New Features and Enhancements
Release: 6.2
The following features and enhancements are included in the Sentinel EMS 6.2 release:
>User-Based Licensing Enhancements
>Versionless Product and Variant Support for Sentinel LDK
>Session Management for Sentinel LDK CL
>Enhanced Configuration Capabilities in Customer Portal
>Custom Entity Configuration Using the Vendor Portal
>Custom Attribute Performance Improvements
>Improved Webhooks Tracking and Retry Mechanism
User-Based Licensing Enhancements
User-based licensing is now supported across all enforcements, offering flexible license management for SaaS and enterprise use cases. Key improvements include:
>Named User Limit Support: User-based licensing now allows for dedicated named user access in addition to the existing support for concurrent access. Named users will always get a license when they access the product, ensuring reliable access, which is ideal for SaaS products. Products now have additional properties to enable the named user licensing, and to define the allowed number of named users.
For more details, see Sentinel EMS User Guide for All Enforcements and Sentinel EMS User Guide for Sentinel LDK.
>Enhanced Flexibility in User Association: You can now associate users directly with activated line items, allowing for granular license control, which is especially useful for multi-site or departmental deployments. You can link users either at the aggregated product level or activated line-item level. Associations are now reflected in webhook events for better automation. Also, the menu name is changed from Product-to-User Association to User Associations.
For more details, see Sentinel EMS User Guide for All Enforcements and Sentinel EMS User Guide for Sentinel LDK.
>The Term "Identity-Based" Licensing is Now "Device-Based" Licensing: The terminology previously referred to as "identity-based" or "identity string-based" licensing is now referred to as "device-based" licensing. This change clarifies the distinction between "user-based" licensing, where the license is associated with a specific user, and "device-based" licensing, where the license is associated with a specific device.
Versionless Product and Variant Support for Sentinel LDK
Sentinel EMS now supports versionless products for the Sentinel LDK enforcement, in addition to existing support for the Sentinel RMS, Third-party, and Services enforcements. You can now create versionless products that include variants from multiple enforcements and use them in dynamic entitlements. This enables you to provide new variants to your customer's end users without modifying their existing entitlements, offering greater flexibility in product packaging and deployment.
This enhancement simplifies product setup, reduces the need to create separate SKUs for each variant, and ensures that new variants are automatically available to customers without entitlement changes.
For more details, see Sentinel EMS User Guide for All Enforcements and Sentinel EMS User Guide for Sentinel LDK.
Session Management for Sentinel LDK CL
The Sentinel EMS customer portal now supports session management for Sentinel LDK Cloud Licensing (CL). Vendor users and customer administrators can view active license sessions, including user and login details, and terminate sessions when needed. This helps free up network seats in cases where users forget to exit the application or when immediate access is required. This feature is available through the Sentinel EMS customer portal UI and REST APIs.
For more details, see Guide to the Sentinel EMS Customer Portal.
Enhanced Configuration Capabilities in Customer Portal
Vendor administrators can now customize the Sentinel EMS customer portal to better align with their business needs. The following enhancements increase flexibility in tailoring the out-of-the-box portal and reduce the need for custom-built solutions:
>Ability to show, hide, and reorder menu items in the navigation pane through self-service configuration.
>Grid configuration support to enable search on additional columns.
>Login access for channel partner users to view entitlements, downloads, and activations, and to perform split and transfer operations for entitlements.
For more details, see Guide to the Sentinel EMS Customer Portal.
Custom Entity Configuration Using the Vendor Portal
Sentinel EMS now offers a user interface in the vendor portal for defining and managing custom entities, significantly improving usability over the previous API-only approach. A new Custom Entities sub-menu is now available under the Configuration menu.
This enhancement makes it easy to create, view, and manage custom entities and their attributes, and provides visibility into custom entity records directly from the portal.
For more details, see Sentinel EMS User Guide for All Enforcements and Sentinel EMS User Guide for Sentinel LDK.
Custom Attribute Performance Improvements
Sentinel EMS has redesigned custom attribute handling to improve search and report performance, especially in large enterprise environments. These updates make it easier to manage and query Sentinel EMS entities with many custom attributes, focusing on faster response times and more efficient data retrieval. Key updates include:
>Added the ability to apply indexing on custom attributes directly from the vendor portal.
>Introduced a new TEXT data type for storing larger values (up to 64 KB), replacing the deprecated XML data type.
>Limited the String data type to 200 characters.
These enhancements apply automatically to new Sentinel EMS customers. Backward compatibility is maintained for existing customers.
For more details, see Sentinel EMS User Guide for All Enforcements and Sentinel EMS User Guide for Sentinel LDK.
Improved Webhooks Tracking and Retry Mechanism
This release improves the reliability and traceability of webhook delivery by retaining all events, whether successful or failed, for 30 days. Sentinel EMS allows you to trace, retrieve, and reprocess webhook events as needed. These enhancements ensure uninterrupted delivery of critical events, even if webhook delivery fails or the receiving systems are temporarily unavailable. Key updates include:
>30-day retention of all webhook events, including successful and failed events.
>New REST API endpoints:
•Search Events (GET /ems/api/v5/webhooks/events): Retrieve failed and successful webhook events using the state query parameter.
•Get Event (GET /ems/api/v5/webhooks/events/{id}): Fetch details of a specific event using its ID.
•Retry Events (POST /ems/api/v5/webhooks/events/retry): Reprocess all or selective events.
For more details, see Sentinel EMS REST API Reference.
>Deprecated endpoints:
The following endpoints are deprecated:
•Search Failed Events (GET /ems/api/v5/failedEvents)
•Get Failed Event (GET /ems/api/v5/failedEvents/{id})
•Retry Failed Events (POST /ems/api/v5/failedEvents/retry)
Tactical Enhancements
This release includes the following usability and functional updates across Sentinel EMS and the vendor portal:
>Vendor Portal: Added a copy icon to frequently used attributes to improve ease of use.
>Search Entitlements API: Introduced a new query parameter to search by start date.
>Email Certificates: Enhanced entitlement and license certificates to include feature descriptions.
>Timestamps: All Sentinel EMS entities now capture creation and modification timestamps with millisecond precision at the database level to help distinguish concurrent requests occurring within the same second.
>Identity Provider Switching: Sentinel EMS administrators and customer administrators can now update the identity provider for vendor or customer users, enabling a switch between Sentinel IDP and the vendor identity provider (if configured).