The future of the Contract Management Portal???

[jaalstead]

With all the changes that have been coming, what is the future of the Contract Management Portal?

Is anyone else using this "left-behind" application? Our Asset Management Team still use it for the contract expiry notifications. Until that process is put into FNMS we will likely continue to need to use the application.

Thoughts?

Jason

[dgalecki]

@jaalstead, excellent question. Having said that, we don't have concrete roadmap plans regarding this function. I would be interested in seeing more feedback regarding interest in discussing future requirement for our Contract Management Portal. First question is whether you are using it specifically for contract expiry notifications, or if there is other functionality you are using or would like to see in this module? Question to the broader community - if you are interested in this topic, please let me know, either by replying to, or giving kudos to this thread.

[mfranz]

My problems with the current notification function:

• No integration into the modern UI (why when used, usually creates weird discussions with the customer)
• Very limited scope and function
• Potentially resulting in customizing effort
• And therefore terrible to maintain

It really feels like a workaround.

[ImIronMan]

I've seen this requirement from few other customers as well. I would recommend to integrate the feature of e-mail notifications into newer versions of FNMS

Regards

Rajesh Ponnala

[KMaria]

We are using it to register and follow up on software obligations related to contracts, for example if there is an annual report that needs to be sent to a Supplier. It gives a good overview on what is coming and also what has been done. We find the functionality in this Portal good and looking forward to get these functionalities into FNMS GUI as it has been said it will be, eventually.  

[ChrisG]

Just to clarify this thread, it is talking about a specialized contract management web portal interface that looks like the following screenshot:

If you use an interface that looks different from this (without the My Tasks, Current Contracts, etc menu options down the left hand side), then you are using something different from what is being discussed in this thread.

[jaalstead]

Yes - that is the app I'm referring too!

[kclausen]

Greetings, all. Based on what I am reading, the main use case for the legacy Contract Portal is to track upcoming events and generate alerts/reminders on the upcoming events. Is my interpretation correct? If yes, then instead of focusing on the legacy portal, a much broader solution should be provided to have general email/reminder capabilities not just for contracts but for other scenarios, such as License Threshold alerts. If this capability existed, would there still be a need for the legacy Contract Portal?

[jaalstead]

I just got a note from our Asset Management Team stating the following;

Although we do mainly use it for contract expiry notifications, we also appreciate the visibility the Dashboard allows us for viewing the information at a quick glance.  The Recently Added Documents, Upcoming Expiry, Task features and the rest of the sections are all available current time, so keeping tabs on the contract path is a snap.

Thanks!

Jason

[shspann]

Hi, would you be so kind to clarify the Contract Management Portal; is this part of FNMS 2018? Are you referring to under Procurement > Contracts? thanks sue

[tbesse]

Hi Suzanne (@shspann),

The contract portal is an unsupported legacy feature. Official support ended with the move to a web UI with FlexNet Manager 2014. Some customer still use it though.

Best regards

Thorsten

[jbursch1]

Do you know where we could find any information on this feature?

Product documentation only goes back to 2014 (FNMS)

Thanks,

Jordan

[jaalstead]

Unsupported? Interesting...first time I've heard that. We've been told that it is still supported because not all functionality has been replaced....yet. If unsupported we may be looking for a new product that can do this .

[rlowery]

---

@tbesse wrote:

Hi Suzanne (@shspann),

The contract portal is an unsupported legacy feature. Official support ended with the move to a web UI with FlexNet Manager 2014. Some customer still use it though.

Best regards

Thorsten

---

The contract portal is still fully supported, however is not under active development.

[jaalstead]

Thanks for clarifying as we have stressed for a few years now that it can not be taken away until the functionality that we are using, and one of the main selling points of FNMS back in the day, is finally put into FNMS. My end users will be happy to hear that it is still supported. Thanks!

[JensWalton]

Hi Jason

I raised this during the Flexera User CAB in 2016....it was said back then that improvements were being considered for 2017 release....still waiting...

The interface for the Contracts Management portal has not changed since version 9.2.  The management of the notifications and alerts based on the contract lifecycle dates should be within the main WebUI and not within the "ECMBusinessPortal".

The e-mail alert templates are limited and poor presenting little to no information to e-mail recipient, so I don't use these and instead use a standard contracts view to monitor/manage contracts.

Jens

[jaalstead]

Thanks Jens,

My business partners (Asset Management Team) have found the notifications to be very helpful. They are very concerned that these would go away which is why I continue to keep asking about the functionality making it into FNMS one day.

Jason

[jaalstead]

Has there been any progress on this functionality?

Does anyone know if Flexera One has this functionality?

[ChrisG]

@jaalstead - there hasn't been further focus on adding similar functionality to what was available in the old contract management portal in other Flexera solutions at this point.

It doesn't look like there are many items in this area that have been submitted in Flexera Ideas so far, so feel free to create idea(s) there for specific functional capabilities that would be useful for you. If you do that, I'd suggest adding a note identifying the ideas here so people who find this thread in the future can vote on any ideas that resonate with them.