30 day trial ???

[RogerInHawaii]

I've been using Fusion 360 for some time now under the FREE "Startup Company" usage, which makes perfect sense for individuals like me who are trying to come up to speed on it in order to proceed forward with the products I'm planning to create in my business. But today when I started up Fusion 360 it came up with a message, "Welcome to Fusion 360 : Your 30 day free trial has begun". And it's refusing to do anything until I acknowledge that message.

Has there been a change in policy about the free Startup Company usage of the product?

[James.Youmatz · Accepted solution]

Hi @RogerInHawaii,

Nope, there should be no change. I'm surprised that's happening. Is all of your data still there from your account? If not - are you signing into the same account?

Is it possible you are on the last 30 days of the year license for the start-up? If so, you can sign up as a start-up again by following these steps here.

Thanks,

[RogerInHawaii]

All of my data is still there and I was able to do a local export to save the project on my local computer.

And as of today I'm again able to do edits and Saves of the project. So it seems to be OK now.

May I suggest the following:

1 ) When I click on my name in the upper right corner and select Autodesk Account it would be really helpful if it reported the current status of the account, like what kind of account I have (in my case it should show "Startup Company"), how much more time I have on the account, and the overall status of the account.

2) When it's getting close to the end of the time period for a given account, whether it's a free account or a paid account, an email should be sent to the account holder advising him of the pending end of the account and information on how to extend the account and even a link to a page where that can easily be done. A pop-up should also appear right within Fusion 360 when the user logs into it. Again, it should explain the situation and provide a quick and easy way to extend the account.

3) It should also provide some assurance that the projects associated with the account are still held by Fusion, even if it's PAST the end of the account time frame. Maybe give some indication as to HOW LONG you'll hold on to them before they're deleted. And if you ARE going to delete an account (I don't know if you ever actually do that, but), the user should be warned via email about that and given the opportunity to renew.

It was VERY disturbing to get a message that a "30 day free trial has started" when in fact I've had an account for quite some time.

[RogerInHawaii]

Oh dear. I tried following the link you provided in order to AGAIN sign up for the Startup license. It now (didn't used to) requires that I include a link to "my company website". But I don't have a website. Right now I'm just "home-based". It makes no sense to have a website until I finalize the entire design (in Fusion), arrange for manufacture of the product, and have the product ready for sale.

So, what do I do? It looks like I can't get the Startup license.

[James.Youmatz · Accepted solution]

Hi @RogerInHawaii,

Feel free to use www.autodesk.com as the company website. We just use this field in case there is a website. As long as it has some URL, the start-up license will work.

Thanks,

[RogerInHawaii]

THANK YOU!! I checked the Help / About / Active Plan and it showed that I do indeed have Fusion 360 Startup as my plan BUT it shows that it expires on December 31, 2018, in about one month.

I followed your suggestion about using www.autodesk.com as the URL for "my" website and now it's showing the expiration as December 31 of 2019, so I'm set for another year. Thank you.

But may I make some suggestions? The URL field on the sign-up dialog really ought to be optional, not a required field, if indeed it's perfectly fine to put in a bogus URL. When it's getting close to the end of a Startup plan an email ought to be sent to the user, as well as a pop-up message when using Fusion 360 itself, advising him of how to extend the plan and also provide a link to a web page that makes it easy for him to do it.It should NOT simply pop up a message stating that a 30-day trial has begun. That's very confusing. And, finally, the user's plan status ought to be available from the user's account information instead of, or maybe in addition to, it being on the Help/About dialog, since it's really about the user's account, not about the software (which is what Help/About is generally used for).

Again, THANK YOU for resolving this issue for me.