No more Multi-User Network licenses???

[karthur1]

We have several multi-user network licenses that we float around to many people in our organization. The reason that we do this is because these people to not use the software "full-time". We could purchase one seat and share it between several people.  The ratio is more than 2:1, so unless we purchase more seats, our users will no longer have access.

Am I understanding this move correctly?  

[cbenner]

@karthur1 

Hey.  I'm still picking up the details of this myself, but I think (someone correct me if I'm wrong) that you will either need a seat for every user, or will have to use your Account tools to switch access between users based on need.  That's the part I'm unsure of.  Right now I can grant or deny access to our seats based on the username, so I'm assuming that will continue to be the case?  For me it's no big deal as we are a small company.  For places with a lot of users, they will need to evaluate their strategy, and tweak it over time.

[karthur1]

The way I read this is that we will need a seat for EVERY user.  They are offering a 2:1 trade-in offer, but that will not cover our needs.  If we want to continue the user access that we currently have, we will eventually have to purchase more seats.... which drives up the cost that we are spending on software.

It never ends with AD.

[cbenner]

@karthur1 

Is it Vault?  I'm switching some of my floating users over to Thin Client in advance of this to get a better handle on our needs.

[karthur1]

Vault and PDMC

[cbenner]

@karthur1 

For your part time users, look into how often they may need it, and maybe go month by month with those users.  If there are usage patterns you can predict.

[aaron.tw]

Hey @karthur1 - thanks for your question, and thank you @cbenner  for helping out with these suggestions.

It is correct that we will no longer offer multi-user network licenses and that such plans will be retired starting May 7, 2021. I'm sorry to hear that it's possible the 2:1 trade-in offer won't meet your team's needs. As outlined in the FAQ, the 2:1 trade in plan will be your best option to ensure you retain sufficient access at the best price.

If you want to dive more deeply with your specific situation, you can reach a customer representative by clicking the link for your region on this post. You should have a good window of time to find the best possible solution for your team with the new named user system.

Please let us know if you have further questions, it's our goal to make this transition as smooth as possible for you.

[JamesMaeding]

@cbenner 

You know adesk will make the month by month purchasing a pain. I recall asking about that and you have to pull a new contract for each person when that happens. Discover What's Possible 🙂

[JamesMaeding]

@karthur1 

I bet Autodesk will let you trade in 1 network for 10 user based if you ask.

You see, that is a deal for THEM, not for you since you pay sub on those extra seats.

Seriously, they must have worked hard to arrive at the 2 number, to not make it too obvious what is going on.

[Anonymous]

The problem with purchasing a new contract is each new contract automatically creates a new "Team" on the Contract Manager's account, if you want all your users in one Team you have to request Autodesk to perform a merge or move the contracts from one Team to another. I'm guessing this will get ironed out eventually and control be given to Contract Managers but it feels like no one gave it much though and the feature was rolled out half-baked just before the deprecation of multi-user licenses was announced. It's all chaos and makes the life of a license manager a misery.

[david_keene]

Hi All

I have taken a few days to come to terms with this and still it doesn't sit well.

At no point did Autodesk ever reach out to me or the multinational defense contractor I represent (as far as I know) and ask how does an enterprise manage software. We do not allow users to install software due to licence compliance, neither do we or will we allow access to cloud due to sovereign IP. I understand the hipsters out there love the idea of installing this and cloud solving that but the corporate end of town need to operate differently.

Anyhow, we paid a premium for a multi user licence over a single user licence which I converted from perpetual to subscription and now I get to trade that in for a two for one.  Well done Autodesk you really now how to gouge your customer base, remember its returning customers which keep your shareholders happy. Globally on a daily bases we have many hundreds of engineers joining and also leave (manly contractors) so know I have a second day job creating accounts and managing single user licences. Oh AD integration you say, and how do I get that past security?

So let me put this into context in Australia our 75 multi user product design collection subscriptions can be convert to 150 single user accounts. How to I make that work with 600 active users many of the casual. I'm sure this will appease the shareholders.......

Also I need to convince my commercial / HR team that publishing 600 employees usernames and email addresses to a 3rd party is OK and continue to do that on a weekly basis.

Andy, if you want to give me a call both myself and commercial team would be more than happy explain how the top end of town operate.

[JamesMaeding]

@david_keene 

I believe the right analogy of Autodesk's pursuit of "all licenses as per-user", is...

They have the tiger by the tail.

With Bricsys watching in utter disbelief their competitor is shooting themselves with their own ammunition.

This thing of "we are taking care of stock holders" is BS. They want continual revenu, they don't care how it happens.

Adesk has convinced themselves that non-network seats are golden, but they are fools gold.

[DarrenP]

Autodesk may offer an exception to the rule under certain conditions but there are no details on what qualifies or what the process is yet

i have not confirmed this

[lynn_zhang]

Hi @david_keene ,

Thanks for reaching out and we appreciate your feedback! These are all valid concerns and we completely understand. I've passed your message on to our ANZ team for review and we'll get back to you asap on the next step. Thanks David!

[AllenJessup]

@david_keene 

As @lynn_zhang mentioned. Autodesk is allowing exceptions. Right now the biggest pool is Educational Institutions. They're going to be keeping their Network MU licenses for now. I can't promise anything. But excepting a Defence Contractor would seem more than reasonable. Other than schools Autodesk is going to be granting exceptions on a case by case basis. I'd suggest getting together with your reseller and putting together your case for submission to Autodesk. How critical this might be depends on when you MU license are up for renewal.

[JamesMaeding]

@AllenJessup 

Nice, so schools are deemed important, while the engineers who make the school construction possible are chopped liver. No sour grapes here, you can tell 🙂

[AllenJessup]

@JamesMaeding 

I wouldn't use the word important. They just haven't figured out how to handle them under the new Single-Signon policy. On the face it would look simple. Educational licenses are free. So just have every student establish an account. They probably will anyway.

But that doesn't work with software that is linked to an individual user. Richard Roe can't login on a computer where the software was installed by Jane Doe. At least as far as I'm understanding it at the moment.

[JamesMaeding]

@AllenJessup 

I did not think it mattered who installed anything, or who is even logged onto windows.

If using sign-in authorized license, its the sign in that counts.

I'm interested to know why it matters who installed what. thx

[AllenJessup]

@JamesMaeding 

We've been told that for each single-user licence there can be a maximum of 3 installations. Their thinking was probably Desktop, Laptop and home use. No more home use licenses. So there has to be some way to track which software is installed by which user. Otherwise Jane Doe could install 20 times but only sign-in on one at a time.

I also remember hearing that the software will have to be installed from the user's account. I'm trying to get this and other points clarified. But haven't gotten answers yet.

[karthur1]

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@AllenJessup wrote:

@JamesMaeding 

....

I also remember hearing that the software will have to be installed from the user's account. I'm trying to get this and other points clarified. But haven't gotten answers yet.

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So how will that work with pushing out a deployment?  Either the user will have to run the deployment or the admin will have to have the users credentials in order to run the deployment.  Am I understanding this correctly?

I dont see why they would limit the number of times it could be installed from each user.  They can only be logged-in on one machine at once.  If they installed it on say 10 machines, why would it matter?