Can I chose 10 documents to be read/write if I downgrade and leave the rest as read only?

owen_sparks

Hi folks.
I understand from the marketing blurb that if we go pro we can chose to switch between free and paid as often as we like.  If we downgrade our private docs are kept safe and private but are read only to us until we re-upgrade.  Correct so far?
So my question is:-
The free plan includes 10 private read/write docs.  Does a downgraded account retain 10 editable docs or do they all become locked?  If we get to retain 10 presumably we can nominate which 10?
Cheers, Owen S. 

3dcad

@owen_sparks
I suppose you could leave that account into read-only until you get your business back to pro and create new 'personal' free account to have limited access to this awesome cad.

I've been running pro account for about a year and I can assure your not going to be at 11 docs / 110MB in 10 months - more like 110 docs / 5GB 

owen_sparks

Would someone from onshape please comment?
Thanks Owen S.

raj_Onshape

All these questions have been answered at https://www.onshape.com/faqs

Q:  I am a Professional user. I have 20 public Documents, 20 private Documents which I own, and 7 private Documents that have been shared with me. What happens to my data and access if I downgrade to a Free Plan?

A:  You will have “view only” access for all of the existing private and public Documents you own and can download the contents in the supported formats. However, because the number of private Documents you own exceeds the Free Plan limit, you will not be able to access the Documents that have been shared with you. They will appear inactive.

owen_sparks

Thanks for the reply @ptrajkumar

I had read that FAQ first but didn't feel the information was clear enough so asked the question here.

Looking at what is written there it looks as if a downgraded account is a really bad idea.

Say I subscribe for 10 months and then downgrade, and further suppose I have 11 docs and 110MB of data at this point.
I'll have paid $1000 and now have no write access to any of my documents.  (This makes it worse than the free account.)

I was expecting that I'd be back to 10 read/write docs with the excess parked as read only but it seems that is not the case.

So choices are:-
(1) Delete some content and be able to use the account again. (But lose the docs so even when I resubscribe they're gone.)
(2) Don't delete content and be able to store existing docs / turn them back on later when re-upgrading but lose the ability to design anything at all.

Sorry but unless I've missed the point somewhere neither option is desirable.

Regards,
Owen S

3dcad

@owen_sparks
I suppose you could leave that account into read-only until you get your business back to pro and create new 'personal' free account to have limited access to this awesome cad.

I've been running pro account for about a year and I can assure your not going to be at 11 docs / 110MB in 10 months - more like 110 docs / 5GB 

owen_sparks

3dcad said:

@owen_sparks
I suppose you could leave that account into read-only until you get your business back to pro and create new 'personal' free account to have limited access to this awesome cad.

Howdy.  Yeah, I see what you're saying.  I'm trying to be straight with OS, they do a great job and are bending over backwards to help and get people involved.

3dcad said:

@owen_sparks

I've been running pro account for about a year and I can assure your not going to be at 11 docs / 110MB in 10 months - more like 110 docs / 5GB 

Couldn't agree more. 

I'm trying to get OS introduced into my company, not for the main engineers (they're a Creo lot) but more for first timers.  Empowering non-design staff to do more seems a perfect fit for OS.  It's a hard sell to management as it's a new expense.  Having a sort of "pay as you go CAD platform" seemed an ideal way to pitch it but not if there is only a choice between downgraded accounts being used for either storage or design but not both.  It's back to the all or nothing approach of free or $1200 bucks a seat for the rest of time.

I'll ask for one permanent seat (to get the ball rolling) and hopefully it'll become indispensable so the whole issue of downgrading an account will become moot.

Owen S.

brian_brady

If you keep one permanent seat in a company, can you transfer ownership of all other users' documents to the one permanent seat before going free? If this works, then you have the expense of $1200 per year plus $100 per month for those that only need it for short stints.

3dcad

And you could introduce Onshape in your company with that one pro license so that you create doc and share it with free users. This way free user can participate in document more than 100MB and it only counts on 10 doc limit.

This is what I'm doing as we don't currently have design work enough for multiple seats and I'm usually the one who creates new stuff and others use the data to get their work done. Onshape makes it very encouraging to get the most out of cad in small companies like mine.

owen_sparks

@brian_brady and @3dcad
Thanks guys, good advice, and sounds like it will work well.
My only reservation is what if in 12months time OS decide that such behavior violates some "fair usage policy" and turns our data off?
Admittedly this seems pretty unlikely but I'm paid to be paranoid.
Owen S.