Managing Flex 101

PRISCILLA NING: Hey, everyone. Welcome to Managing Flex 101, where I'll be breaking down all the steps you need to take to get started with Flex, from the beginning all the way to the end. My name is Priscilla Ning, and I'm a product marketing specialist at Autodesk. And I will be your speaker today.

Before we get started, I just want to give you guys a look at the safe harbor statement. I'm an employee at Autodesk. So just want to make sure that you guys are aware of this.

Now let's jump in into our agenda, taking a look at all the topics we'll be walking through today. Before we jump into managing Flex, I'll be reviewing what Flex is and who it is for, for those of you who are not so familiar with Flex yet. For those of you that are familiar with Flex, not to worry. This review will be mainly focused on making sure Flex is a good fit for you. And then we'll be providing tips on how you can estimate and buy the right number of tokens.

After purchasing, you'll need to get Flex all set up. So I'll be breaking down that process, and all the features available to make managing Flex easier. Once you're all set up, you'll want to track Flex usage so that you can keep maximizing cost and know when it is time to repurchase Flex so that you never have to run out of tokens. Finally, I'll wrap things up by answering some of your most frequently asked questions.

All right. We've got lots to talk about today, so why don't we just get diving in?

So what is Flex exactly? Flex is a pay as you go option that we launched last year after receiving feedback from customers, who let us know that they wanted an alternative solution for their occasional users.

Besides customers with occasional users, Flex was also developed for those looking to scale up and try new products without committing to a subscription. For example, imagine you're at an engineering firm. You may have BIM modelers who use Revit all day long, alongside engineers who only need to use Revit a few hours a week. With your team's budget, it can be a juggling act to figure out how you want to allocate your spending there.

Or maybe you're anticipating growth and interested in increasing access to more users or more software over time. Or even maybe you're just plain busy and looking for easier onboarding. By incorporating feedback from customers who face challenges such as these, we developed Flex with these three key benefits in mind.

With Flex, we're able to provide access for occasional users and specialized product use, give access to top products and ability to try new products without a significant upfront cost, and provide an option to closer align and optimize usage costs. You will be able to purchase a mix of Single User subscription and Flex, so you can put dedicated users on subscription and occasional users on Flex. This allows you to keep your discount [INAUDIBLE] and to buy Flex as you need it.

If you're currently transitioning to named user, Flex is also another option available as you take the NU trade-in. It also lets you buy product access with low commitment. With Flex, you can actually buy a smaller quantity of tokens. And that way, you can test out new products. Now that we've covered an overview of these key features of Flex, let's discuss how you can figure out if Flex would be a good fit for you.

So the first question you may be asking yourself is, do I need Flex? Which is exactly the right question to be asking. Let's consider Jesse, an Autodesk admin. Having transitioned to named user, Jesse first heard about Flex from a sales representative. Now Jesse is trying to decide whether his users need subscription, Flex, or both. Here are a few starter questions to gauge his or your potential needs. So please do think about what your answers would be to these prompts.

Do you have users who use certain products seven days or less per month? Or do you have an ever-changing number of seasonal employees, contractors, and interns that need access? Do you find yourself regularly spending valuable time in your workday reassigning users and making sure everyone has the access they need? Do your users switch between different products depending on the project or stage in their working process?

Having answered yes to those questions, Jesse shares his top three concerns, which also happen to be the three challenges that have come up again and again in our conversations with admins just like you. So let's dive deeper into these challenges that Jesse, and you, may be facing.

Jesse does not want to waste money on a subscription for occasional users who only need access seven days or less a month. We've heard concerns about managing users who don't need to use the same products every day or use certain products only occasionally. We know it can be very time-consuming to be frequently adding and managing users or products when a project demands change. Or maybe some users just need a bigger diversity of products throughout the project lifecycle or design phases.

His users are interested in trying a new product to enhance their work. But without the upfront budget, that may not be an option for Jesse. We understand it can get expensive to purchase multiple tools for users, especially if they're not utilizing all of them every day. Now that we've discussed his concerns, let's see what we can do for Jesse.

With Flex, Jesse can save money on users who only need occasional product access by only paying for what they use. He will be able to save time in his day-to-day and add new users or products quickly. When his users want to try new products, not a problem.

No need to pay an upfront cost for a subscription before you're sure it's going to get the usage that makes that cost worthwhile. With these solutions, Jesse is so excited to tell his boss that they will be able to spend less. And he doesn't even have to trade time for money anymore. He gets to increase his productivity and save costs. Now that's what we call a win-win.

Flex sounds like a great fit for Jesse. So let's now take a look at how Flex works before we dive into the nitty gritty of getting started with Flex.

[VIDEO PLAYBACK]

NARRATOR: Flex is a new, pay as you go option to match your team's needs. Just buy tokens, and your occasional users will get access to our top products included with Flex. Here's how you can get started.

Step one. Buy tokens for your occasional users, online or from your partner. Tokens are available for purchase in pre-specified amounts. Every product has a unique daily rate, so check the rate sheet so you can choose the amount that fits your needs. Tokens lasts one year from purchase, and do not roll over. So you can just buy more whenever you need them.

Step two, assign your users. With Flex, there's no need for individual product assignments. You can assign an unlimited number of users to all products included with Flex, or pick and choose which products they get.

Step three, make it easy for your assigned users to access products whenever they need. All they need to do is open the product they need, and the corresponding daily rate will be deducted from your token balance. You will be charged a daily rate until your user closes the product.

Step four, analyze your token usage. We provide tools such as Token Usage Reporting to give you better visibility. See how often each product is getting used so you can monitor your spending. We'll notify you if your tokens are running low so you can buy more and maintain access. Visit autodesk.com/flex for more information.

[END VIDEO PLAYBACK]

PRISCILLA NING: Awesome. I hope you enjoyed that fun little teaser to the rest of this presentation. So in our next section, we'll be moving on to estimating and buying tokens.

OK, so you're ready to try Flex. How do you know how many tokens to purchase? Reviewing your seat usage is the first step you need to take here. Log into your Autodesk account, and pull up your seat usage reporting.

Here you can see how frequently your users are using your products. We consider occasional users those who access products seven days or less per month, or one to two days a week. So based on that, you can see which products have users that are utilizing their subscriptions less than seven days a month, and take a closer look to see if they're a fit for Flex.

Let's take a look at this scenario. Imagine you pull up your seat usage data and this is what you see for your product design and manufacturing collection. In this example, 100% of your users in this collection are accessing it two to three days a week consistently. Based on our previous estimates, would you say these users are a good fit for Flex? I'll give you three seconds to make your best guess.

The answer is no, these users are likely not a good fit for Flex, and should stay on subscription. When you have users accessing their products more than two to three days a week, that surpasses the seven days a month threshold. And therefore, a subscription is still the best choice for those users, and you'll see more cost savings by staying on subscription versus Flex.

Now let's take a look at this second scenario. You click on your seat usage data for AutoCAD, and this is what you see. The majority of your AutoCAD users are using it once a week, with a minority, what looks like about 20% of users are using it two to three days a week. Based on our previous estimates that we talked about, would you say any of these users would be a good fit for Flex?

And the answer is yes, a majority of these users may be a good fit for Flex. The green in the graph denotes the users accessing once a week, which is below the threshold of seven days a month. So you should see some cost savings with Flex instead of subscription for those users. It's definitely worth taking a closer look at the user who is using AutoCAD two to three days a week, which is the one in the blue in the graph. It's worth just evaluating whether their usage is consistently surpassing two days a week. If not, you may also benefit putting them on Flex.

So after reviewing the usage of your products and your seat usage reporting and getting an idea for which users you want to try putting on Flex, let's calculate the number of tokens you will need with our handy Flex Estimator tool. And you can find this tool at autodesk.com/flexestimator. We designed it to be quick and simple. No details or personal information needed. So I've recorded another demo. So let's take a look at this.

All you need to do here is enter the products you'll be using and the number of users and days for each product.

So as you can see here, I'm starting with selecting some products.

You would be choosing the products that you think would be good for Flex based on your seat usage reporting. And then I'm going in and adjusting the users [INAUDIBLE] to match my seat usage reports that I just analyzed.

As you can see, the numbers are changing live as you're adding. And it gives me a recommendation based on my inputs immediately. So I can just click Buy Tokens to check out. And that's it. Super easy.

So we actually recommend just checking out, like I showed you. From the Estimator tool, it's super convenient and the easiest way to get tokens, but if you would more time to consider, you can always try the Estimator tool again another day or go directly to www.autodesk.com/flex, and you can add tokens directly to your cart there. You can also order through your Autodesk sales representative or your reseller, if you would like additional support.

So that concludes the pre-purchase part of this session. Let's move on to setting up Flex and what you do after you purchase. So using one of those three ways listed to buy tokens, you've successfully submitted your Flex order. What do you do now? And the answer is start by checking your email inbox.

After submitting your Flex order, you'll receive a welcome email that has some very handy links and a quick introduction to your purchase. After you take a minute to read, click Assign Users, which is that red arrow on the screen. After you sign in, this link will bring you directly to the Adding and Assigning User's page in your Autodesk account. So if you did not receive the email yet or would like to go directly to the Adding and Assigning page, this is the URL here.

If you have had any experience with adding and assigning users to subscription in the past, the process for Flex is pretty much the same. However, with Subscription, you may be used to adding and assigning users to each individual product. However, with Flex, you actually give users access to all products included with Flex by assigning them to the Flex Portfolio, like I have in a screenshot on the screen, and you assign them as if that was one product. So all of the assigned users to Flex will be able to access products include it with Flex without additional action on their or your part, making things easy for everyone.

Going to User Management by Product and clicking on Flex is the easiest way to add and assign users to Flex. Here's a quick demo to show you how. With this process, you can invite users and assign them at the same time, or you can assign users that have already been added to your Autodesk account.

Clicking Assigning Users, and in this case, I'm actually inviting new users who have not been added to my account, yet. So as you can see, this process is very straightforward, but you can also think about adding users who are already assigned to other products so that way, you don't have to have new users. If you just type in their name, they will also show up.

So what if you have lots of users to add? You might be thinking that this manual process is too time consuming if you're adding more than a couple of users at a time, but I can definitely guarantee that we have a solution for you.

Our solution is Import to Assign. This is offered for both Flex and Subscription so you can use it for both. You have the option of uploading a CSV file with the first name, last name, and email of your users, so you can book, add, and assign users to Flex.

To further save you time, we also have default assignments for you to utilize. Only available with Flex, default assignments is a feature that gives you the power to choose which products your Flex users will have automatic access to since you are not assigning users to specific products, like with Subscription. You can adjust your use of this feature depending on how much control you would like to have.

For example, you might want to only allow access to a few specific products, or maybe you're fine with giving access to all assigned users, except for a few certain products, either because they have a high token rate and you don't want anyone accidentally accessing it, or maybe there's just some products included with Flex that you would rather have users request access with you, first. Whatever the reasoning or method is, it's very easy to manage with this feature. No need to worry about misuse, either. As you will see, all usage in your token usage reporting will be seen, so I'll dive into that later.

For now, let's take a look at how you can set up default assignments in your Autodesk account. Here, I'm just clicking on the Gear icon. And you can see default assignments and your setting. And I'm clicking on Flex, and then, I'm going to go ahead and un-collect those products that I don't want to give access to. And there. So everyone who is assigned Flex will automatically be able to use any of the products that I selected, except for the ones I un-selected.

So if your user's assigned to Flex, they can start accessing products included immediately. So I wanted to note here that your user's access products the exact same way. Whether they're on Subscription or Flex, there's virtually no difference. So the user experience for accessing a Single User Subscription and Flex is the same. They just open the product and sign in with their details. Therefore, it's up to you, actually, whether you even want to let them know at all. I've heard both from admin, some don't mention it at all and some other admins have sent out an email to their Flex users to let them know they've been added to Flex, and to remind them that they should close the product whenever they are not using it.

If you're wondering if Flex users have to be connected to the internet, the answer is yes. Users have to be connected every 24 hours, since that's the nature of how Flex works. If you're not connected to the internet within 24 hours, they will receive an end product notification to remind them to connect to the internet, and then the product will be closed. So if you need offline allowance, the Subscription would be the best option, but if you're fine with connecting every 24 hours then, Flex is still a very good option for you.

Tokens are deducted when the user opens a product, and are charged every 24 hours unless they close the product. You can also use previous versions with both Flex and Subscription. We have the current all the way back to 2017.

All right. Now that you have all that set up, let's talk about how you can track Flex usage. Let's assume that your users have been using tokens to access their products, and let's take a look at how you can monitor what usage they've been having.

After you purchase Flex, you will see an extra line item under Reporting that says Token Usage. You'll also be able to see a summary By Product and By User breakdown of usage. Currently, if you're on a Standard plan for Flex, you might not see this By User tab. However, I'm very excited to announce that after receiving lots of feedback from admins, we decided that the User tab will actually be coming to Standard in October of this year. So very soon, all Flex admins will have access to By User reporting.

We recommend that you review Flex usage periodically to ensure you're maximizing costs. So definitely go see your token usage pretty frequently.

You might be wondering, how? What do I do if I go to token usage? How do I see if I'm maximizing costs? So here's a quick example of how you can do that.

Let's say you notice that your Flex user Angelica has been working long hours on a project. If you click her name under By User, you can actually see that she's been using AutoCAD a lot this month. In fact, she's been using it 17 days this month, way higher than the breakdown point of seven days a month. And you can also see a weekly breakdown of her usage here to see if there's any trends. With her level of usage, I would assign her to a Subscription instead of Flex until her usage falls back down to seven days a month. If not, just keep her on Subscription. As you can see, the data in your token usage reporting can help you keep tabs on your users.

We know that project work can ebb and flow so their habits may change pretty frequently. If you see more than seven days a month of usage for your Flex users make sure to maximize your spend by moving them to a Subscription and vice versa. If you see less than seven days a month of usage in your [INAUDIBLE] Usage reporting, which is the tab above Token Usage, that's for your Subscription users, it's easy to just take a look at that and reassign them to Flex if it's falling under seven days of usage.

So let's assume you've been trialing Flex for a while and it's been working great for your occasional users. Soon, you may find yourself running low on tokens. We will send you an email notification to let you know if you have less than 20% of your tokens left. So for example, if you purchased 500 tokens, we'll let you know if you're running low on tokens if you have 100 left. We will also notify you once you run out, but we really highly recommend purchasing more as soon as you receive the low token notification or if you keep tabs on it, maybe even earlier so that your users are not locked out and denied access to their products when they need it.

If you happen to miss the emails, you will also see these notifications in your Autodesk account. We have one for low token balance and no tokens, as well. So here, we have a By Tokens link, so you can easily click that to purchase more.

Since this is a recorded session, for all your virtual [INAUDIBLE] viewers, I really wanted to include some of the most frequently asked questions from customers. These are the questions that we have received over and over again. So I just want to make sure that I don't leave you guys without clarifying some of these details.

How do tokens work? I've covered this a bit in the first section, but happy to go into additional detail here. Your users use tokens every time they access a product available with Flex. Each product has its own rate. If you want to see the specific rates, you can just go to www.autodesk.com/flexratesheet.

Tokens lasts one year from purchase and do not auto renew or rollover, so make sure to only purchase what you actually need. And because of that, you can purchase more tokens at any time. Tokens that expire earliest will be used first. If you purchase tokens in March and in May, the tokens in March will be used first.

Next, you may be wondering exactly how you will be charged for usage. Most products and services included in Flex are charged every day. So when an user opens a product included with Flex, they will be charged a daily rate for product once every 24 hours. During those 24 hours, users will not be charged for using multiple versions of the product or reopening it within a 24-hour period.

To help clarify this even more, imagine I am a Flex user, and I sign into AutoCAD at 8:00 AM on Monday and use it until 5:00 PM that same day. I close the product when I'm done, and then I leave for the day, because that was what my admin specified I do in that email he sent, so I make sure to close it when I leave. And then I come back to work the next day, and I open AutoCAD at 7:00 AM. Since I opened it at 8:00 AM the day before, my team will not be charged until 8:00 AM.

On that same day, I closed the product at 5:00 PM. And since I'm working on different projects the rest of the week, I do not open it again for the rest of the week. The rate of AutoCAD is seven tokens a day, so for two days of use, I will have used 14 tokens.

Some products and services included in Flex are charged per result instead of per day. Since rates are variable depending on the product or service and the type of result requested, we have more details linked on the Flex rate sheet page, but here's a quick example to illustrate.

Let's say Sean needs to use ReCap Photo to convert 85 aerial photos to a 3D site model. For a ReCap Photo, one token can convert 50 photos. Therefore, to convert 85 photos, Sean uses two tokens.

Lastly, this is a question we get pretty often. Can I put users on both Subscription and Flex? The answer is yes. Flex is not all or nothing. Since Flex and Subscription fit different needs, you can get the most value from managing both Flex and Subscription for your users based on their individual needs.

So let's take a look at what users you may be managing. James is a frequent user who needs AutoCAD 10 days a month. So with that usage, he should definitely stay on a Subscription to AutoCAD. Your next user, Derek, uses Inventor four days a month. Flex is the best option for occasional users who use a product less than seven days a month, so Derek should be assigned to Flex.

Your third user type, Sarah, is a bit more complicated than James or Derek. She uses Revit every day. However, she also needs Navisworks two days per month. It makes sense to keep Sarah assigned to a Revit subscription, but also assign her to Flex so she can use Navisworks through Flex. For users like Sarah, who are assigned to product subscriptions and Flex, they will always use their subscriptions before tokens. Sarah will not be charged tokens to use Revit since she is already assigned a Revit subscription, but will use tokens to Navisworks since she does not have a Navisworks subscription.

So if you still have any additional questions after this, I just wanted to call out that we have a handy list of even more frequently asked questions at the bottom of the Flex landing page. So feel free to check those out, as a question may already be answered there, at autodesk.com/flex.

All right. To wrap things up, I want to leave you with some next steps to take. Besides some frequently asked questions, the landing page I mentioned for Flex has a wealth of great information about Flex and a full breakdown of daily product rates. If you still do not find the answer to your question, visit the Subscription Changes Forum for additional support. Most importantly, bookmark this video, and don't forget to try our Flex Estimator tool. You can replay the steps of this video to estimate tokens and you can go through all the steps to get started with Flex, again.

Thank you so much for joining me and sticking with me until the end. I greatly appreciate your full attention. I know that's not easy with all the distractions of our work day. I had so much fun sharing all the steps to getting started with Flex. As you can see, we try to keep it simple and straightforward. I appreciate your time and attention, and I hope you have a fantastic rest of your day. Thank you.