom properties to the product definition and
> associate the different licensing types with these properties?
> --------------------
> Thread-Topic: Software products with licensing
> thread-index: AcUfNiXVJ7ZO0fL/SH+Legn1f4TeoQ==
> X-WBNR-Posting-Host: 213.180.179.194
> From: "=?Utf-8?B?a3Y=?=" <kv@discussions.microsoft.com>
> Subject: Software products with licensing
> Date: Wed, 2 Mar 2005 06:43:07 -0800
> Lines: 7
> Message-ID: <3BF5BB8D-6331-47AF-918B-B6FA95066031@microsoft.com>
> MIME-Version: 1.0
> Content-Type: text/plain;
> charset="Utf-8"
> Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
> X-Newsreader: Microsoft CDO for Windows 2000
> Content-Class: urn:content-classes:message
> Importance: normal
> Priority: normal
> X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V6.00.3790.0
> Newsgroups: microsoft.public.commerceserver.catalog
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> Path: TK2MSFTNGXA02.phx.gbl!TK2MSFTNGXA01.phx.gbl!TK2MSFTNGXA03.phx.gbl
> Xref: TK2MSFTNGXA02.phx.gbl microsoft.public.commerceserver.catalog:5277
> X-Tomcat-NG: microsoft.public.commerceserver.catalog
>
> What is the best practice to create products with licensing. Our company
> has
> many software products that have all different licensing defined. I think
> the way to go is to create product variant for each licensing type. Is
> there
> another way to do this so that I can define diffenet licensing types and
> then
> select one of the type for a product ? This way I wouldn't have to insert
> every product separately with catalog manager. Is there any problems with
> this solution when adding product to the basket (it has only one price)?
>
>
> Thanks
> Vinayak Tadas
> Microsoft
> http://blogs.msdn.com/vinayakt
>
> This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.
> You assume all risk for your use. © 2002 Microsoft Corporation. All rights
> reserved.
> Use of included script samples are subject to the terms specified at
> http://www.microsoft.com/info/cpyright.htm
> Get Secure! For more info visit http://www.microsoft.com/security. Please
> reply to the newsgroups only
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| I have to still describe my case a little further.
I have more than 100 products that I have to manage in the commerce server
database. These products will be exported from CRM product catalog and
imported to CS2K2 FP1 catalog.
Each product have different licensing defined for it. eg.
(lic = licenses / ma = maintenance)
Product 1
1 - 24 lic 100 per license
25-49 lic 80 per license
>= 50 lic 50 per license
Product 1 with maintenance
1 - 24 lic 110 per license
25-49 lic 90 per license
>= 50 lic 55 per license
for this example I don't know what is the best way to do it. it's possible
to create category "Product 1" and variants for this product:
1-24 licenses price 100,-
25-49 licenses price 90,-
over 50 licenses price 55,-
then I could programmatically control that user can't add 25 times "1-24
licenses" variant in the basket.
Another product:
Product 2
25 licenses 250 (for the package)
50 licenses 400 (for the package)
100 licenses 600 (for the package)
100 - 149 licenses 5.90 per license
150 - 249 licenses 5.50 per license
....
....
in this model I can define product the same way than in the first case and
programmatically manage the basket.
There's also some other licensing models but I think these 2 are enough to
explain the problem.
If there's some "real life" examples for this problem, I would be more than
happy to get some input.
"kv" wrote:
[vbcol=seagreen]
> Thanx for the fast reply, I don't understand exactly what you mean though. I
> wrote the previous post in a hurry so I try to define my problem with a
> little more detail.
>
> Our company has many products with different licensing. eg.
> Product 1
> 1 license - 100.-
> 2-10 licenses - 500,-
> 11-50 licenses - 1000,-
>
> 1 license with support - 120,-
> 2-10 licenses with support - 550,-
> 11-50 licenses with support - 1200,-
>
> We have different licensing models and many products have the same licensing
> model.
>
> One way to do this would be to create a product called Product1 and another
> one called Product 1 with support. Then I would add variants to these
> products with the name "1 license" - "2-10 licenses" ... etc. In this way it
> is possible to make this solution but we have a LOT of products and it
> requires quite a lot of work to create and manage all the products with
> catalog manager.
>
> Another way I can see is to add a property for the product which defines the
> pricing type (type1, type1-support, type2..etc). This way I could make an
> external table to contain the pricing models and bind this table to the
> catalog. This way works but I don't know if there's a problem with the
> pipelines and discounts etc when the price of the product doesn't come from
> the commerce server product catalog.
>
> ""Vinayak Tadas[MSFT]"" wrote:
>
| |
| Ravi Shankar 2005-03-04, 2:47 am |
| One programatic solution to your problem is to write a small program that
would query your CRM Product Catalog and create the appropriate Catalog XML
which can then be imported into Commerce Server. You could write it as a
service which runs on a remote machine (where your CRM is) and uses the FP1
Catalog API (web service) to submit the Catalog for Import.... so you would
need to only manage the products in your CRM and have it reflected into
Commerce Server.
"kv" wrote:
[vbcol=seagreen]
> I have to still describe my case a little further.
>
> I have more than 100 products that I have to manage in the commerce server
> database. These products will be exported from CRM product catalog and
> imported to CS2K2 FP1 catalog.
>
> Each product have different licensing defined for it. eg.
> (lic = licenses / ma = maintenance)
>
> Product 1
> 1 - 24 lic 100 per license
> 25-49 lic 80 per license
>
> Product 1 with maintenance
> 1 - 24 lic 110 per license
> 25-49 lic 90 per license
>
> for this example I don't know what is the best way to do it. it's possible
> to create category "Product 1" and variants for this product:
> 1-24 licenses price 100,-
> 25-49 licenses price 90,-
> over 50 licenses price 55,-
>
> then I could programmatically control that user can't add 25 times "1-24
> licenses" variant in the basket.
>
>
> Another product:
> Product 2
> 25 licenses 250 (for the package)
> 50 licenses 400 (for the package)
> 100 licenses 600 (for the package)
> 100 - 149 licenses 5.90 per license
> 150 - 249 licenses 5.50 per license
> ...
> ...
>
> in this model I can define product the same way than in the first case and
> programmatically manage the basket.
>
> There's also some other licensing models but I think these 2 are enough to
> explain the problem.
>
> If there's some "real life" examples for this problem, I would be more than
> happy to get some input.
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> "kv" wrote:
>
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| That would be the plan on the longer term. I think this makes more sense when
CRM 2.0 and CS2K6 comes out because in CS2K6 there should be better
connectivity to back end systems. At the moment we don't store products in
CRM so we just enter the products to CS.
Even though I would create a service to export/import catalog data form CRM
to CS, the initial problem is not solved: how should I manage licensed
products with commerce server?
I'm making some tests and research but there seems to not to be much
information / examples on complex product types or catalogs available.
"Ravi Shankar" wrote:
[vbcol=seagreen]
> One programatic solution to your problem is to write a small program that
> would query your CRM Product Catalog and create the appropriate Catalog XML
> which can then be imported into Commerce Server. You could write it as a
> service which runs on a remote machine (where your CRM is) and uses the FP1
> Catalog API (web service) to submit the Catalog for Import.... so you would
> need to only manage the products in your CRM and have it reflected into
> Commerce Server.
>
>
> "kv" wrote:
>
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