Create seats

The Create seat function creates a seat record in one of your business units and configures its basic properties. Once created, a system or user can enroll a certificate against the seat record. A seat license is not consumed until the seat record has a valid certificate associated with it.

For most certificates, the corresponding seat records get created automatically. You only need to create seats beforehand when:

Using the Enrollment Code authentication method, with some exceptions.
You want to exert more control over the seat creation process.

Important

This page describes the basic seat creation process. To learn about the Enroll seat function used to assign enrollment codes to seats, see Prepare enrollment codes for authentication.

Before you begin

Make sure you understand the various seat types and when they're used.
Decide how to identify each seat, such as an email address, username, or serial number. The identifier is used to manage the seat and must be unique within each business unit and across other seats of the same type.
If you assign an email address as the Seat ID, that email is used to send notifications about the seat and any certificates associated with it. Alternatively, you can use the optional Email field to store the email address for notifications.

Create a seat

From the Trust Lifecycle Manager menu, go to Account > Seats.
Select Create.
Provide values for the seat fields. These vary by seat type.
- Business unit: Select the business unit to create the seat in.
- Seat type: Select the type of seat to create in the business unit.
- Seat ID: Enter a unique identifier for the seat. For example, enter an email address, username, or serial number.
- Seat name: Enter a name to label the seat in Trust Lifecycle Manager. For example, enter the name of a person or device, or a basic description of the business function for the seat.
- Email: (Optional) Assign an email address to the seat, to use for sending notifications if the Seat ID has a value other than an email address.
- Phone: (Optional) For User seats only, assign a phone number to the seat.
Select Create seat to finish and create the seat.
If there are applicable certificate profiles in your account with the Enrollment Code authentication method, you are asked whether to enroll the seat (that is, assign an enrollment code to it). To dismiss this popup, select I'll do it later.

Bulk create multiple seats

To facilitate seat creation, you can create multiple seats in bulk from a CSV file.

Prepare the CSV file

Prepare a CSV file for each batch of seat records to create, in the following format. You can only create one seat type at a time. To bulk create different seat types, prepare one CSV file per type.

The first line of the CSV file must contain the names of the fields to include in each seat record.
- Required fields: seat_id, seat_name, and business_unit_id
- Optional fields: email and phone
The remaining lines must contain the field values for each seat record, in the same order as specified in the first line.

For example, to bulk create seats with only the required fields, your CSV file might look like this:

seat_id,seat_name,business_unit_id
seat01@example.com,My Seat,2edf100e-0916-402d-835b-dc4915d4df28
seat02@example.com,Another Seat,2edf100e-0916-402d-835b-dc4915d4df28

To bulk create seats with optional email address and phone number fields, your CSV file might look like:

seat_id,seat_name,email,phone,business_unit_id
8A9F3G,My Seat,user.1@example.com,+1(534)555-5345,2edf100e-0916-402d-835b-dc4915d4df28
3B5D8A,Another Seat,user.2@example.com,+1(414)555-4141,2edf100e-0916-402d-835b-dc4915d4df28

Bulk create seats from the CSV file

To use the CSV file to bulk create seat records in Trust Lifecycle Manager:

From the Trust Lifecycle Manager menu, go to Account > Seats.
Select Manage seats in bulk.
Select the Seat type you want to create. You can only bulk create one type of seat at a time.
For the Operation, select Create/Update seats.
Warning
Do not select the enroll the Seats against a profile checkbox unless you're prepared to assign enrollment codes to the seats and your CSV file includes the required fields.
Upload the CSV file that contains the data for all the seat records to create. The CSV file must have the format described in the preceding section.
As soon as you upload a valid CSV file, the system creates the corresponding seat records. To see a report of all the seats created and the status of each, select the Download results JSON link.
When you're finished, select the Ok button to return to the main Account > Seats page. The seats you created should be present in the table here.

What's next

Use your account dashboard to monitor and launch pre-filtered views of the seat records created in your account by business unit and seat type.
Systems and users can enroll certificates against existing seat records by providing matching seat IDs in their requests.
To assign enrollment codes to seats to use for authenticating certificate requests, see Prepare enrollment codes for authentication.

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