Autodesk Flex allows your occasional users to use tokens to access any product available with Flex for 24 hours at a time. After you purchase Flex tokens, you can assign users and specify which products they can access. For an overview, see Autodesk Flex (US site).
Important: To avoid being charged for idle time, your users should sign out or close products when not in use.
Three Steps to Get Started with Flex (video: 2:44 min)
Follow these steps to set up Flex and invite your occasional users to access Autodesk products available with Flex.
Buy Flex tokens. See Buy tokens (US site).
Sign into Autodesk Account at manage.autodesk.com and click User Management > By Product.
Select Flex and click Assign Users.
Choose one of the following depending on whether you are assigning an existing user or inviting a new user.
Existing Users: begin typing in their name. Select the existing user from the list when it displays. See Add and remove users.
New Users: enter their full name followed by an email address in angle brackets (for example, John Doe <john.doe@email.com>).
Note: New users are asked to create an Autodesk Account if they don’t have one. If a new user doesn't accept an invitation within seven days, you need to resend the invitation.
View your Flex usage reports. See Get Flex usage information.
You can specify which products are available to your occasional users with Flex.
Sign into Autodesk Account at manage.autodesk.com and click User Management > By Product.
In the product list, select Flex.
Under Assigned Users, select the user you want to manage to display a list of products and services.
Select the products and services you want to assign or clear any you want to unassign.
Note: If all products are selected (no products are cleared), when Autodesk adds new products to Flex, the new products are automatically accessible. You must proactively unassign if you do not want automatic access to new products.
Click Save Changes.
Users receive an email notifying them that they have access to products when assigned individually. If you use Import to assign, email notifications are not sent.
As an alternative to managing product access on an individual user basis, you can set up default access to products and services for your entire team. When you select the default assignment setting, existing and new users will access the same set of selected products.
Note: Default assignments are automatically turned off for guest users and Autodesk recommends leaving them off. However, if you need to turn default assignments on (or off) for guest users, you can contact Autodesk support to do so.
To set up default assignments:
Sign into Autodesk Account at manage.autodesk.com.
On your Account page, select User Management > By User.
Choose the Flex team for which you want to manage default assignments.
Click the Team Settings gear icon at the top right.
Under User Management > Default Assignments, click Set Up Default Assignments.
In the Manage Default Assignments dialog, click Flex.
Select the products you want to assign default access to. When Autodesk adds new products to Flex, the new products are not automatically accessible to users with default assignments. Edit the default assignments list to assign access to the new products.
Click Save Changes to activate default assignments.
To turn off default assignments:
Note: Email notifications are not sent to users for changes to default assignments.
Subscription and trial priority
When a user is assigned to both a single-user subscription and Flex tokens, tokens are not used. For example, if you assign an AutoCAD subscription that user will not consume tokens for AutoCAD.
Similarly, users in a trial period do not consume tokens for that product. Tell your users to ignore the expiring trial message. After the trial period ends, they will start using tokens.
Note: Subscription and trial priority applies only if the same Autodesk ID is used for sign-in authentication.
When you purchase additional tokens, they are added to your team’s token balance. Tokens from each Flex purchase are valid for one year from the date of purchase, with older tokens consumed first. This ensures that you have the most time to use your tokens.
If you manage multiple teams, check that the Flex purchase has been added to the correct team. If not, you can move it to another team that you manage from within Autodesk Account. See Flex tokens and teams.
Installation and sign-in for the occasional user
Your Flex token users can download and install products.
Sign into your Autodesk Account at manage.autodesk.com and click All Products and Services.
In the product name list, select Flex. Click View Items.
You don’t need to reinstall if you change from Flex to a single-user subscription license, or have a supported version already installed from a prior subscription or trial.
Both single-user subscriptions and Flex are forms of named user access. Single-user subscriptions are dedicated subscriptions, assigned for use to only one named user at a time. They are best suited to users who access products on a frequent basis. Flex, on the other hand, is not a dedicated subscription. It is intended to be shared by an unlimited number of users, who access products “paying” a daily rate by consuming tokens. Flex is best suited for occasional product use.
Although each Flex purchase results in one or more new Flex token packs, tokens from each purchase are added to the team’s single token balance. As your team accesses products, tokens from the Flex token pack with the earliest end date are consumed first, so that you’ll have the longest period of use for each Flex token pack before it expires. Further, if your team has multiple Flex token packs with the same end date, Flex consumes tokens from the smallest packs first. For example, Flex will consume tokens from a 500-pack before consuming them from a 5000-pack. This ensures that tokens for which you paid a higher price are consumed before tokens from discounted packs.
Yes. Although it’s always best practice to close products when you finish using them, recent versions of most Flex products include an idle awareness feature that detects a lack of meaningful use, delaying your next token charge should you forget to close.
Check Flex products that support idle awareness to find out if your product supports the idle awareness (US Site) feature.
After 15 minutes of inactivity, Autodesk products that support this feature enter an idle state in which further token charges are paused. Inactivity is detected when a user isn’t performing meaningful operations (each product determines which operations are meaningful). While paused, the next daily token rate is delayed. With the detection of a return to meaningful operations, usage is again considered to be active, the license session resumes, and a daily token rate will be consumed after the first five minutes of use.
When you sign in to a product, Flex confirms that a team has enough tokens to cover the daily rate of the product’s new session. If the token balance isn’t sufficient, Flex notifies you with a message. You won’t be able to run the product until your team has enough tokens. Note: You’ll see this message if the team balance is less than the daily token rate of the product you’re trying to run, if the team balance is zero, or if the Flex subscription has reached its 12-month expiration date.
When you open a product and sign in, you cannot specify which team to use for token consumption. In this case, Autodesk chooses the team.
Yes, when your team gets Flex, Flex users inherit the plan and benefits of the single-user subscriptions already in that team.
Tokens will not be charged if you sign in and out within five minutes.
Each Flex token pack is good for one year from the date of purchase. If a Flex token pack reaches its end date with a positive token balance, the remaining tokens expire. Tokens from expired subscriptions don’t roll over and there is no refund for unused expired tokens.
Changing time zones has no impact on the 24-hour period. As it starts when you sign in to the product, you won’t incur another charge for 24 hours from that start time, regardless of the time zone reflected on the clock.
Some product plugins incur a daily token charge when accessed (while some plugins do not.) For those that do incur a daily charge, if the plugin was configured to start when the host product starts, the daily token rate will be charged for both. To avoid inadvertent charges for plugins, don’t configure your plugin to load when the host product starts. See the Flex rate sheet (US site).
Yes. You must connect to the Internet once every 24 hours. An Internet connection is required when you first sign in to a product. After that, you can go offline for up to 24 hours. As you approach the 24-hour mark, an in-product message notifies you that online sign-in is again required.
No. Flex adheres to the same Terms of Use as single-user subscriptions. Every user assigned to a product included with Flex can install that product on up to 3 devices and can run that product from one device at a time.
No. Flex charges the daily token rate only once per named user, per product, per 24-hours, regardless of which device the user is using to access the product.
No. Flex charges the daily token rate only once per named user, per product, per-24-hours regardless of product version.
No. You can limit the products to which each user has access. However, you cannot set a token limit for a specific user or a group of users.
For products included with Flex that run on Linux (such as Flame, Maya, MotionBuilder, and Mudbox), only 2020 versions and newer are supported by Flex.
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