User management admin roles

As an admin, you assign users to products and services under the User management function of Autodesk account. User management includes four types of administrative roles:

• Primary admin
  • A team can have only one primary admin. (To learn more about teams, see Manage teams.)
  • The same person can serve as the primary admin for more than one team. 
  • By default, the initial purchaser—also known as the contract manager—takes on the role of primary admin.
  • The role of primary admin can be reassigned to another person who has the role of secondary admin. 
• Contract manager / Purchaser
  • The terms “contract manager” and “purchaser” refer to the same role, but will apply depending on where you are located.
  • The role is assigned by default to the person who purchased the subscription.
  • There is only one contract manager / purchaser per subscription or contract.
  • The same person can be contract manager / purchaser for multiple subscriptions or contracts.
  • The role of contract manager / purchaser can be reassigned.
• Secondary admin
  • A team can have multiple secondary admins.
  • Secondary admins are assigned by the primary admin, by another secondary admin, or by an SSO admin.
  • Secondary admins have visibility into users and products of the team to which they’re assigned.
• Single sign-on (SSO) admin
  • A team can have multiple SSO admins.
  • SSO admins can manage an SSO configuration (as can the primary admin).

Note: If you manage users under Classic user management in Autodesk account, the primary admin role is performed by the contract manager and the role of secondary admins is performed by software coordinators. To learn more, see Classic user management.

View the video at the end of this article to help complete your understanding of admin roles.

Primary admin

• Manages users and their access to products.
• Assigns secondary admins, SSO admins, and can reassign another secondary admin to become primary admin.
• Can manage a single sign-on (SSO) configuration.
• Serves as a main point of contact to Autodesk for user assignment to products and team management in the Autodesk account.

Contract manager / purchaser

• Receives notification emails relating to a subscription or contract.
• Manages billing and renewals.
• Assigns new subscriptions to a team (requires also holding a primary or secondary admin role).
• Moves subscriptions to a different team (requires also holding a primary or secondary admin role).
• Serve as a main point of contact to Autodesk for purchase, billing and renewal inquiries.

Secondary admin

• Manages users and their access to products.
• Assigns additional secondary admins and can reassign the primary admin.
• Manages billing and renewals (requires also holding a contract manager / purchaser role).
• Views and exports product usage reports for all teams, users, and subscriptions.

SSO admin

• Manages users and their access to products.
• Assigns additional secondary admins and can reassign the primary admin.
• Views and exports product usage reports for all teams within single user subscriptions and prepaid Flex (Note: excludes Token Flex).
• Manage and configure Single Sign-On.

Change the primary admin

When you change the primary admin, the former primary admin becomes a secondary admin.

1. Sign into Autodesk account at manage.autodesk.com.
2. Go to User Management > By user.
3. Select the secondary admin you want to designate as the new primary admin (only a secondary admin can become a primary admin).
4. Click Change Role.
5. Select Primary Admin and choose Save.

Note: Reassigning the primary admin role doesn’t change the contract manager / purchaser, who continues to manage payments and renewals, and receive subscription emails, renewal reminders, and invoices.

Change the contract manager / purchaser

The role of contract manager / purchaser can be reassigned for purchased licenses. To change the contract manager / purchaser, open a case using the Autodesk Assistant .

Change a secondary admin

1. Sign into Autodesk account at manage.autodesk.com.
2. Go to User Management > By User.
3. Click the name of the user you want to designate as a secondary admin.
4. Click Change Role.
5. Select Secondary Admin and click Save.

Change an SSO admin

1. Sign into Autodesk account at manage.autodesk.com.
2. Go to User Management > By User.
3. Click the name of the user you want to designate as an SSO admin.
4. Click Change Role.
5. Select SSO Admin and click Save.

Admins can also change roles for more than one user at a time. Select users directly in the list or upload a CSV file to update multiple roles at once.

Option 1: Multi-select

1. Sign into Autodesk account at manage.autodesk.com. 
2. Go to User management > By user. 
3. Check the boxes next to the users you want to update in the list.
4. Select Change role. 
5. Choose the new role: secondary admin, SSO admin, user, or external user, and select Change role. 

Option 2: CSV upload

1.  Prepare a file with up to 5,000 users whose roles you want to change.
   a. Row 1 will be ignored (start with your first user on Row 2).
   b. Provide one row per user.
   c. Include two columns: Email Address in column A and New Role in column B. Enter the new role in English: Secondary admin, SSO admin, User, or External. You can use upper or lower case and include spaces in the role name.
   d. Save the file as CSV UTF-8 (Comma delimited) before uploading.
2. Sign into Autodesk account at manage.autodesk.com.
3. Go to User management > By user.
4. At the top of the user list, select Change roles with CSV.
5. Choose Upload CSV file and select your file.
6. Review the Summary of changes (how many users will be updated and to which roles).
7. Select Change role to confirm and apply the updates.

Note: You can use CSV upload to change roles to secondary admin, SSO admin, user, or external user. You can't use CSV upload to change the primary admin. To change a primary admin, use the Change the primary admin process.