The University of Waterloo has a site license for Adobe Acrobat Pro DC which allows all full-time employees to use the software free of charge. For full-time employees, Adobe Acrobat Pro DC licenses no longer need to be purchased through the Adobe VIP program. For more information about the Adobe Acrobat Pro DC license, please see Adobe Acrobat Pro DC.

Adobe software for non-full-time employees can be purchased through a Faculty or Academic Support Department's Adobe VIP portal. The VIPs can purchase directly from the reseller, Softchoice, to receive VIP prices and assign the software to individual users or devices. Each Faculty/Academic Support department will be responsible for managing the Adobe VIP accounts associated with their area. 

To view Campus Adobe VIPs: Campus Adobe options | List of University of Waterloo Adobe VIPs

In this article:

How to request an Adobe VIP account 

To request an Adobe VIP account, submit this request form and include the following information:

• Account Name – “University of Waterloo – name of department”   

• VIP Name and Waterloo email (preferably the IT contact) 

  • It is recommended to provide a second/backup name and email

Once the Adobe VIP account has been created, the new VIP will receive an email to activate the VIP account.

What if you had an Adobe account for purchasing before the VIP account was set up?  

When logged in, you’re able to switch between the two accounts (the top right where you are signed in is a drop-down where you'll see the other available account).  
Your expiration date is also shown. 

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For the licenses already assigned you could:

• cancel the current licenses (penalty charges would apply)

or 

• wait until your renewal period. 

If you have the automatic renewal turned on, the option to turn off the automatic renewal will appear in your account a month before the renewal date.

• turn off the renewal date

• you can export a CSV file of your users

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• add these users to your VIP account

Paying for licenses  

• Payment can be done via credit card or Purchase Order. The VIP will need to know which method the user will use to pay.

  • Credit card

    • If paying with a credit card, a secure payment form will need to be requested by the VIP via email to Softchoice. 

    • Softchoice will send the VIP or the user the secure payment form to make payment (Note: allow a few days to receive the payment form)

  • Purchase Order / Unit4

    • If paying with Purchase Order/Unit 4 a quote will need to be requested via email to Softchoice. 

    • The VIP can send this quote to the person arranging payment, to process payment through Unit4.

• Payment is required within 30 days of software assignment to the user 

• After 30 days, the Adobe VIP that assigned the unpaid software will lose the ability to add additional licenses to the portal until payment is processed 

• For device licences, the VIP works with Softchoice directly to place an order before adding to the console. The VIP will receive the secure payment form (for credit card purchases) and/or quote (for Unit4 purchases). The license will not be available until fully processed/paid. 

Adding licenses to the portal for users or devices 

How to add a license for an individual user (for Adobe Acrobat installation instructions, please see Installing Adobe Acrobat software)

1. Log in to the Adobe Admin console with the email associated with the VIP account using username (maximum 8 characters e.g. jsmithso@uwaterloo.ca) @uwaterloo.ca and password

2. Under the Overview tab Choose “Add products” 

3. Choose the software to be assigned to the user 

   • Choose the “for teams” option 

   • Add the Waterloo email of the user requesting the license using username (maximum 8 characters e.g. j25marti) @uwaterloo.ca
     
     
     

     Note: It is helpful to add a bit of text or Adobe request # info when doing a VIP license request. This would appear as part of the license request to help Softchoice search for a specific order at a later date if needed.
     
     
     

   • User will have access to the license immediately after the assignment 

   • The newly added user will receive an email to activate the license.  

   • The VIP receives an email in the form of a quote listing the software and pricing. 

     • See Adobe VIP instructions#Paying for licenses section above for details on how to arrange payment for new purchases

     • If the license will be paid for before the software is assigned, please see the information under the Payment section above.

   • All licenses that the VIP purchases/assigns will have one renewal date. See License renewals below

   • The Adobe VIP will receive an email to confirm the licenses they have added
     
     

How to add a license for devices

Please refer to Adobe instructions: https://helpx.adobe.com/ca/enterprise/using/manage-device-licenses.html.  

Notes: 

• Please note there is a different price for the device license. 

• Only one person can use the license at a time 

• This option does not provide access until payment has been made 

License renewals 

The date on which the VIP has assigned their first license will be the date of license renewal for each of the software assigned/purchased through the VIP. The licenses will be prorated until expiry on the shared expiry date.

For example, when VIP administrator assigns Photoshop to User A, the license will expire one year after the software assignment. When the VIP administrator assigns software to any subsequent users, those purchase prices will be prorated and will expire the same time as the first license to User A that VIP administrator assigned.

When it is time to renew your Adobe licenses the VIP administrator will get an e-mail from Adobe.  The e-mail will contain the details on all the products that are licensed.  Contact Softchoice to get a renewal quote for all the required Adobe products.   

More information is available on Adobe website https://helpx.adobe.com/ca/enterprise/using/enterprise_in_vip_renewals_compliance.html regarding partial renewals, etc.

How to get help 

Help is available through the Adobe admin console. https://helpx.adobe.com/ca/enterprise/using/admin-console.html 

There are options available to start a chat, create a case, or set up a support appointment/session on how to use the products.  

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