Denied access to Inventor

[Sheridan]

We've been using Autodesk Inventor for years here under the Education Network license (which allows us to use it on site with a license server)

 

However our license has been expired as we are apparently no longer eligible (although according to the rules we still as - we're a single school academy!) and Autodesk use some third party (SheerID) to validate this

 

Problem is Sheerid (whoever they are!) say No, and Autodesk say its not their problem and we have to contact Sheerid - who haven't replied to any messages!

 

Just wondering if anyone else has been cut off like this? We're now going to have to find an open source alternative and re-jig the curriculum thanks the stubbornly unresponsive third party!

 

Also, any recommendations for education suitable replacements for Inventor would be gratefully received 🙂

[Sheridan]

Well good luck to anyone facing the same problem!

 

Autodesk says sheerid get to decide who uses their products

 

sheerid say we aren’t a school (even though we’ve previously been eligible for years!)

 

autodesk say they can’t help because…..and loop

 

What a shambolic system

Edited September 5, 2025 by Sheridan

[mikes]

That sounds awful man, our DT department would be fuming at me 

I remember having a nightmare getting a key a few years ago, the download portal just wouldn't show it, then a week later I could download it but it only worked for the new version so I had to upgrade every desktop PC.

Every year I get a renewal e-mail but I've not had one this year, checking on the Autodesk portal it shows our license as expiring in 2027 ??   And this is the last year they will do these educational licenses anyway?

 

For us all we had to do was send a letter on school letterhead paper with the heads name on it. But we are a state school so it would be easier for us.  I don't even think we had to do this every year, just when we started?  All we had to do was go onto the portal and get the new key  though I could be mistaken. Can you not start the process from scratch and maybe hope some different worker gets onto it??

[Sheridan]

2 hours ago, mikes said:

That sounds awful man, our DT department would be fuming at me 

I remember having a nightmare getting a key a few years ago, the download portal just wouldn't show it, then a week later I could download it but it only worked for the new version so I had to upgrade every desktop PC.

Every year I get a renewal e-mail but I've not had one this year, checking on the Autodesk portal it shows our license as expiring in 2027 ??   And this is the last year they will do these educational licenses anyway?

 

For us all we had to do was send a letter on school letterhead paper with the heads name on it. But we are a state school so it would be easier for us.  I don't even think we had to do this every year, just when we started?  All we had to do was go onto the portal and get the new key  though I could be mistaken. Can you not start the process from scratch and maybe hope some different worker gets onto it??

They don't seem to offer any way to start a new claim - its done online via sheerid and they say no and basically close the ticket with a message saying they won't discuss it further!

 

We also didn't get any warnings about expiry - I suspect they're blacklisting us for some unknown and bizarre reason

[Sheridan]

Success! Finally thanks to Autodesk intervening we have been given access again

 

Sheerid were just a brick wall but Autodesk managed to get us re-validated

[mikes]

Glad it got sorted, we just got our e-mail saying our access needs to be renewed !  So here's hoping it goes smoothly for us.

 

Also their e-mail states below that they are getting rid of Network licenses starting next year, looks like every student will need their own account starting from then on. I've told our DT department don't count on having access to it in 2026 - 2027

 

"Please note that new MSSA (Multi Seat Stand-Alone) and Network serial number licenses will no longer be available starting March 2026.  This is a great opportunity to transition to named user licenses, which offer IT administrators a more flexible and user-centric approach to deploying Autodesk products. "

 

The renewal I always remember being an ache...  our license file expires 14 Nov 2025, but on the Autodesk website our subscription is showing as expiring in 2027... yet downloading a new license file still has the expiry date 14 Nov...    no option to upgrade or renew. Might have to just wait until 15th Nov and see what happens then

Edited September 19, 2025 by mikes

[Sheridan]

I saw that note  - we renewed as a network license again so will have this rigmarole next year when they remove the network license option. I'm hoping to push towards an open source package such as Freecad instead as I imagine the 'more flexible and user-centric approach' will be an absolute pain

[mikes]

I ended up verifying ours for another year - luckily for us within 20 minutes we were accepted. I uploaded basically a print off of our blank letterhead template with todays date,  scanned that in with my work ID and sent that off. 

 

I'm conditioned now to whenever I hear business speak like that, things will get a lot worse - like Microsoft announcing the removal of A1 Plus licenses to be replaced with standard A1 - trying to spin it as a good thing for "flexibility and responsiveness" - will Tesco come out and announce "we're excited to announce for flexibility of nutrition, all milk in 2026 will be replaced with NuMilk! (same as old milk but twice the price)"

 

Sounds like they will only allow "named licenses"  which sounds like each user will need their own account and will need to sign in - which means having these accounts created, managed, admined etc - named licenses doesn't sound like the 3000 flex licenses that just get borrowed / released without a sign in needed. All this effort and you can't guarantee next year they won't just scrap the whole EDU thing entirely and you have to pay full price anyway - am learning that lesson now with MS and VMware etc. 

 

 

[Sheridan]

Seems to be the way these days - we're scrapping VMware next year as Broadcom stuck two fingers up to any education customers. I'm not sure but Autodesk might work with Azure & SSO to allocate licenses  but its almost guaranteed it will be worse and more of an admin pain than the simply network license!

[MartinByard]

Just to note on the Autodesk and SSO etc. Last time I looked into it (was a while ago, so might have changed now), this was possible on the paid for Enterprise plan - but not the free Education plan.

[Sheridan]

34 minutes ago, MartinByard said:

Just to note on the Autodesk and SSO etc. Last time I looked into it (was a while ago, so might have changed now), this was possible on the paid for Enterprise plan - but not the free Education plan.

Damn, that's a shame - but even then it will be a pain!

[midweek]

3 hours ago, MartinByard said:

Just to note on the Autodesk and SSO etc. Last time I looked into it (was a while ago, so might have changed now), this was possible on the paid for Enterprise plan - but not the free Education plan.

Ours are user licenses. SSO you can do on the education offering, which works fine. Opens a webpage to authenticate them but as everything is passthrough for us it works pretty seamlessly.

It's the directory sync that only comes with the enterprise plan. So we're stuck with uploading CSV files for new pupils.

[MartinByard]

10 minutes ago, midweek said:

It's the directory sync that only comes with the enterprise plan. So we're stuck with uploading CSV files for new pupils.

I knew there was something that was missing the in the Education plan, that sounds more likely than no SSO at all (although as I said, it was a while ago when I last looked into it).

[Sheridan]

And we've been denied access again this year - same issues as the original thread. Why do autodesk/sheerid hate schools!?

 

So that's it for us, ditching autodesk and their miserable validation process and going for something open source - I can't believe they actually asked me to upload my payslip, the cheeky gits!

[mikes]

Damn let us know if you find anything decent, I never updated this thread but earlier I said our license ran out in 2027, that wasn't true  our software stopped working in October but I did manage to get a new license file for it. I told DT last year that this would be the last year they could likely continue using it as is, will see what happens next year. 

We are looking to try and scrap a lot of our paid for / subscription based products (such as Adobe CC) with alternatives but haven't looked into it that closely so far

[Sheridan]

2 minutes ago, mikes said:

Damn let us know if you find anything decent, I never updated this thread but earlier I said our license ran out in 2027, that wasn't true  our software stopped working in October but I did manage to get a new license file for it. I told DT last year that this would be the last year they could likely continue using it as is, will see what happens next year. 

We are looking to try and scrap a lot of our paid for / subscription based products (such as Adobe CC) with alternatives but haven't looked into it that closely so far

Yeah the search is on, between autodesk and sheerid you just go around in circles and frankly I can't be bothered with them!

[Sheridan]

Its gets better - I sent a letterheaded document with my ID scanned over it as a last attempt and they rejected that as well. They seem determined to see my payslip so they can do one. What an unhelpful bunch they are!

[Sheridan]

That's it for us, good luck to anyone else who hits this. They insist on the only proof being a personal payslip, so they can absolutely do one. What an unhelpful company.

[KK20]

We got fed up with autodesk some time ago.  Back in fusion 360 days of insane requirements to upgrade each version.  Have been using onshape for education alongside tinkercad for yr7s.  Works on chromebooks too.

[Sheridan]

2 minutes ago, KK20 said:

We got fed up with autodesk some time ago.  Back in fusion 360 days of insane requirements to upgrade each version.  Have been using onshape for education alongside tinkercad for yr7s.  Works on chromebooks too.

Cheers, will have a look at those as well - we've got until the current license expires which is Sept so I've got a little time to find a replacement