Autodesk school licences are licences that are not tied to an individual user. They come in two forms:
- Multi-seat single-user. Normally installed on standalone laptops once a deployment has been created — either pupils' own machines or the school's. These can be used offline, anywhere in the world, with no need for internet access.
- Multi-seat multi-user (network or floating licences). A licence file keeps track of how many people are using the software. If you want, this can be set up so that pupils and teachers can borrow a licence for up to six months. That also works offline, but the machine must have been on the school network at least once to fetch the licence from the licence server.
To use school licences, follow the procedure below. Apologies for the level of detail — the aim is to show every step you have to go through.
- Go to the Autodesk Education Community at www.autodesk.com/education.
- Choose Get Products.
- Choose Get Started.
- Choose Create Account.
- Fill in the form. For school licences you must select IT Administrator — this is the only choice that gives access to this type of licence. Select the type of institution you belong to.
- On the next page you are asked for your name and email address, and you choose your password.
- After clicking Create Account you get a confirmation and a message saying an email has been sent to you.
- Open that email and click the link in it.
- Your email address is confirmed. Click Done.
- You are taken to a page where you select the school you belong to.
- Start typing in the Name of educational institution field and the system will try to find your school. If it is not there, use the Can't find your school? option — you can then submit your school's details. Note that you only see schools in the category you chose in step 5. If you have to submit the school, you cannot continue until it has been added. That can take a while, so if you need a licence quickly, try different spellings of the school's name, including older names — Autodesk received these lists from the public authorities and some of the names are out of date. Do not select a school other than your own: shortly afterwards you must supply a document proving that you work there.
- Once you have completed the form and clicked Next, your account has been created.
- Clicking Continue takes you to Autodesk's American site at www.autodesk.com. That is not where you want to be — go back to the Education Community.
- Choose Get Products again. This time the system sees that you are signed in and asks you to confirm who you are.
- Click Get Started.
- A form appears showing what you have already entered. Update it if needed.
- Click Verify to continue.
- You now get a page where you supply evidence that you really are employed by the school. A form is attached that you can use if you do not have any of the documents they ask for.
- Click Submit to send it in.
- What you submit is then verified, and before long you will be told that everything is in order.
- You can finally download the software. This also happens on the Education Community, so go to www.autodesk.com/education.
- Click Class/lab to see the products available to you.
Good luck. If you have questions you are welcome to contact Ole Petter Vik.