Limited licensing issue? ( Network )

[nestly]

....Engineers have around 10-20 min job and then just leave AutoCAD opened......

.... you could give them xxxx ..... Draftsight is free and will ........ probably doesn't need the full power of autocad anyway.

Using freeware is decent enough but the engineers won't be comfortable shifting to something else other then what they are used to.
Any other ideas?

....but again, what if ....

My post directly addresses the OP's problem of users failing to close AutoCAD when they are finished with it, as well as the OP's reluctance to introducing another CAD application, it was not intended to diminish any of the other suggestions or solutions.

[Jack_O'neill]

My post directly addresses the OP's problem of users failing to close AutoCAD when they are finished with it, as well as the OP's reluctance to introducing another CAD application, it was not intended to diminish any of the other suggestions or solutions.

I'm sorry Nestly, I meant no disparagement to you. Its just that I have worked in this exact situation and it's extremely annoying. On one hand you got somebody standing on your neck about the schedule, and there's nothing you can do because there are no licenses. One finally comes available, and you just get started and the boss in on the phone wanting a meeting to talk about the project you are working on. You stay logged on hoping it will only be a few minutes and get back to find that your license expired. It is a ridiculous situation that serves only to increase stress and frustration. It makes people miss deadlines, get chewed on for that, and finally go away because nobody wants to get chewed out every day for failing to do a job when theres nothing you can do about it. When you've got people that want to do a good job and you don't give them the tools, or worse yet take the tool away because of some arbitrary "inactivity" rule, eventually they will get to where they don't care if they do it or not.

[RocketSurgeon]

We are in a similar situation with designers not having available licenses. We are currently using draftsight for several of our project managers to free up a few of the licenses.
At my last company, they had chosen autocad LT for the Engineers, while the designers had access to the full version.
It is very frustrating trying to meet deadlines without the tools necessary. Fortunately, I get here early and haven't had a problem. Those that arrive late, well..

[Jack_O'neill]

. Fortunately, I get here early and haven't had a problem. Those that arrive late, well..

Been there done that. Normal office hours were 8-5...we had people showing up at 6. Since they were there anyway, many of them would start work, even though it was unpaid, just to get a jump on the crowd and get something done before the inactivity rule and the endless meetings kicked in. That got everybody a collective butt-chewing for working uncompensated hours, and they put down a rule that you couldn't arrive more than 30 minutes before your shift unless scheduled for overtime.

[RocketSurgeon]

I am waiting on that rule to arrive here, but until then...
I seem to get more work done on paper in those 2 hours than in the next 8 hours to come.

[rkmcswain]

You don't have to close the inactive AutoCAD(s), you can just release/revoke the license.

You may even be able to be more creative and apply different timeouts to different user groups.

I agree with this. When the license is revoked, that session of AutoCAD is still allowed to run long enough to save unsaved work.
The exception to this rule (as far as I have seen) is Raster Design. Since it runs inside of AutoCAD, there is no way to measure idleness. The user would have to run the IUNLOAD command to free up the network license (w/o shutting down the AutoCAD session).