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So, after a frustrating 40 minutes on the Adobe chat, where I explained this scenario below and was pushed into a sales call, two salespeople tried to encourage a solution of a subscription model. They then said they did not know very much about the perpetual licenses and gave some generic advice prefaced with, “From what I know…” So..... I am reaching out to see if anyone in the community can help.
its funny people refer to these as "perpetual", when actually they only last 3 years. But that is what the help staff referred to them as.
Background:
We are a small charity with 6–8 staff members and normally 2 interns.
We own around 18 perpetual licenses for the following:
Adobe Premiere Elements
Adobe Photoshop Elements
Adobe Acrobat Pro
The interns change every year, and quite often, we have staff changes.
We cycle machines into the organization, with the staff who have the heaviest needs getting the newest machines, while the older machines cycle down. Staff generally never stay on a single machine for more than 2 years, and we could have new staff/interns every year.
Question
Elements software generally lasts for 3 years, so each year we purchase 2–3 more licenses. However, how is it best to manage these licenses, especially were staff can change?
Let me give a specific scenario:
Bob joins the charity as an intern for one year.
All our interns do some photo editing and videos for social media, so we (the charity) buy and install Premiere Elements and Photoshop Elements. Bob does not own the software - bob is just a user.
During the installation, Bob gets an organization email, bob@charity.org, and sets up an account with Adobe. Bob logs into Premiere Elements and Photoshop Elements with his email.
Bob, after one year, leaves the organization when his internship ends. Bob’s machine is fully cleared, his email is removed, and the machine is set up with a new install for the next intern and a new email.
The new intern, Jill, joins and takes over from Bob. Like Bob, Jill will also do some photo editing and videos for social media.
The charity already owns Premiere Elements and Photoshop Elements. Bob has left the organization, so he is no longer a user of this software. We now want Jill to be the user of this software.
Currently, the software is still showing on Bob’s online account.
How best do we manage these situations?
2. Can the Serial number on Bob's account be registered to Jills new adobe account or, are we better off giving Jill Bob’s old Adobe account (i.e., doing an email change)?
Note we can set up staff in old roles to forward email to the new staff.... Ie all bob's emails will now go to Jill.
3. Are we better off creating one Adobe account (e.g., staff@charity.org) and using this for all software bought by the organization? This way one account can manage everything.
Is there problems with any of these ways or is there a better solution.
We had a situation in the past where we lost access to software from a staff member that had left two years earlier and we had to recreate a new email for him, to get back into his account.
So any helpful suggestions.
Subcription based options are not in our budget. looking for solutions specifically for the mentioned types of software.
Many thanks
Scott
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all licenses should be controlled by the charity by using charity controlled computers with charity controlled emails.
the users should not have any control, at all.
additionally, you need to be very careful about deactivating licenses from computers being cycled out of use.
you also need to secure installation files and serial numbers.
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On Adobe elements software the doesn't seem to be a deacivate options. Its "sign in/sign out" Is this the same? we do have full control. they emails belong to the organisation. What I am trying to avoid is adobe saying. Jill (at the charity) cant use the software because it is registered to Bob (at the charity), and make sure I have procedure in place for de comissioning or reformating machines to make sure we dont lose it that way.
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yes. sign in = activate and sign out = deactivate
registration/ownership should not change and should be the charity itself.
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Nothing should be registered for an individual user on these types of licenses. Everything typically would be registered through an IT or admin email through a volume licensing account. So in your case, Bob should not install any software on your computer. Instead an admin with privileges to install software on the machine should. Then if Bob leaves or the machine gets passed down, then the software should be removed if it is no longer needed by the next user to free up the license.
If during your installation Bob is registering the software to an individual Adobe ID, then it sounds like you have individual licenses and not volume licenses and in this case, that ID for Bob owns the software and his Adobe ID is tied to that single installation. Your best bet is to contact the Adobe volume licensing team or look to some of their reselling partners for assistance with your nonprofit to find you the right licenses https://adobe.my.salesforce-sites.com/PartnerSearch?lang=en
There is also this website for their non-profit program which you are likely in if you have not already applied to which would get you the licenses you need: https://www.adobe.com/nonprofits.html
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Ok we have applied for the non profit liscenses - These are only available to registered non profits. So they are not for individuals. You have to prove your status etc. However the liscence type is also NOT a volume liscence. We have a non profit status with microsoft and purchase through the same platform but all the liscences end up in the volumne liscence centre of the 365 tennant.
Each of these adobe programs require a single log in, so yes i would agree that our IT does do the install. so if we did this through an admin account. would adobe raise any issue if we had all 18 software liscence on the one adobe account and this account was active on 6-8 different machines (using different series numbers). This was my N.3 suggestion.
Unfortunatly Adobe sale told me they only offer a admin centre fro subscription based software, but by there own adminition the software is more expensive.
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Adobe doesn't care where licenses sit as long as you have enough for each machine that they need to run on. Plenty of orgs I've been with would push installations to each machine that needed it. I don't know all the details of the most recent VIP/TLP/etc. plans that Adobe has so I would recommend reaching out to their sales teams or consider one of their partners like CDW or others from the list who would be able to walk you through the details.