Vending Manager Processes

The previous figure illustrates the Vending Manager processes. The Vending Manager is responsible for the following practices:

Content Management

Plan Management

Account Management

Reporting

Content Management

The Catalog Manager publishes content to the Vending Manager. The Vending Manager is responsible for stocking this content to make it available to the subscriber. The Vending Manager administrator can change the subscriber pricing of the content, allow trial usage, and assign the content to a new category. The administrator can also change the category assignments and add new categories to control subscriber access to content. See “Managing Catalog Content” on page 134 for more information.

Plan Management

The Vending Manager uses Subscriber Plans to control subscriber access to content. Each Subscriber Account is assigned to one or more Subscriber Plans. Subscriber Plans determine what content a subscriber can access and download.

A Subscriber Plan is mapped to selected categories in the Vending Manager. The content in the selected categories is made available to plan members. If content is in a category that is not supported by the Subscriber Plan, the subscriber cannot access it for download. See “Managing Subscriber Plans” on page 216 for more information.

Account Management

Accounts define access to the Vending Manager. The Vending Manager is responsible for two types of accounts:

Subscriber. Subscriber Accounts are for individuals who subscribe to a service plan that provides them with the download service. Each Subscriber Account is associated with one or more Subscriber Plans. See “Managing Subscriber Accounts” on page 209 for more information.

Administrator. Administrator Accounts are for individuals who administer the Vending Manager. There are two administrator roles: Administrator for administrators with full privileges for administering the Vending Manager, and

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Sun Microsystems 5 manual Vending Manager Processes, Content Management