topic Re: Flex Tokens in Installation & Licensing Forum

Flex Tokens

ArchicoBV — Tue, 09 Jul 2024 15:18:25 GMT

I am a small business owner and have been a loyal Autocad and Revit user for decades. The software is not perfect but I still love working with it.
Today I purchased Autodesk Flex Tokens as a temporary solution because I'm unsure if I should renew my AEC Collection subscription for another year.

In my opinion, Flex is certainly not for the 'occasional user' as the tokens are counted per day. An occasional user uses the software occasionally, for an hour or a few hours a day, but rarely all day. This product is for companies that temporarily employ an extra modeler, but Autodesk does not present it that way. I have no problem if the price per token is a little higher but charge the tokens hourly and not daily. Autodesk, this is not how you treat your customers!

Re: Flex Tokens

mdavis22569 — Tue, 09 Jul 2024 17:43:30 GMT

Hi @ArchicoBV

Flex is fairly new.. I would recommend going to the feedback and offering a suggestion or two for users like you. They are working to find the best options for as many as possible.

https://feedback.autodesk.com/enter/

Re: Flex Tokens

ArchicoBV — Tue, 09 Jul 2024 18:09:06 GMT

Hi,

I went to the URL you provided, entered all the information they asked for but I didn't find where I could do a suggestion.

Kind Regards,

Willy

Re: Flex Tokens

mdavis22569 — Tue, 09 Jul 2024 18:15:19 GMT

Try

https://www.autodesk.com/support/technical/article/caas/sfdcarticles/sfdcarticles/Feedback-to-Autodesk.html

Re: Flex Tokens

ArchicoBV — Tue, 09 Jul 2024 18:34:06 GMT

Sorry nothing. I give up, If they make it that difficult to do a suggestion they really don't care about there customer.

Maybe you can do the suggestions in my place. Flex Tokens not assigned to only one single product and tokens used by hour and not by 24 hours. As occasional user I use Autocad lets say 1 or 2 hours/month max, as Revit user I use Revit almost every day but never a whole day, only 2 to 4 hours. Now Flex will cost me about € 800/month. Ridiculous isn't it?

Re: Flex Tokens

mdavis22569 — Tue, 09 Jul 2024 18:39:12 GMT

.. let's see if @handjonathan can help lead us to a place to leave feedback.

Re: Flex Tokens

pendean — Tue, 09 Jul 2024 21:16:25 GMT

@ArchicoBV wrote:
...Now Flex will cost me about € 800/month. Ridiculous isn't it?

I believe that is the point: make a full subscription (or even a month-to-month subscription) look more appealing. Fact is there are no real appreciable put-in-on-the-books earnings in an hour-by-hour billing for a company this huge, especially if you only intend to use a software for 1-2-3 hours per month.

Remember, like your company, they need to make profit. They are not a charity or a startup desperate for clients to lock in at a later date.

What you really need to decide is are there free or significantly lower cost solutions for your 'hobby-level access need instead: yes, you'll have to make one tough decision since REVIT has no rival that uses that file format (if you truly cannot pass that expense along to your customers).

As for AutoCAD...

https://all3dp.com/2/best-autocad-alternatives/
https://beebom.com/free-cad-software/
https://www.google.com/search?q=alternates+to+autocad

Best of luck: running a business has never been easy nor cheap. Ever.

Re: Flex Tokens

ArchicoBV — Mon, 15 Jul 2024 12:20:36 GMT

I'm not a fulltime modeller, I use Revit more than 20 days a month on an average of 1 to 3 h/day. I need Revit to extract quantities, make small changes in the model to get the as-built etc. Now I know I will get a better deal with a monthly subscription until I'm certain the project continues and then switch to a yearly. I really,really don't know for which type of user Flex is.

Re: Flex Tokens

pendean — Mon, 15 Jul 2024 15:32:22 GMT

@ArchicoBV wrote:
...I really,really don't know for which type of user Flex is.

FLEX was/is created and targeted at the corporate account that needs access "for a day": literally, one full 24-hour day of access. It's never been and still is not a by-the-hour rental product, it's always been a per-day rental product. See the highlighted section here and read more on that page about it

https://www.autodesk.com/in/support/account/admin/plans/flex-access#:~:text=Autodesk%20Flex%20allows%20your%20occasional%20users%20to%20use%20tokens%20to%20access%20any%20product%20available%20with%20Flex%20for%2024%20hours%20at%20a%20time.%20After%20you%20purchase%20Flex%20tokens%2C%20you%20can%20assign%20users%20and%20specify%20which%20products%20they%20can%20access

As far as I can tell, you want/need a per-hour rental, something that does not exist at Autodesk today.

HTH