Migrating from Individual Autodesk Products to a Collection: What to Expect
Many Autodesk users reach a point where they are running several individual applications and begin wondering whether consolidating to a collection would be simpler, more cost-effective, or both. Perhaps you are running AutoCAD and have recently added Revit. Maybe you have Inventor and are interested in exploring Fusion 360. Or perhaps your team has grown and the overhead of managing individual application licences is becoming unwieldy.
Making the transition to an Autodesk collection is generally straightforward, but there are important things to understand before you start: what changes, what stays the same, how your existing files are affected, and what the transition period actually looks like in practice. This guide covers all of it.
Why Teams Move to Collections
The primary motivation is usually value. When you look at the cost of the applications you are already using individually and compare it to the collection price, the economics often favour the collection — sometimes dramatically. The collection also typically includes applications you do not currently have access to, which can open up workflow improvements that were not previously practical.
Administrative simplification is the second major driver. Managing multiple application licences separately — tracking renewal dates, managing access, dealing with individual support contracts — has real overhead. A collection consolidates this.
The third driver is team standardisation. When different team members have different sets of applications, workflow mismatches occur — one person cannot open a file created by a tool they do not have. A collection ensures everyone has the same set of applications available, removing these bottlenecks.
What a Collection Gives You That Individual Licences Do Not
Beyond the economics, collections provide access to applications you may not currently be using but would benefit from. For AEC Collection users:
- If you have AutoCAD but not Revit, the AEC Collection adds Revit — opening the door to BIM workflows
- If you have Revit but not Civil 3D, the collection adds Civil 3D for site and infrastructure design
- If you have AutoCAD and Revit but not Navisworks, the collection adds Navisworks for clash detection and coordination
For PDMC Collection users:
- Inventor users gain access to Fusion 360, adding CAM, cloud collaboration, and electronics design
- Inventor users gain Vault Professional for data management
- Users of either tool gain Nastran In-CAD for advanced structural analysis
Technical Migration: What Actually Changes
File Formats Stay the Same
The first concern most users have is whether their existing files will still work. The answer is yes — moving from an individual application licence to the same application within a collection does not change the application itself. AutoCAD in the AEC Collection is the same AutoCAD you have been using. Inventor in the PDMC Collection is the same Inventor you have been running. Your DWG, RVT, IPT, and IAM files open without any conversion, and nothing about your existing data changes.
Installation
When you purchase a collection, you receive access to install all the included applications. You do not have to install everything at once — install the applications you plan to use immediately and add others later as needed. Autodesk’s installer manages the process, and for most applications, the installation is straightforward with good default settings.
If you are installing onto machines that already have individual-licence versions of the same applications, the collection versions typically install alongside (or replace) the existing installations cleanly. It is good practice to uninstall any older version before installing the collection version to avoid licence conflicts, particularly if the individual licence will be cancelled after the migration.
Licence Activation
Once the software is installed, you activate it using the licence key or account credentials provided with your collection purchase. The Autodesk licensing system will recognise the collection entitlement and unlock all the included applications. If you are migrating from a previously active individual licence, you will deactivate that licence and activate under the collection.
Settings and Customisation
Application settings, custom tool palettes, template files, keyboard shortcuts, and workspace configurations are stored locally and are not affected by the licence change. If you are installing the collection on a new machine as part of the migration, you will want to export your settings from the old installation and import them into the new one. AutoCAD, Revit, Inventor, and most other Autodesk applications have built-in settings migration tools for exactly this purpose.
Learning the New Applications in the Collection
If the main benefit of moving to a collection is gaining access to additional applications, you will need to invest time in learning them. Managing this learning curve well is important to getting value from the transition.
Start with One New Application
It is tempting to immediately explore everything the collection gives you access to, but this typically leads to shallow familiarity with everything rather than productive proficiency with anything. Choose the one new application that offers the most immediate benefit to your workflow and invest in learning it properly before moving on to others.
For an AutoCAD user moving to the AEC Collection, Revit is the obvious candidate — it enables BIM workflows that can transform how you work on building projects. Commit to a proper learning investment: structured tutorials, practice projects, and if budget allows, formal training.
For an Inventor user moving to the PDMC Collection, Fusion 360 is the natural first addition — it complements Inventor with CAM capabilities, making it possible to go from designed part to machined part without leaving the Autodesk ecosystem.
Autodesk Learning Resources
Autodesk maintains an extensive library of free learning resources at learn.autodesk.com, with tutorials, videos, and guided learning paths for all its major applications. For Revit and Civil 3D in particular, the official tutorials are comprehensive and well-structured. YouTube also has a large community of Autodesk users who publish high-quality tutorials — channels from certified Autodesk instructors are worth prioritising.
Internal Champions
In a team migration, it helps to identify one or two people who will invest more deeply in the new tools and become internal experts. Having a colleague who can answer day-to-day questions and demonstrate best practices is often more effective than external training alone. These internal champions need dedicated time to develop their expertise — protecting that time from project pressures is an important management commitment.
Project Transition Strategy
A common mistake is trying to migrate mid-project — switching from working in AutoCAD to working in Revit on a project that is halfway through design. This nearly always causes problems: incomplete data transfer, team members at different stages of learning, and the pressure of project deadlines leaving no time for the inevitable teething issues.
The recommended approach is to use the transition period to run the new tools in parallel on lower-stakes work, build team proficiency, and then start the first live project in the new tool cleanly from the outset. If the new application creates its own file formats (Revit does, Civil 3D does to a significant extent), having a clean project start eliminates the file-format transition headache entirely.
Template Files and Standards
Before starting the first live project in a new application, invest time in setting up template files and drafting standards. Revit projects, for example, are started from a template that pre-populates the project with the correct view types, title block families, annotation styles, and view templates. Getting this right before the first project saves significant rework later and ensures that all team members produce consistent output from day one.
Data Migration for Existing Projects
For projects where you want to move existing data from one format to another — converting legacy DWG floor plans into a Revit model, for example — the technical migration needs careful planning.
Importing a DWG into Revit does not create a proper BIM model — it imports the graphics as a linked reference. To create a proper Revit model from existing AutoCAD drawings, you need to trace or recreate the building elements using Revit’s modelling tools, using the DWG as an underlay for reference. This is time-consuming but necessary to get the full benefit of the BIM environment. Many practices choose to do this retrace when a project moves into a new phase — using the phase boundary as a natural point to create a proper Revit model rather than continuing to work from AutoCAD underlays.
Making the Most of the Collection
Once the initial migration is complete, the full benefit of the collection comes from using tools together — not as separate applications, but as a connected suite. The AEC Collection’s value is not just Revit plus Civil 3D plus AutoCAD; it is Revit, Civil 3D, and AutoCAD working together with shared coordinates and Navisworks coordination. The PDMC Collection’s value is not just Inventor plus Fusion 360; it is Inventor designs feeding into Fusion 360 CAM, with Vault managing revision control across both.
Invest time in understanding the interoperability between the applications in your collection. Read about best practices for sharing data between Revit and Civil 3D. Understand how Inventor and Fusion 360 can share geometry. Learn how Vault integrates with both. This systems-level understanding is what ultimately separates teams that get the full benefit of a collection from those that use it as a collection of separate tools.
Getting the Collections
The AEC Collection is available from GetRenewedTech for £149.99, and the PDMC Collection is also £149.99. Both represent strong value for professional teams who need access to a broad suite of Autodesk tools.
Conclusion
Migrating from individual Autodesk licences to a collection is a positive change for most professional teams, but it rewards careful planning. Ensure your existing files are compatible (they almost always are), invest properly in learning the new applications the collection unlocks, choose a sensible project transition strategy, and focus on integrating the tools rather than using them in isolation. Teams that make this investment consistently find that the collection model is both more cost-effective and more productive than managing individual applications separately.
Supporting Legacy Clients and Projects
A practical concern during any software migration is what happens to legacy projects that were started in older versions of the software. This is particularly relevant for Revit, where project files created in older versions must be upgraded to the current version format and cannot be downgraded. For long-running projects that need to be maintained over several years, this version migration can be a significant consideration.
Best practice is to maintain the version of the software originally used for a project until that project reaches a natural conclusion or handover point, then upgrade to the collection version for new projects. For most organisations, this means a transition period where two versions of the same application are installed and available — the legacy version for maintaining older projects and the current version for new work. This is generally straightforward; multiple versions of Revit, AutoCAD, and Inventor can be installed simultaneously on the same machine.
Licence Management During Transition
If you are transitioning from individually purchased licences to a collection, carefully manage the timing of licence changes to avoid gaps in access. Recommended approach:
- Purchase the collection licence and confirm it is active and working
- Install the collection applications and verify they activate correctly
- Test that your existing projects open correctly in the collection version
- Only then deactivate or allow to lapse the individual licences you are replacing
Do not assume that the collection installation will automatically replace individual licences without conflicts. In some cases, particularly where individual licences are managed through Autodesk’s named user portal, you may need to explicitly reassign licence entitlements. Contact the supplier if you encounter activation issues during the transition.
Getting the Most from Your Collection Investment
The full value of moving to a collection is realised over time as you explore and adopt the tools you did not previously have access to. Set aside regular time in the weeks after migration to explore new applications, attend webinars or view tutorial videos for tools you are unfamiliar with, and identify the one or two workflow improvements that could deliver the most value earliest.
The AEC Collection at £149.99 and the PDMC Collection at £149.99 from GetRenewedTech are both structured to give professional teams access to the full breadth of tools needed for their discipline. The investment in learning and integration pays back many times over in the productivity and capability improvements that follow a well-managed transition.
