Packaging Assets For A Channel

The following options are available in the channel packager tab (as shown below) which is clearly branded for the target channel. To open this view just double click on a channel/plan icon in the plan view

Manage Bundles:

• Add bundles selecting this brings up a wizard which allows the user to choose which bundles they wish to take to that channel. In order to qualify as a possible asset a bundle MUST support both an identified device and a supported language for that channel. Choosing 'Select all supported bundles' automatically selects the maximum number of bundles that could go the channel in question i.e. maximum penetration
• Add Filtered Bundles selecting this brings up the Filtered Bundles wizard, this allows the user to Filter bundles by specific attributes. So if a user wishes to add bundles that only support Nokia Devices, they would use the Add Filtered Bundles feature, remembering that the rules stated in the Add Bundles paragraph above still apply.
• Remove bundles if bundles have been selected which the user does not want to include for some reason then deselecting can be performed here. The user may also right click a bundle in the packager bundle list and use the delete function from the popup menu (please note that this only de-assigns the bundle from the plan and does NOT actually delete the bundle from the project).
• Package selecting package automatically selects all bundles in the yellow state (that is no outstanding issues) to take through the packaging routine. In the first instance package all and finish.

In some cases odd assets may be ignored, the reason would be shown in the bottom pane. Do not worry, continue with packaging and come back to package the individual ignored items using power hooks to add or remove attributes and massage the correct requirements through.

• Filtered actions provided at the delta of the channel.
• Device conflicts provided at the delta of the channel
• Bundle export once assets are packaged they can be zipped up and exported to a file.
• Advanced export once assets are packaged they may require some bespoke export that allows greater flexibility than the normal bundle export.

Metaflow's first function is to filter available bundles (assets) and cover the maximum number of corresponding devices for each sales channel. The corresponding Bundles (discovered assets) are added to a channel within a plan and then a packaging action is undertaken which automatically packages all available assets to the corresponding channels requirements (see Channel Preferences for some of these details on devices, jad, manifest and supported languages).

Once the bundles are added, red, amber and green traffic lights show the status and task information; if anything needs to be done to the assets to take them through the packaging process. Often the checks made for asset verification for a channel is deeper once the asset has been assigned. Therefore even though an asset was potentially deliverable to a channel the user may find some conflicts with that channel once the bundle is assigned. The user may highlight any individual bundle in the packager view and see all the outstanding issues and conflicts in the task view at the bottom of the screen.

If the user double clicks on individual packaging tasks in this bottom view then Metaflow will open up the relevant page to correct this specific issue (please note the default behaviour of Metaflow is to open up editors and wizards at the plan/channel as per information scoping rules. If the task requires midlet attribute over-riding then the user may click on the hyper-link in the top of the jad or manifest bundle editor pane and either drag an existing attribute to the bottom to override or click add to add a completely new one. Please note that once the user has saved the changes to the bundle attributes the tasks will automatically update to show the current status and readiness of the bundle for packaging to the channel.

Reviewing the results of a packaging action.

During the packaging process the assets chosen were processed for the channel selected and the relevant requirements for the channel were implemented according to submissions guidelines. This resulted in a number of complex processes being run on each asset to ensure that the output was the finished asset as required by the channel. The packaged assets can be reviewed in the bundle editor view as shown below.

The tabs in the bundle editor below the packaging screen for the channel can be selected to step through the bundle properties and attributes following packaging. Note: Although you can use the bundle editor it is a restricted bundle editor view that does not allow the editing of any information.