Changes to Premium Plan
A short recap
If you only buy Autodesk software for yourself, the licence management is of course easy to manage. But for international companies with offices and users all over the world, managing licenses can be quite a challenge. Centralised licence management (and purchasing) is an absolute must for many of these companies, to avoid licences sitting on the shelf unused or being purchased somewhere new when they were not needed.
To make this possible, Autodesk has in the past created the so-called ETR (Extra Territory Rights), which allowed companies to use their central licence pool regionally or globally (for an additional fee). Without ETR, according to Autodesk's terms and conditions, you were not allowed to use your licences globally and abuse of this was heavily penalised. This form of contract was later transformed into the now familiar Premium Plan.
Besides the central purchase of licenses, customers with a Premium Plan get detailed insight into the use of the software, access to SSO (Single Sign On) through a link with Active Directory and 24/7 support from Autodesk.
But what has changed?
First of all a Premium Plan was only available from 50 licenses. Autodesk has lowered this number to 10 licences, making the previously mentioned functionalities also available for smaller companies.
But the biggest change is that the central purchasing and distribution of licences has been removed from the Premium Plan. This means that (as of May 13, 2022) there will be no additional cost for just this functionality. Autodesk wants to follow the standard in the industry, as well as to connect with the way people work in the global economy today.
Introduction of Global Use Rights
Users with a so called Standard Plan now also get the possibility to use their licenses outside their own country, but under certain conditions. Autodesk makes a distinction between "approved" and "non-approved" countries. An overview of the approved countries can be downloaded via this link.
For your convenience, we have visualised the approved countries on the world map above, with these countries coloured in. You don't have to be a topographical talent to see that Autodesk has made some intentional choices. This has mainly to do with the fact that the recommended retail prices of Autodesk software in the non-approved countries are a lot lower.
What is allowed and what is not allowed?
Autodesk wouldn't be Autodesk if they hadn't thought about this double split. Especially users in non-approved countries have to deal with certain restrictions.
- Approved countries (such as the Netherlands and Belgium) can use their licenses anywhere in the world, so also in non-approved countries. Example: a Dutch company with an office in South Africa may assign their Dutch licences to end users in South Africa. Users from approved countries may even assign their own licences to third parties (i.e. users who do not work for their own company). This was unthinkable in the past and absolutely not allowed.
- Non-approved countries may only use their licences in the country of purchase or in other non-approved countries. They may temporarily use licenses in approved countries, but not for more than 90 consecutive days within a 12-month period. This may be necessary, for example, if a user needs to travel from a non-approved to an approved country for work.
- Flex tokens are not subject to any restrictions. They can be assigned to users all over the world, from non-approved to approved and vice versa.
What happens to my Premium Plan?
For users who currently have an active Premium Plan, the previously mentioned changes will only come into effect with the next renewal. If you have chosen the Premium Plan because of the centralized purchasing of licenses, you can choose not to renew the Premium Plan.
However, Premium Plan has a number of other features that may be of added value. Autodesk also extends the functionality of the Premium Plan. For example, soon there will be a functionality that provides insight into inactive users and a possibility to link user data to external tools through APIs.
More information
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