Channel Partners

>Prerequisites for Creating a Channel Partner

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What Is a Channel Partner?

A channel partner is an organization that is allowed to resell the software vendor's products. End users can buy directly from the software vendor or from its channel partners.

A channel partner can have multiple channel partner users, who manage entitlements for their customers. The following functions can be performed by a channel partner user:

>View entitlement details.

>Activate entitlements.

NOTE Vendors can create and manage channel partners using the Sentinel EMS vendor portal. Channel partners can manage their own entitlements, and so on, using the out-of-the-box Sentinel EMS APIs.

To enable channel partners to use a GUI-based platform for entitlement management and other types of tasks, vendors can subscribe to the Enhanced Partner Portal (EPP), which is as an add-on feature. This portal enables a vendor's channel partners to easily perform tasks, such as splitting, transferring, and activating entitlements, and so on, in a code-free environment.

If you are interested in the possibilities that EPP can offer, please contact us via email at smsales@thalesgroup.com.

Prerequisites for Creating a Channel Partner

A role that includes Channel Partner Management permissions. At minimum, the user needs Add permissions to create and manage channel partners. For details, see Roles.

Channel Partner Status

The Status attribute for a channel partner can be one of the following:

>Enabled: The channel partner user can manage entitlements for their customers.

>Disabled: The channel partner user is blocked from managing entitlements for their customers.

Creating a Channel Partner

You create a channel partner from the Channel Partners page.

To create a channel partner:

1.From the navigation pane, select Channel Partners to view the Channel Partners page.

2.Click the Add Channel Partner button.

3.Fill in the channel partner attributes.

4.Click Save.

Channel Partner Attributes

The following table explains the attributes that are used to create a channel partner:

Attribute	Description	Required/Optional	Valid Values
Name	Name of the channel partner.	Required	>Alphanumeric >Special characters >1 to 250 characters >Sentinel EMS allows two or more channel partners with the same name. >Two or more channel partner with the same name are distinguished using the channel partner identifier
Identifier	Unique identifier for the channel partner. If not specified, then the value is automatically generated by the system.	Optional	>Must be unique
Additional Attributes
External ID	External reference identifier that uniquely identifies the channel partner in an external system.	Optional	>Unique across Sentinel EMS for all channel partners. >Alphanumeric >0 to 100 characters
Ref ID 1	Reference identifier that identifies the channel partner in an external system.	Optional	>Alphanumeric >0 to 100 characters
Ref ID 2	Reference identifier that identifies the channel partner in an external system.	Optional	>Alphanumeric >0 to 100 characters
Billing and Shipping Address Attributes Billing Address
Street/PO Box	Street address or the post office box details of the channel partner for billing statements (for example credit card statements).	Optional	0 to 100 characters
City	City of the channel partner.	Optional	0 to 30 characters
State/Province	State or province of the channel partner.	Optional	0 to 30 characters
Country	Country of the channel partner.	Optional	0 to 30 characters
ZIP Code / Postal Code	ZIP or postal code of the channel partner.	Optional	0 to 50 characters
Use as Shipping Address	>Select Yes to use the same address for both billing and order shipment. > Select No to expand the pane and specify a different Shipping Address for receiving orders.	Required	Yes (default) OR No

Adding a Channel Partner User

You can add a channel partner user using the Edit action.

To add a channel partner user:

1.From the navigation pane, select Channel Partners to view the Channel Partners page.

2.Click the Edit action for the channel partner for which you want to add a channel partner user.

3.On the Edit Channel Partner page, under the Associate Users pane, click Add and Associate User. The Add and Associate User dialog box opens:

4.Fill in the channel partner user attributes.

5.Click Save to save the channel partner user details.

Channel Partner User Attributes

The following table explains the attributes for users associated with channel partners:

Attribute	Description	Required/Optional	Valid Values
User ID	Unique identification for user. NOTE User ID cannot be modified using the Edit action.	Required	>Alphanumeric >Special characters supported: _ (underscore) >6 to 100 characters >3 to 100 characters for SSO users
Password	Password for the user to log on to Sentinel EMS.	Required	> 8 to 30 characters >At least one lowercase character (a-z) >At least one uppercase character (A-Z) >At least one number (0-9) or special character (! @ # $ % ^ & * ( ) _ - + = , .) >The ':' character is not supported.
Email	Email address of the user.	Required	>Unique across all users, contacts, and channel partner users existing in Sentinel EMS. >A valid email address >Up to 100 characters >Cannot contain: spaces and \ () [] : ; “ <> >Cannot start with a '.' >Cannot contain double .. >Cannot contain double @@
Additional Attributes
Name	Name of the user.	Optional	0 to 100 characters
External ID	External reference identifier that uniquely identifies the user in an external system.	Optional	>Unique across Sentinel EMS for all customers. >Alphanumeric >0 to 60 characters

Actions for a Channel Partner

The following table lists the actions available for channel partners:

Action		Description
	Edit	Updates information for an existing channel partner. You can also add a channel partner user using this action. For more information on how to add a channel partner user, see Adding a Channel Partner User. Note: If an entitlement marked as "complete" is associated with a channel partner, a confirmation is required when you edit the channel partner details.
	Delete	Deletes a channel partner. You can delete a channel partner for whom no entitlement has been generated.
	Disable	Disables a channel partner. A disabled channel partner cannot manage entitlements for their customers.
	Enable	Re-enables a channel partner that is marked as disabled.