BRUTAL!!! ... they just killed the hub!

[TrippyLighting]

Thats the first reaction from one of my clients to a recent "upgrade" concerning Fusion Team. See screenshot at the end.

So starting wth almost immediate effect, new project team members that want to log into a Fusion Team hub will have to pay $120 annually (or any of the other rates), to be able to provide a service.

This might include just being able to look at a component to provide a quote for manufacturing, or working on a project for days, weeks months.

I had a long conversation about this with my client and a couple, of other people that also run their own businesses and have a Fusion team hub. These are people all with over 2 decades of  experience running one or more businesses.

We all agree that $120 is not that much money for a business but:

1. Now the suppliers, design and engineering service provides are going to be charged, not the businesses.

2. We are being charged for a service that was free until now, yet the charge comes without any added functionality.

For me as a service provider to these businesses this additional subscription charge also is rather odd. I have a Fusion 360 Ultimate Early Adopter subscription and have no problems with the $300 annually. If I was not an early adopter, currently I would not subscribe to Fusion 360 Ultimate at $1200 as the difference in fees is not justified by the rather marginal increase in features. 1000 cloud credits are nice, but of the added Ultimate features, at this time really only the cloud rendering adds value to my own business.

In essence however, I am paying for a subscription to Fusion 360 Ultimate without having any real benefits compared to a regular Fusion 360 license.

Now, in order to provide a service through a Fusion Team hub I need to spend additional $120 a year, which in general would also not be a problem if there really would be a added benefit in using a hub.

That on the other hand I fail to see and the business owners I talked to don't see this either. Most of the things that can be done on a Fusion Team hub can also be accomplished by inviting people to my private hub or others inviting me to a private hub.

Those project management features that would add real value to the hub - I will elaborate on those in a separate thread - are so under developed, they are rudimentary at best. Some of the features are implemented half baked.

1. Even with all emails notifications turned off I still get email notifications on if someone changes a design file. If one participates in several active projects at the same time that can easily result in several hundred emails . I’ve received up to 80 a day in only a single project with three active participants.

2. Even though I reported months ago that the web view does not display decals and that components that are hidden cannot be un-hidden in the web view, this is still not fixed.

https://forums.autodesk.com/t5/design-validate-document/desing-in-a360-missing-the-hidden-components...

3. Live review is nice, but also incomplete. I cannot really talk to people, let alone seeing their faces. I’ve collaborated in several projects over the last 18 months internationally and across time zones. Usually we end up using Skype.

Again, there is no problem charging for a service, but please make sure the business expense is actually justified by added value!!!

The other concern is that this charges the wrong people. The communication went to the hub owners but not to anyone else. That now leaves the hub owners in the very awkward position to have to communicate this to their suppliers and service providers.

The way this was communicated lacks any real business understanding.

The way this is implemented really does not allow a hub user to have any control, yet these are exactly the people that need to be able to control l access to their data!

 A credit based system, similar to could credits to be purchased by the hub owner would make much more sense. Participation in any project is often very dynamic and not everyone needs to participate at the same time or to the same degree.

The initial response by my client might well be true at least for fusion 360 users. Who’d pay for access to Fusion Team hubs when almost the same can be accomplished with a private hub that is included by definition in a Fusion 360 account.

@srinath_jonnalagadda @charegb We'd love to have some feedback.

[Mark.Lancaster]

@TrippyLighting

I came from a Buzzsaw/Streamline collaboration aspect and I was surprised at first that you didn't need licenses for certain types of roles in Fusion Team...

Like in Buzzsaw/Streamline you need to manage your "enabled" users.  For example I supported a customer once on Buzzsaw that needed more license but didn't have the budget to purchase more seats.  In the end when we went through each account, we found roughly 20 users that were still enabled but didn't participating in anything in close to year.

My point..  I fully understand something that was free (no need for a license) is now requiring a license.  But have you or others looked and said well these user's no longer need to be enabled and free of some seats...  Just throwing out an idea.  

[srinath_jonnalagadda]

Hello @TrippyLighting

Will try to get a across a few key points in a bit of a hurry as i get ready to board a plane...

Let me start with who this eMail is intended for:

We are currently deploying unrestricted Fusion Team access to Fusion 360 early adopters such as yourself. Target audience for the eMail is new purchasers of Fusion 360. As far as your Fusion Team access is concerned, not to worry - your clients will not have to pay.

Here is the intent behind the eMail.... going forward Fusion Team will evolve to serve:

1. Administrator (such as yourself). A person responsible for publishing and controlling access to Fusion Team
2. Collaborators. Person(s) that will consume and/or provide feedback on the data published by the Administrator. These collaborators are either inside or outside the Administrator's firewall. Said another way, collaborators could be people within a company (spread across departments) or suppliers/contractors brought in to work on a project

In the next few months, we expect to roll out greater permissions & control for the Administrator. For example, a way for you to be able to control when you want to be notified of changes.Clearly 80 eMails a day from 3users is a bit much ;). Functionality targeted at Administrators will be available via Fusion 360 or via standalone Fusion Team. 

As it relates to Collaborators, agree that the collaborator list is fluid and tied to the life of the project. Our thinking is that the Administrator gets to decide whether he/she wants to centralize billing for all Collaborators (like when it is within a company) or pass on the cost (when it is client-supplier relationship). I hope you will agree that we will not be able determine a-priori how the billing needs to be handled. Hence we intend to leave it to the Administrator to communicate to the Collaborators (where appropriate) that they are responsible for purchase of Collaborator access to Fusion Team. Please let me know if you have suggestions for alternative ways to handle billing.

To your point about the capabilities of Fusion Team - totally agree that there are critical gaps for Administrators and Collaborators. @charegb along with other key members of Engineering are actively working on addressing these gaps.

Will send over a more structured response after i hear back from you 😉

Cheers,

-srinath

[TrippyLighting]

The real concern is in the subject line ... they just killed the hub!

It is not whether you can manage users. Are you sure you understand what was being rolled out ?

If there is not any added value and if there are other services that offer similar features at lesser cost, why use a hub ?

You can invite people to your private hub just to be able to work on the design files. For everything else you use dropbox or any other less expensive cloud storage services. Then the hub might just die from atrophy 😉

While I can see the potential a cloud solution can offer - this goes way beyond user permission management - my experience is that if there is a way to save a buck people will find it and exploit it, unless, of course a Fusion Team hub has some real killer features! I want these killer features. I'll gladly pay for it!

[srinath_jonnalagadda]

Hello again Peter -

Thanks for clarifying.

The key difference between dropbox/box vs.file share in Fusion is CAD awareness.

Take the ability for a person to view and interrogate an assembly to understand its structure, properties, G-code, simulation studies and even interaction between components - all this without requiring a CAD application. Added to that is the ability to markup and send feedback in the context of the design. 

This ability is not restricted to data authored in Fusion 360. A Solidworks, Inventor or Creo user could share their work without having to worry about whether the other side has the same CAD tool.

Cheers,

-srinath

[dloebs]

Srinath,

I would make two points in response to your post:

1. Without delving into a granular feature comparison, I am aware of at least one solution (GrabCAD Workbench) that offers comparable "CAD awareness" functionality, at zero cost;
   
   
2. Isn't one of the cardinal rules of SaaS product management, "Don't suddenly start charging your user base for a service that had been getting for free, especially WITHOUT adding new features?" The change would be much easier for users to swallow had AD developed and tested useful new features to be rolled out simultaneously with the "price increase!" As it stands, Fusion Hub has a stunted feature set, giving it the feel of a beta product, in addition to the real issues already noted by others here. At the very very least, those issues should have been addressed prior to this change. Much better would have been to complete the dev work to which you referred in your prior post, and introduce new features that your users need. As you undoubtedly know, such changes are customarily made in the context of a freemium pricing model, where existing users are given a choice to either continue using a legacy feature set indefinitely at no cost, or to upgrade to a premium, more feature-laden version at a modest cost.

The bottom line is that as of today, for many existing users (myself among them!) the value proposition for a paid Fusion Team hub is a non-starter.

Regards,

Dennis

[srinath_jonnalagadda]

Hello Dennis (@dloebs)  

You are correct, there is a need for next level detail on where we are headed with the product. We are in the process of roadmapping the details. Patience please on specifics... At a broad level, we expect to evolve the "Administrator" side of the functionality for greater control on document management. 

It would be great if we could get your input on this topic. Would you be open to a discussion with a group of us?

Regarding your point about when to charge, one thing to call out - Fusion Team has been a paid product for quite some time now (over a year). Users on desktop CAD (Solidworks, Inventor, Creo) are finding value with Fusion Team because of the "CAD awareness" part. Realize the bar will be higher for Fusion 360 users given quite a bit is already available for an individual user (as Peter pointed out). And this is where your input will help.

I want to reassure again, intent is not to take away Fusion Team team access from Fusion 360 early adopters. The main intent of the eMail is a heads up that we will be looking to make Fusion Team a paid offering for new subscribers.

Cheers,

-srinath