An entitlement is how we assign users a set of catalog items. Each of these entitlements can be managed by the business group manager or a tenant administrator can manage entitlements for all business groups in their tenant.

To create a new entitlement go to Administration tab –> Catalog Management –> Entitlements. Click the “New” button to add a new entitlement.

Under the General tab, enter a name for the entitlement and a description. Change the status to “Active” and select a Business Group. Note: If only a single business group has been created, this will not be selectable since it will default to the only available group. Then select the users who will be part of this entitlement.

Next, under the “Items & Approvals” tab, we get to pick which things this user(s) will have access to. We do not need to fill out all of these types, but we can if we choose to do so.

We can entitle users to Services, Items, and/or Actions. I chose to entitle this user to my “Private Cloud” service that we created earlier. This will ensure that any catalog items I assign to that service will automatically be entitled. If I chose an item, I’d need to do it for each item but this may be preferable in your use case. Lastly, I selected every action because the user I’m entitling is an administrator. As you might guess, if this user should have restricted access then not all items should be checked. For example, if you want your users to be able to build their own servers, but not destroy them, then don’t entitle them to the “Destroy” action.

Summary

Now we’ve setup our cloud management portal to assign our users catalog items and actions that they can execute on those items. Entitlements are a key piece to making sure that your users have access to the stuff they need, but not too much access or items that might be confusing to them.