Dealer Portal Overview (FlexNet)

The purpose of the Dealer Portal is to provide a way for the dealer to manage their software inventory. The Dealer Portal is not for ordering software. Dealers will still order software the same way they do now.
The dealer does not need to know who they are selling the software to when they purchase the software from Brookfield. A dealer can still order one copy of the software or multiple copies at one time. Software copies ordered from Brookfield go in to that dealer's "inventory" in the Dealer Portal. Once the dealer knows who they are selling the software on to, they use the Dealer Portal to "split" copies of the software off from their existing inventory and send them to the end customer (or another dealer).

If the dealer is selling to an end customer, the contact name and email the dealer needs to obtain is the one the software email will be sent to (the Delivery Contact). This does not need to be the person who will be installing the software, as long as the person receiving the email takes responsibility to forward the email to the person installing the software. For example, the purchasing agent could be the Delivery Contact. In this case they would be responsible for forwarding the email. In another case, the Delivery Contact could be the QC person. If their IT department was required to do the installation, it would be the QC person's responsibility to forward the email to their IT department.

Purchasing departments are already responsible for making sure they have the correct physical address to ship instruments to. They will also have to be responsible for making sure they have the correct Delivery Contact for the software. They should already have procedures in place for this, since this is the main way that software is delivered today.

Installing (and sometimes downloading) the software requires admin rights on the destination computer, and might require the involvement of the IT department. Activating the software does not require admin rights, and might not require the involvement of the IT department. Activation is triggered not when the software is installed, but when the software is first opened. During activation, the software will require the person doing the activation (QC person, IT person, etc) to enter the Activation ID (provided in the email), and a Registration Contact. The Registration Contact should be the person who cares if there is an update in the software, and who evaluates whether the software should be upgraded. If they are using 21CFR features, the Registration Contact should be the person who will have the Administrator login to the software.

As noted above, a dealer can also sell inventory on to another dealer. In this case, the contact name and email needed is that of the person at the second dealer organization who will be in charge of managing their own inventory. This person will receive their own login to the Dealer Portal. The sub-dealer's process for managing their software inventory is the same as the original dealer's process, as explained above.