FlexNet Connect: Features

• Server-Side Conditions: Conditionally deliver software updates and messages to your users based on information stored in your internal systems, such as a CRM or customer support solution. This helps ensure that the right software updates and messages always go to the right users.
• Customer Authentication: FlexNet Connect can authenticate your customers against a back-office system to ensure they are eligible to receive software updates.
• Publisher Web Services: FlexNet Connect comes with a set of Web services you can call to simplify and automate your software update and message delivery process.

With proprietary background downloading, checkpoint restart, and bandwidth throttling technologies, FlexNet Connect ensures your customers get your software updates with a minimum of interruptions.

Software can be downloaded before displaying itself to the end-user, creating a better user experience for large downloads. Cancelled downloads are also cached, making it easy for the user to restart lengthy downloads.

1. Software updates can be delivered in four ways:
   • First, through the Common Software Manager, a desktop application which depicts updates for all products that use FlexNet Connect. Its benefit is that it requires no extra development effort on your part.
   • Second, you can use Software Manager, carrying your corporate branding and listing only messages about your product - that can be launched from inside your software. Branding can also be control at the product-level—overriding a company-specific logo.
   • Third, you can use the Wizard User Interface from within your application, enabling users to install single software updates with a simple mouse click. It is easily customized to include your product bitmap.
   • Finally, FlexNet Connect allows you to author your own custom user interface using our published APIs to programmatically control the experience. FlexNet Connect will even pass back the download status to your application so you can display your own download progress bar.
2. FlexNet Connect provides your users with information to help them decide if they want to install the software updates, including the title, description, size of the deliverable, estimated installation time, and installation instructions. Optionally, FlexNet Connect allows you to link to release notes to provide users more in-depth information.
3. On Windows machines, FlexNet Connect also notifies end users about new update in bottom right corner of the Windows taskbar.

If multiple versions of your software co-exist on an end user's machine, FlexNet Connect can deliver version-specific software updates to any one version without affecting the others. If you need to extend this targeting, you can author conditions that are evaluated on an end user machine to determine if an update should be applied. Conditionally deliver software updates and messages to your users based on information stored in your internal systems, such as a CRM or customer support solution. This helps ensure that the right software updates and messages always go to the right users.

The following reports are available out of the box:

• Demographic Reports
  Demographic reports on browser, time zone, locale and OS.
• Event-Specific Reports
  FlexNet Connect can generate reports detailing every step of the updating process, so you know not only how many users downloaded software updates, but how many end-users started the installation process and how many successfully installed the files.
• License Abuse Report
  FlexNet Connect can report on which serial numbers are used in registration, allowing users to easily detect piracy and license abuse.
• Detailed Usage Reporting
  Get the facts on your installed base and their current software version. FlexNet Connect's reporting capabilities tell you how many active customers you have and what release each specific customer is running.
• Machine Profile Reports
  If your relationship with your users explicitly permits, FlexNet Connect allows you to tie one or many pieces of data - serial number and operating system for instance - to a specific machine.
• Unique Usage or Total Usage Reporting
  FlexNet Connect reports can be run against unique usage or total usage. Unique usage measures the number of unique users of your software, while total usage measures the total number of times that users have interacted with FlexNet Connect.
• Reporting on Messages Viewed
  See how many of your customers have viewed your latest messages and what messages provide the highest click-through rates. Refine your positioning by changing your message and monitoring how it affects your results.

While traditional communication tools like email only reach the person who purchased or registered your product, FlexNet Connect ensures that your messages will reach the actual users.

Other features such as applying conditions, categorize messages (as critical or normal), scheduling, delivery staggering are also available for Marketing Messages.