Educational Support is a total failure, we can't get help to get students back learning

[profbusdev]

Just spent an hour with someone in Pakistan who has no idea how to help us get an account working. Most of the problem is the way software is activated, its radically flawed on the educational side. Too difficult to ever want to buy the software, it seems unusable really because of how hard it is to activate. Autodesk obsoleted our Mac which was FINE! It took six months to afford a new one for the school, delaying our students education. We followed the process and uploaded ALL DOCUMENTS FOR BOTH STUDENTS and got one student rolling. The other student was delayed and we tried to get the account working and it shows the application is not compatible with the mac. This is impossible it works on the other students account and admin account. Support keeps telling me to do the process all over again and to re upload the docs. Well I CANT they're stored off site because the school is in construction. It would take a month to dig them out. Tech support won't even attempt to get the documents I ALREADY UPLOADED FOR THIS STUDENT. And they won't get me to a manger to bypass their inability to read and understand what the issue is. Their support agent was a total failure. 

Haw can a company this large have ZERO support for education when students learning their applications are the future of their sales?  DO you guys even have a business opperations manager who understands how hard it is to sign kids up? Its nearly impossible if your in a homeschool as so many are after covid! 

We are now faced with having to abandon Fusion and the kids will loose all their work and miss out on certification which thay are only about a month away from, and would have completed if Autodesk had not obsoleted our mac.

Does anyone know how to bypass the failed support system to get anything solved? THis company needs a phone number!

@profbusdev - this post has been edited due to Community Rules & Etiquette violation.

[RajkumarIlanchelian]

@profbusdev For the one student that this is not working, are they not able to activate their account or does not allow them to login or even install the product? 

Can you please DM me the email ID of the student so that we can check in our backend and also can you share the hardware details of the Mac? 

[RajkumarIlanchelian]

@dan.banach FYI

[TrippyLighting]

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@profbusdev wrote:

Just spent an hour with someone in Pakistan who has no idea how to help us get an account working. Most of the problem is the way software is activated, its radically flawed on the educational side. Too difficult to ever want to buy the software, it seems unusable really because of how hard it is to activate. Autodesk obsoleted our Mac which was FINE! It took six months to afford a new one for the school, delaying our students education. We followed the process and uploaded ALL DOCUMENTS FOR BOTH STUDENTS and got one student rolling. The other student was delayed and we tried to get the account working and it shows the application is not compatible with the mac. This is impossible it works on the other students account and admin account. Support keeps telling me to do the process all over again and to re upload the docs. Well I CANT they're stored off site because the school is in construction. It would take a month to dig them out. Tech support won't even attempt to get the documents I ALREADY UPLOADED FOR THIS STUDENT. And they won't get me to a manger to bypass their inability to read and understand what the issue is. Their support agent was a total failure. 

Haw can a company this large have ZERO support for education when students learning their applications are the future of their sales?  DO you guys even have a business opperations manager who understands how hard it is to sign kids up? Its nearly impossible if your in a homeschool as so many are after covid! 

We are now faced with having to abandon Fusion and the kids will loose all their work and miss out on certification which thay are only about a month away from, and would have completed if Autodesk had not obsoleted our mac.

Does anyone know how to bypass the failed support system to get anything solved? THis company needs a phone number!

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I wish you would have come to the Forum earlier. We can usually get you sorted out rather quickly.

If we can't solve a particular problem, we can usually tag one for the Fusion team to help out.

This Forum is still one of the best resources to learn all things Fusion. Before you or your students build up too much frustration, post the problem here. 

  @TrippyLighting - moderation edited the quoted material.

[profbusdev]

This is the problem with your support, anyone can tell you did not even read and understand the original post, this is why nothing gets done. You literally don't even read and listen to peoples issues. I already stated FUSION WORKS ON THE MAC. The admin and one students accounts work. The student account that works, IT WORKS BECAUSE WE DID THE PROCESS CORRECTLY,,,, CLEARLY, CLEARLY DID IT RIGHT ALREADY.  The issue is we uploaded the documents for both students to qualify, and your support refuses to get those uploaded documents to approve the second students account, which already existed, but for some reason your company DELETED IT after it was approved and working last year, BEFORE it was obsoleted a perfectly good working MAC and FORCED us to delay education for over 6 months. Now that we bought a newer mac and have it working already, all I need you to do is review the proof of education that I uploaded in your process and activate the second students account. YOu have the doc, I uploaded them it worked for one student already. YOUr staff asks me to go through the insane process all over again for the other student, when you already have 100% of the information!!!!!!!!! I can't do that, as I explained the school is in construction due to necessity and all the documents are stored off site and can not be accessed for months. PLUS as I;ve stated over and over and over and over again you already have all the documents uploaded to yor server, you have them, how can you not access them and approve the account and get us back to learning. 

As a business developer who has brought billions into the nation, I can not believe any company could survive operating like this. Its so unprofessional and so broken, how do you even stay in business, how does anyone want to use your product if its this hard to get anything working? You can't even use the software if the internet goes out due to storms. Are you all living in crazy town? What in the world, how does no one at Autodesk understand the basic foundations of  customer support and doing business? This is so uninspiring, why would anyone, who has to deal with this insanity ever want to buy a real subscription to use your products in the future. You and literally ruined the experience for these kids. The only reason we're moving forward is because we can't waste their time and loose all the work they have put in toward certification. But after they are certified, do you think they'll ever ever want to use this platform with all the hassles? NO WAY, they would never be able to trust it would even work well enough continually to get a job done. And why would anyone use a product that has ZERO human support that works? ??? And no phone to call to get business done and making money with designs. 

@profbusdev - this post has been edited due to Community Rules & Etiquette violation.

[RajkumarIlanchelian]

@profbusdev I am certainly trying to help here. What is the email ID of the student that you are referring to (you can DM me the information)? I can check in our backend on why their student entitlement was canceled. Did they by any change use a different email ID earlier? 

[profbusdev]

Hey I get it, why would someone who is pressed for time come to a forum for help when Tech Support is always the first and most expedient way to get personalized help? I used to run worldwide support for a major company, we would never ever ask our customers to try and find help that was not personalized and leads them down many unknown paths that probably won't work. Thats what forums are, generally customers helping one another in slow motion. Well what I need done needs someone inside the company to just do the simplest thing, open the dang documents I already uploaded TWICE verify it and activate my students account so we can recover nearly 9 months of delays that AUTODESK caused us. 9 MONTHS. Its that simple. But because support is in a foreign country reading scripts from a computer screen and probably using something as Chat GPT to help me. I say that because they kept repeating the same thing over and over like they were not understanding anything I was saying. They clearly could not do a thing to help me. They litterlay could have been a Ai bot, Im not sure. It was futile. This is not support it is failure. This is probably a billion dollar company, globally used and people can't get help to learn it. That is one of the most insane things I've ever herd of any company doing. Companies sell complex products by 1 thing, helping people learn how to advance their careers and dreams with their product, so its so indispensable that the customer can't live without it. That is the opposite of how Autodesk treats students and their teachers, who are doing Autodesk an MASSIVE and very COSTLY favor by picking their software over competition and getting students to learn it who will likely be lifetime customers and further market the product to others. 

Autodesk can you please have a manager contact me I need help and your support system has failed, radically failed. As your customer teaching students, I would think you'd like to help get these kids past their certification tests. Its in your interest to help and solve this. 

[RajkumarIlanchelian]

@profbusdev I am certainly trying to help here. What is the email ID of the student that you are referring to (you can DM me the information)? I can check in our backend on why their student entitlement was canceled. Did they by any change use a different email ID earlier? 

[TrippyLighting]

@profbusdev, you should be able to answer @RajkumarIlanchelian's questions in two short sentences.

My interest in another belligerent rant that doesn't answer the questions you've now been asked twice, is pretty low.

[profbusdev]

"belligerent rant "  first off, you don't understand that I already spend over an hour doing everything they asked already 8 weeks ago. I have done it and spent an hour with "chat support failure". They have everything they need already, they don't need anything from me, or to have me do a thing. They can reinstate the account they deleted and open the documents I uploaded and activate the account. But reality is for some reason these "support bots" won't do it. 

Whoever you are, think about this, my students lost 9 months because this company obsoleted our computer system for no critical reason. They deleted a students account so they lost everything and they can't get it back even though I've done their process twice. You call my being upset a "belligerent rant". With all due respect I am allowed to be a little ticked off because my students lost 9 months of progress and now have to relearn 6 months of CAD! You think that does not warrant being upset? They would have have the bachelors certification in Fusion by now. I'm a professional, we expect professional support for students, they are the future of this company period. 

If you want to insult me as I try and get a manger at this company to contact me, since support refuses to, then come find me and try calling me belligerent to my face. You can hide online if you want, but if you were in front of me I would give you a serious verbal lesson in reality about not harassing people. If you don't like my tone, move along you're not required to be involved. I did not ask for your help, I asked for a manage to contact me.

Please go live your life and be happy and please do not reply to my posts, It will consider it harassment.

-----------EDIT------------

From the  Community Manager: Please keep it civil; no personal attacks or threats are permitted. Let's stay focused on the immediate problem and get it solved for you.

[RajkumarIlanchelian]

@profbusdev I am a manager at Autodesk and I am trying to help out here. I do need details if I can help. With your post there is no data that I can take back and find out which support case you are associated with. This is the reason I have been asking my questions. 

[profbusdev]

Thank you I did not know you were a manger and was not going to waste more time with support that does not work. I do not want to post a child's data on a forum, that is illegal. And very dangerous in the era of AI surveillance.

(identifying data has been removed by Community Manager) This year, very recently I used support help to upload BOTH students validation from their county homeschool accessor that is the only documents given to us form the county school board. The same documents used last year to setup the accounts for them. So those documents were uploaded and you have them. We do not have access to the paper originals at this time because they have been moved to deep storage, we can't access them for a long while.

I have been asking that support to just validate the account off the documents I uploaded. Your system should clearly show these students, which proves theyre in educational program for over year, minus all the time they lost because Autodesk obsoleted our mac. The one I am using right now, a perfectly good mac. Because you have all this information and know they're continuing students, it is mind blowing that we can't get this taken care of from within your organization without all this insane hassle.

Advice from a former Microsoft Product researcher/developer who made billions for software companies. Tell Autodesk that SAS sucks. Let us download the app, give us a code to use so we can run the application when the internet is down, and never have to deal with this web based app insanity, which only exists because the way Autodesk uses the web as a deployment platform. I have news for your company, AI is destroying the internet, it can hack just about any hole in any app we have not found yet, and exploit it. Nothing online is safe anymore, nothing. We barely allow our students to use the web anymore because we can't keep them safe from AI or AI content. So the internet is going to die soon, no one will trust it, it will be totally compromised by rouge AI actors within 6 months. ANYONE can access power AI to do harm now. So your company might as well go back to the software distribution method that is actually safe and works, download the code, install, insert code key, use software. The internet is dead and there is nothing we can do until they destroy all AI.

[RajkumarIlanchelian]

@profbusdev I will follow up on the email ID that you provided and see what I can find. 

[profbusdev]

This was civil, there was no threat. I only said I would VERBALLY teach them about reality because someone should. That is not a threat. Unedit my post so everyone can see that. You should not have edited my response to someone who decide they needed to TROLL ME. 

[RajkumarIlanchelian]

@profbusdev Using the email ID, We have checked in our backend to start with. 

1. Your EDU institute has used 3 of 125 allowed to you
2. The student that is having the issue has. valid Education entitlement. We have seen that the entitlement was not cancelled at the backend. 
3. We have checked to make sure that the student's team hub is active and we do see projects within the hub. 

So it is certainly the backend is confirming that the entitlement is active. 

Can you give us more information on what is the incompatible error that you are receiving on the Mac? Here are a few other questions and details that would help.

1. Are you installing fusion application on the Mac or using the Fusion online version (Students are entitled to use https://fusion.online.autodesk.com/ on a browser)

2. Can the student successfully login to https://login.autodesk360.com/login

3. On the machine that you have Fusion installed and having issues can you please collect the following? 

1. Goto Launchpad
2. Run Fusion service utility
3. Run gather system info
4. This will generate two zip files
5. please attach the Fusiondiagnosticslogs.zip 

Please also attach the error the student is seeing so that we can further look at the issue. 

It would also be good to know what version of macOS this machine is on and IF there are any pending macOS updates on it. 

[profbusdev]

Student can log into the website. We sent pictures of the Fusion app that shows its incompatible and the error message yesterday as requested by your support. I get the rest to you as requested. 

[profbusdev]

Service utility shows incompatible as well. Can't be run. 

[RajkumarIlanchelian]

@profbusdev Thank you. So from the student's perspective, they are up and running using the Fusion online I assume. WE are now trying to solve on why the application is failing to install. It would be great if you can post the information that you sent over here as well. 

[profbusdev]

All the pictures I sent just show the Application Icon as not compatible. And Launching the app says its not compatible. thats it.

Remember this computer IS running Fusion on two accounts already, So the OS is compatible. Its just this one account that it will not load up in.

We've never used the online version and will see if we can use it since login works.

[profbusdev]

OPEN LETTER TO AUTODESK CEO

I just want to provide you an account of the level of service I've received from your support since there is no way to contact you, which is yet another thing that should be fixed with your company. (How can you know the customers voice when you're not listening?)

You can read through the posts to understand what is going on.

Today after still not having my student working on their certification learning, because support is no where to be found and not solving our "authorization issues" (which should not exist in a software product). I decided to waste my day supporting myself and diving into your insane web/download software system. Eventually I was able to find a way to re-download the code and reinstall it and make it work again by myself.

No one on your support team told me to try this or that it was an option or possible. So essentially I did their job for them, which means I did not do my job for the day, so I lost an entire day of pay. Thats a hell of a lot of money.

I have used your support several times and it is radically broken. So I'm going to offer to CEO of AUTODESK that you hire me to come fix it for the Autodesk community. I have run support for innovative companies, am a business improvement consultant and have made billions of dollars worth of products, releasing over 300 into the market so far. Your company has several major flaws in how you work with customers, it's plain as day, easy to see.

If you would like your company fixed, call me, I'd be happy to help and I'm sure your customers would celebrate the improvement and the better relationship. One's things for sure, it would increase your ROI and adoption and I would ensure EVERY CAD STUDENT would use it as the first option. That is not the case today, so you're loosing hundreds of millions in opportunities because of your companies structural flaws.