Cascading Order of Autodesk Inventor Professional Network License

Updated (July 25, 2016):  The cascading network license issue as described below in this article for Inventor 2017 has been resolved in the R2/SP1 edition or service pack 1.  A couple of things to keep in mind for the 2017 version after the update has been applied.

• Upon first launch if you have suite licenses, Inventor Professional will consume an Ultimate license of Product Design or Factory Design Suite.  When it’s launched again it will consume a lower license like it did in the past.
• After you obtain a license and you start using Factory tools, for about 2 minutes, you will be consuming 2 license.  One for Inventor and the other for factory (FDS).  After 2 minutes, your Inventor license will be returned and you will only be consuming the single Factory Design Suite license at that point.

 
Posted on June 21, 2016 by Synergis Product Support Specialist, Mark Lancaster
Prior to the release of 2017…
When you launched a network version of Inventor Professional it would first try to grab a (network) license associated to either Inventor (standard), Product Design Suite Premium (PDSP), Factory Design Suite Premium (FDSP) or perhaps Building Design Suite Ultimate (BDSU).  However if none of those license were available, it would repeat the process and try to grab a license from Inventor Professional, Product Design Suite Ultimate (PDSU) or Factory Design Suite Ultimate (FDSU).
In the following example, I have launched Inventor Professional 2016 and it grabbed a Product Design Suite Premium 2016 license.
Like my example, if Inventor Pro did eventually end up grabbing an Inventor (standard), PDSP, FDSP, or BDSU network license, once you started using the professional functions like FEA, simulation, routed systems, etc., your current license would be returned and automatically swapped for an Inventor Pro, PDSU or FDSU license (if any of those were available).
For this example, I started a tube & pipe (routed system) assembly and now you can see my license has changed over to a PDSU license which offers me a professional version of Inventor.
Release of 2017…
Update:  For clarification, the following cascading information is solely based upon when Inventor Professional is installed through a Product or Factory Design Ultimate Suite.  Installations of stand-alone seats of Inventor Pro 2017 are not impacted by the cascading license limitation as described below.
Upon first launched (as designed), Inventor Pro will always grab a license associated to either Inventor Pro or PDSU no matter if you have a lower type license and/or suite in your license file.  When it’s launched again, the cascading order I described in “prior to release 2017” is supposed to occur.
However, at this time Inventor Professional 2017 is always grabbing a license associated to either Inventor Pro or PDSU no matter how many times it has been launched or what (Inventor) functions are currently being used.
In this example, I have already launched Inventor Pro 2017 numerous times and as you can see it still shows that I’m consuming a Product Design Suite Ultimate license even though I just launched Inventor again.
But what happens if you’re an Inventor (Pro) Factory Design users?
Prior to 2017…
The same concept as I described previously works.  A related factory design license is grabbed (if available) when you start using factory functions and the original license you had is returned.
For 2017…
The following occurs:

• If you just have PDSP and FDSU in your license file, Inventor will always consume a FDSU license. When you start using factory tools nothing changes and the FDSU license is maintained.
• If you only have FDSU in your license file, nothing changes when you start using factory tools.
• If you just have FDSP and FDSU in your license file, a FDSU license is always consumed and nothing changes when you start using factory tools.
• If you have PDSU and FDSP (with or without FDSU) in your license file, Inventor Pro 2017 will consume a PDSU license upon launch and another related factory license when you start using factory tools.

So in this example, I launched Inventor Pro 2017 and started using factory functions.  Since I had FDSP in my license file, you can clearly see the factory add-on/extension is now consuming its own separate license.
If I also perform a status enquiry under the license manager (LMTOOLS), you will notice the 2 license that I have consumed under this condition.
Although Autodesk is aware of this limitation/issue (and working on a solution for it), I wanted to pass along this information so you would have a better understanding of what is currently happening with your network license for Inventor Professional 2017.
Until next time…