How to manage Add-Ons with Teams (VIP) device licenses

[dailypenn]

I have a new Teams (educational) installation of 22 licenses of Creative Cloud All Apps plus 11 licenses of InCopy, set up using a single Adobe ID for these device licenses. I have been pulling my hair out trying to understand how to manage issues with two Add-Ons I need on those 33 Macs to work with our Content Management System. I have called Adobe and been transferred 8 times, in and out of the "Teams department", but no one has been able to help yet.

I had no problem building and deploying the installation of the Adobe apps; they all launch and run as expected. I need to install one InDesign Add-On for the 22 Macs with CC All Apps, and one InCopy Add-On on the 11 Macs which have only InCopy. I have acquired the Add Ons, and most of the Macs correctly installed the Add-Ons automatically via the Creative Cloud desktop application. But for some reason, the Add-Ons did not load on a couple of the computers. So my question is how to get those computers to install the Add-Ons.

The Troubleshooting Adobe Add-ons web page instructed me to visit the My Add-Ons page (this page), click Uninstall, wait 2 minutes, and then re-Install. Well, that was a disaster! It deletes the Add Ons from *all* the computers, disrupting all my users. (It gets worse because the computers ask for Admin permission, and say they could not complete removal of the Add-On, and I can’t be at all 33 computers simultaneously to grant Admin access.) So I end up with some computers with the Add-Ons installed and some without.

What I need to find out is how to force a computer to clear whatever is blocking it from auto-installing the Add-Ons, without affecting the other computers in the Team. How can I get an Add On installed on a single computer which, for whatever reason, hasn't loaded it? I know there is a third party ZXPInstaller app I could put on each machine to manually install the Add-Ons, but I'm hoping there is some simpler way.

Surely there are other Adobe customers who have much larger installations than ours, so there must be a proper way to do this. Do they create individual Adobe IDs for every computer (adobe1@xxx.com, adobe2@xxx.com, adobe3@xxx.com, etc.), so the actions on one computer don’t affect the others? That seems like it would be very hard to manage, but if that it the best approach, is there a way can I convert my licenses installation to do this? Or, hopefully, is there some other way to clear the Add-On history or preferences on a specific machine so that it will try again to download a missing Add-On?

Thank you in advance for any help/advice/guidance you can provide.

[kglad]

[moved from Adobe Creative Cloud to Deployment for Creative Cloud for Team, Enterprise, & CS]

[rpandita]

Hi dailypenn

Which Add on is it that you are trying to install ?

Can you please provide the details for this Add on, like a name or the link to download that Add On

~Rohit

[dailypenn]

The specific Add-On shouldn't matter -- the question is how to manage any Add-ons in this device-license environment (where one AdobeID is used for all the computers) if one machine for some reason hasn't automatically installed the Add-ons associated with the Adobe ID.

The Add-Ons in my case are called "CEOConnect for InDesign" and "CEOConnect for Incopy". They enable InDesign and InCopy to interact with our content management system.  But again, it could be any Add-On. The Add-Ons are associated with the single Adobe ID, and therefore should install automatically on each of the machines using the device license with that AdobeID. And most did that as expected. But on a few Macs, the Add-Ons didn't install, and I'm trying to find out how to force them to install. And because I then tried Remove and Install from the My Add-Ons page, some Macs didn't uninstall properly because they didn't have Admin privileges, so I have a mix of computers with the Add-Ons installed and uninstalled. Is there some preference file I need to delete? Is there some other way to get an Add-On to install, short of deactivating a license, uninstalling the application, and re-installing the application?

[rpandita]

Hi dailypenn,

Every Add On is associated with the id that was used to purchase it, so if say xyz@adobe.com was used to purchase the Add On CEOConnect for InDesign , then on the computer/computers where users have logged in with the id xyz@adobe.com will have access to this Add On.

So to answer your question, Since Add Ons happen to be an online service which is only available for named user licensing.

In case of Device Licensing there is no Adobe Id associated with the deployed workstations. The Adobe ID that you sign in with on the Creative Cloud Packager whilst creating packages is not carried forward into the deployed workstations hence add-ons which happen to be an online service wouldn't be available.

~Rohit

[dailypenn]

Rohit,

I appreciate your attempts to help, but I'm more confused than ever by what you wrote.

First, for what it's worth, the Add-Ons I'm working with are free, but I don't think that changes anything.

You say every Add-On is associated with the AdobeID that purchased it. Although it was free, I obtained the Add-Ons using the one AdobeID for my device license Team. And when a computer logs in using that AdobeID, in most cases, the Add-Ons associated with that Adobe ID do, in fact, download and install. My problem is that it didn't happen in every case, and I'm trying to determine how to manage when it does not install as it seemingly should.

You say, "In case of Device Licensing there is no Adobe Id associated with the deployed workstations." So when I Sign In in an app like InDesign, and I log into the Creative Cloud Desktop app, both using my AdobeID, doesn't that associate the workstation with that AdobeID? It seems like it does, because in most cases, the Add-Ons (and fonts) associated with that AdobeID install automatically.

You seem to be saying that Add Ons, which we have used since the days of Creative Suite 6 or earlier, are not usable for people using a device license? Surely that cannot be correct. I perhaps understand if you are saying that Add-Ons do not work as an online service for device license teams -- but in that case, how do Adobe device license users install Add-Ons on their license workstations? In CS6 and before, there was Extension Manager, which no longer works with CC. So what is the equivalent process to install Add-Ons in a device license CC environment?

I did find information at the bottom of one Adobe web page which I had previously overlooked, which says says to download ExManCmd  to install Add-Ons using the command line. I also found an open-source tool called ZXP Installer which installs Add-Ons without requiring the command line. If these are  the only way to install Add-Ons in a device-licensed environment, I will visit each computer an use one of these tools -- it just seemed unlikely to me that Adobe had completely forgotten or neglected to provide a way for device license sites to install Add-Ons.

[rpandita · Accepted solution]

Hi dailypenn

When i say purchased, i mean acquired, doesn't matter if the Add on is free or purchased.

As far as the installation and other questions, i suppose you can try ExManCmd and give uit a shot.

Please check these links for mroe details Adobe Exchange 

Adobe Exchange

~Rohit

[DPdesign-RUfVxI]

Is there ANY update on this topic? I still have NO CLUE how I am supposed to manage Add Ons in a Teams environment. Using the My Add-Ons page has been an utter disaster for us. I can never get all our machines properly installed, and there is no way to uninstall the Add-On from one Mac without removing it from all -- and removal from all fails because the logged user account on the Macs doesn't have admin privileges to software installation. So I end up with some installed and some uninstalled, and no way to get them all back on the same page.

I used the Uninstall option on the My Add-Ons page, and then went around to every computer to authorize it to complete the de-installation. I used the third party ZXP Installer app to manually re-install the plug-ins on the computers that needed them. Then, when an update to the Add-On is released, Creative Cloud tried (and failed) to install on all the computers again. I've never seen such a mess. One Adobe representative told me there were plans  to release a new version of the CC Packger to deal with Add-Ons back around September, but I've never seen or heard anything more about that, either.

I cannot believe Adobe sells these device licenses for CC to larger organizations with absolutely no method for dealing with Plug-Ins. Is there ANY solution that works?