The Smart-Search Filter

FlexNet Manager Suite 2020 R2 (On-Premises)

The smart-search filter at the top left of the Apply Allocations and Exemptions page provides a three-way search of products, applications, and licenses, and the relationships between them. It quickly focuses the page listing on the items where you need to manage allocations and exemptions.

Note: Enter a search string that may occur across all your intended items, taking into account the naming conventions used in your enterprise. For example, the string SQL Server may occur in all of products, applications, and licenses; but the string Microsoft SQL Server 2012 identifies a version-specific application, and typically excludes other members of the product family.

To use the smart-search filter:

1. Click the pencil icon next to the All licensed applications filter, visible just under the page title.

   The smart-search fly-down panel appears.

2. Specify your search string and click Search.
   FlexNet Manager Suite populates the Results section with products, applications, and licenses that include the search string. By default, products and applications are only included if they are linked to licenses, as these are the items most often affected by allocations and exemptions.

   Tip: The search is limited to 100 results. Since your database may potentially contain millions of rows covering these different objects and their related installations, make your search string sufficiently specific to provide a usefully-limited data set.
3. If you wish to expand the results to include applications and products not yet linked to licenses, set the Include applications without a license check box immediately above the Results list.

   This is helpful, for example, when you want to identify unlicensed applications. When you apply this filter to the underlying page, you see related installations of the selected unlicensed applications. The application may then be linked to an appropriate license from either the application properties or the license properties. (Keep in mind that unlicensed installations are always included in the underlying page listing. These may be installations that have somehow been excluded from license reconciliation, even though the related application is already linked to one or more licenses. For example, relevant licenses may have scope restrictions that exclude a particular installation.) Remember that selecting this check box may significantly increase the number of Results returned: if necessary, further refine your search string.

4. Use the links above the Results list to temporarily restrict the results to only those products, or applications, or licenses, that matched your search string. Click All items to restore the full listing.

   Notice that any selections already made in the Results list are preserved as you switch between these views.

5. Use the check box on the left of any row(s) to add results to the Selected items field above the Results list.

   To correct mis-steps, you may clear the same check box, or click X on the right of the item's card in the Selected items field.

6. Optionally, you may clear the Search for field, enter a new search string, and repeat the above process to add any other items to your Selected items group.

   Selected items do not need to be of a single type. In this way, you can build complex and unique selections that focus the underlying page on exactly the items you need to work on. Remember that the Save view as control on the underlying page also saves the state of this smart-search filter, so that you can save and reuse these settings as often as you require.

7. To commit to your current Selected items, simply the close the smart-search filter panel by either:
   • Clicking theX in its top right corner
   • Clicking on the underlying page outside the filter panel.

After a moment, the Apply Allocations and Exemptions page refreshes to show records matching your settings that are:

• Installation records, potentially including installations that have not been linked to licenses and are not yet reflected in your consumption counts and compliance position (well worth identifying before an audit)
• Allocation records, which may include allocations made to a license for installations that have not yet appeared in inventory (such as devices for road warriors that cannot be inventoried; or additions to your hardware fleet not yet included in imported inventory)
• Exemptions to license consumption, which may be either specific exemptions made for a particular device/user, or exemptions based on a match between the product use rights and the specific role specified for a device (technically, an exemption functions like an allocation, linking the device or user to the specified license and no other).

Now use other filters on the Apply Allocations and Exemptions page (either the column filter or the advanced filter, as described in Using Filters to Limit Data Size) to further restrict the listing until you can focus on the individual records to work on. For example, to work on allocations and exemptions for a Device license for machines in your Melbourne office, add column filters for:

• License type, set to Device
• Location (an inventory device property added from the column chooser), set to be equal to Melbourne.