Document Workflows in Autodesk Construction Cloud

PHILIP RUSSO: Welcome, everyone. This class is all about document workflows in the Autodesk Construction Cloud. We have a lot of information to cover, and I'm sure some of it you already know, but hopefully, we uncover some useful tidbits you can benefit from. My name is Philip Russo, and I am the head of Digital Design and BIM for Ramboll in the Americas. And co-presenting with me today will be David Cusano, who is the head of Visualization for Ramboll in the Americas.

Let's jump quickly into the agenda and some basics so we can dive into the presentation-- give you some stats on Ramboll, review the learning objectives, go through some workflows with some technical software, then some internal workflows in Autodesk Docs and Autodesk Build.

So Ramboll is a global company with over 300 offices and 15,000 plus employees. We're broken down into global business units covering buildings, energy, transportation, and then environmental and health with its headquarters located in Denmark. We've been leveraging the Autodesk Construction Cloud for quite some time.

This slide shows that we have more than 7,000 active members and over 1,300 active projects at any given time. Most of these projects are primarily based on Revit Collaboration, but recently, we're using ACC for Civil 3D and Plant 3D alongside Revit and venturing into most of the other available modules in the cloud platform. One point I would like to make just before we dive into the presentation is that the handout that accompanies this presentation will have a lot of step-by-step instruction, extra tidbits, and several links to different resources.

So to go over some of the learning objectives we're going to accomplish during this presentation, number one, learn the document control features and approval workflows in Autodesk Docs, number two, learn how to manage Sheets, RFIs, and Submittals in Autodesk Build, and number three, see workflows in Revit, Civil 3D, and Plant 3D in ACC, and last, using ACC Connect to transfer data across cloud platforms.

So with any cloud platform, there are permissions and a hierarchy required to manage folders, files, and functionality. Let's take a look at some of these roles and permissions. And as we unpack the rest of this presentation, we'll be revisiting this topic. So the account administrator manages the company's account.

From the list, you can see the responsibilities. And I like to put this list and break it into two buckets. The first is project permissions, and the second is standards and automation. Project permissions are items like creating the project, adding members to the account, adding companies, business units, and defining roles. Folder permissions on a project can be assigned by an individual, by a company, or the role they play in the project. So having a clear understanding on this and having it set up correctly saves the project administrator a lot of time and gives them the control they need.

Then items like form templates, project templates, and activating apps aids in the automation and standards apply to the projects. This is just a quick snapshot of assigning permissions to your project folders. As mentioned, you can see you can assign an individual, a role, or a company to a folder. Then different permissions can be assigned from viewing all the way to managing the folder.

Now that we have some basic permission information out of the way, let's take a look at some workflows with the different technical applications starting with Revit. For basic Revit model collaboration, we will look at two different workflows. The first is direct model linking, and the second is using Design Collaboration, teams, and publishing. The requirement differences between these two workflows is based in design collaboration. You have to have Design Collaboration activated if you are going to be publishing and sharing your model versus the direct linking.

I am sure most everyone here has worked in Revit on a central model either in BIM 360, ACC, or on a local server. If you have not been in ACC, the only difference is that you are publishing your central model to the cloud. And in the cloud, you specify the hub, the project, and the folder you will push your Revit central model to. This all points back to your permissions. You must belong to the project and have the correct permissions on the folder you are publishing to.

Another item that will trip people up is being consistent with the Revit version you are using. Once that first Revit model gets published to the cloud, that project takes on that Revit version. For example, if somebody already published a model to this project and it was in Revit 2023 version, you will not be able to see that project if you are in Revit 2022 trying to push a model into that project.

With direct model linking, it works like we are all on a local server where the Revit designer synchronizes with central, and the latest changes get pushed to the central model in the cloud. If this is where other trades will link in your model for reference, they browse to that location through Autodesk Docs, which is made available when you have the Autodesk Desktop Connector installed.

The ACC platform gives us different functionality to consider when sharing our Revit model to other project stakeholders. The Revit model can be viewed from ACC without Revit. The version that is viewable is the latest published version. So if you log in to the Autodesk Construction Cloud through a web browser, the model that you see is the latest published version, which might be different than a model you see when you open it up inside of Revit.

This gives you control when you want to update the cloud version of your model. People that have permissions to the folder you publish to will be able to view your model. In Revit, you set up what views will be published. Then under the Collaborate ribbon, you select Manage Cloud Models. And once you browse to your model, you have the ability to publish based on your publish settings.

To go beyond direct file linking and add a level of control with model sharing, we can set up teams and be able to publish our Revit models for consumption by other discipline teams. Specifying your shared folder location and selecting the folder that contains your Revit model is all that is required for setting up your team for the first time.

The handout will go through step-by-step procedures on creating a package, but once a package is published and the model is placed in the shared folder, it gives other disciplines that are collaborating on the project a new option of linking from a shared folder if the project folder permissions allows this. This gives the team control on when they feel their model is ready to be shared. I personally prefer this method over doing the direct file linking.

Then ACC's preferred workflow takes it even one step further, and that's for a team to consume a package which will bring the Revit model into their own project space only available to their internal project team. In ACC, under the Design Collaboration Module, the designer can select the package they wish to consume. Once consumed, their model will be copied into their Consumed folder for file linking.

Up until now, they may have had experience with all the methods discussed. A new feature in the Construction Cloud is being able to bridge files across projects to share. This could be a result of multiple projects under different project numbers and they're running in parallel, or maybe you're working on your own personal hub, and other clients that you're collaborating with want your model copied into their hub for their own file linking, but you aren't collaborating together. So the bridge function in the Autodesk Construction Cloud will allow this to work.

Currently, the catch for Revit models is that the bridge function only works with shared cloud models and not the main work in progress central file. There are rumors that this is on the roadmap for Autodesk, but as of today, it only works with the shared cloud models. So now I'd like to pass the presentation over to Dave Cusano to discuss ACC workflows with Plant 3D.

DAVID CUSANO: Thank you, Phil. In the spring of 2022, Ramboll in the Americas made a decision to move all of our process mechanical users not only to the ACC platform, but also, to the AutoCAD Plant 3D platform. This followed several months of testing and planning with the help of other geographies within the company and users based in the Americas with previous experience with Plant 3D. Next slide.

The first step in the process is to create your AutoCAD Plant 3D project. This can be done either working without-- next slide-- or with a project template. At this time, roughly 95% of the AutoCAD Plant 3D projects we create are done without a template. However, we do have a core group of users in the process of developing an Americas template for use on both Plant and P&ID projects. Next slide.

Once your project has been created, the next step is to use the Collaborate ribbon to share your project with the ACC platform. Next slide. This process is relatively straightforward and should only take a few moments to perform depending on the size of your project and whether a template was used or not. Once you've received the dialog indicating your project is cloud powered, you're ready to begin work. Next slide.

Once the project has successfully been linked with the ACC platform, you'll notice the icon change next to the name of the project in the Project Manager. You'll also now see a status indicator bubble next to each of your drawings in your project, indicating whether they are checked in or out and whether local copies exist on your machine. Next slide.

One additional process that may prove necessary in the life of your project is to move or archive the project off the ACC platform. This can be done at any time by right-clicking on the project name in the Project Manager and choosing the Create Project Backup option. You'll be told the size of the resulting backup and be asked for a location for the backup to be created. Once the necessary selections have been made, you can now simply click the Backup Project Now button. Next slide.

One last workflow we needed to root cause was the best way to collaborate with our Revit team on ACC projects. After much back and forth, it was determined the use of an IFC export provided the most stable representation of the AutoCAD Plant 3D geometry within Revit. The only wrinkle in the process is there is no IFC export capability within AutoCAD Plant 3D. So we are instead using AutoCAD MEP to achieve this result. Last slide.

On my last slide, you can see examples of linking the AutoCAD Plant 3D DWG directly into Revit shown on the left versus using the IFC export and then linking the resulting file within Revit on the right. Clearly, the IFC model provides a much richer representation of our process mechanical models for our Revit user base. As Phil mentioned, there will be more detailed descriptions of all the processes discussed in the class handout, and I'll now turn things back over to Phil.

PHILIP RUSSO: Thanks, Dave. So one of ACC's hidden gems that is underutilized is the document approval workflows. You can predefine the workflow on approving a document within your project. Within ACC Docs, you can set up an approval workflow. These workflows can be multiple steps by individuals or by defined groups. Once the workflow is assigned to a document or a series of documents, the review process will be automated.

Once a review is complete, you can have the document or documents copied to a completed folder. I prefer this option because I can give view permissions to the project team for the approved folder so they only see the completely review documents and do not get confused by documents that are not ready for the project to consume. After the document is submitted for review by the initiator, the first reviewer will be notified by email. And once the reviews are in process, you can go to the Summary page to get a status of all the progress for the reviews running on the project.

Earlier, I mentioned the ability to bridge your Revit model across to other projects. Here, I just wanted to point out visibility of the files that are being bridged. The main bridge menu will show you any incoming documents that have been bridged to your current project, outgoing Sheets or files that are being bridged outside your current project, automations that have been set up, and then a status of all Bridge projects and documents.

By selecting the Share function in Docs, you can activate the function of Bridge by sharing with another project. When you select Sync Updates, you are in effect automating this task by syncing changes with the project you are bridging to. Any time the Bridge folder gets updated at the source, it will be updated in the copy in the Bridge project. Once the folder is shared and bridged across projects, you will receive an email notification. This new connection will now be visible in Bridge projects.

Sheets is a menu in the Autodesk Build module and has the functionality brought in from Autodesk acquisition of Plan Grid. There is a four-step process for adding Sheets to your project. Select the files from your computer or files from your Project folder in step one. Then you assign a version set and issue date for the second step in the process. Step three is to verify the Sheet numbers. And step four is to define the titles and tags before you publish the Sheet to the project team.

This slide shows the different steps adding the Sheets workflow will step you through. The handout will go more into detail and step by step of this functionality. But one important thing that I'd like you to understand is that the Sheet function within Build has different subscription levels representing the total number of Sheets that you can have access to. However, if you just publish a PDF and store that within a doc folder for review, it will not count against your total Sheet count.

When you use the Sheet function and have these sheets accessible in the field with the Plan Grid Build mobile app, then that will go against your total Sheet count. So keep that in mind. We discovered that the hard way on a project where we got notified that we exceeded the total Sheet count. I just wanted to point that fact out to you.

Creating RFIs is another function within Autodesk Build and has automated workflows built in. First, there are some rules and roles to understand. The project administrator can assign the creator and manager roles in settings. You must be a project administrator, a creator, or a manager to create an RFI.

When creating an RFI, you can assign people during the RFI creation process to be a coreviewer. A coreviewer cannot produce a legal answer to an RFI, but they can provide feedback in the comments. And then it's up to the reviewer to review those comments and include them in the final response to the RFI if needed. Other team members can be added to the distribution list as watchers to be made aware of the RFI but not expected to provide any comments or feedback.

These two screenshots are the sections of the RFI form where people are assigned in the RFI. The ball in court is the initial reviewer assigned to the RFI. The coreviewer, as mentioned, will be notified of the RFI and be able to provide comments. And the watchers are the distribution list to be made aware but not expected to provide any information.

During the RFI review process, the reviewer can attach references from the project or from their computer. The reviewer can solicit feedback by using the @ symbol as a prefix to the team member in the activity log to loop them in. This is a good practice to put in place instead of sending off emails so that all communication is contained within the RFI for visibility to the project team.

In the main RFI log, you can export an individual RFI by selecting the three dots at the end of the row containing the RFI, or you can export all RFIs on the project from the Export button highlighted in the image. Once the RFI is answered, the manager can accept the answer, close the RFI, and distribute. Once the RFI is distributed, the entire project team will be able to see the history of the RFI and the result.

Creating product submittals is another function of Build with built-in workflows. The project administrator will assign a submittal manager. The submittal manager has the sole responsibility to submit items for review and close them out as they are approved. Other submittal settings include default review time and a watcher list. Project members that are added to the watcher list can see new items as they are submitted. Under Responses, you can program in your own custom responses to the submittals. The last item under submittal settings is specifying the types of submittals being created.

The submittal function in ACC allows you to enter items individually, import from a spreadsheet template, and create submittal packages. We'll take a closer look at where to access these settings during the live demo. These three images show the breakdown of the Create Submittal form from the spec section through planning response times.

Connecting data across cloud platforms is a function of ACC Connect. This web service is a utility that requires recipes to automate workflows. At Ramboll, we're finalizing some recipes to transfer our deliverable documents from the Autodesk Construction Cloud over to ProjectWise. You define your connections to be validated, create a trigger for an event that will perform a function. And at Ramboll, we will have ACC watch a deliverable folder in the Construction Cloud project. When a document gets updated or gets added, ACC Connect will copy this data and transfer it to the same folder inside of ProjectWise.

Now I'm going to jump over to the Autodesk Construction Cloud to show where some of these main functions are located. First, I'm going to start off as the account administrator. So it's up to the account administrator to create new projects, add members-- it's currently going to sign me out here. Let me just jump back in quick-- assigning members, adding companies, and defining roles, and all of these play a key part in setting up your project.

So if I jump over into a demo project here and I look at the folder structure, when I hover over these three dots and select Permissions, this is where I can add permissions. And I could do it by user. I could do it by a company. Or I can do it by the role that that person plays. So having all that in order gives the project administrator control over working with the project.

Another area I want to jump into when we were discussing Revit, I want to jump into Design Collaboration. And again, Design Collaboration is required if you are going to set up teams and collaborate on a Revit project and be able to consume models. Or if you are using Civil 3D or Plant 3D, you have to have Design Collaboration activated.

So inside Design Collaboration, I want to take a look at a couple of items here. I'm going to go into Settings. And in Settings, this is where you specify where your shared folder is going to be located so that when you publish your models, this is where your models will get published for people to link to. And if you take it one step closer where you actually have physical teams set up, then in the team function, that is where you can go ahead and consume models.

So if I go to the Home page here and I go to this dropdown up here, this will show me the different teams that are set up. And then within the team, I can select a package, and I can go ahead and consume that package. And that will bring it within my team in the Consumed folder.

OK, so now I'm in the Build module, and the first place I want to go to is Sheets. And under Sheets, I just want to be able to show you that when you go ahead and add Sheets, this is where you can drag in a file that is on the project, or you could go from your computer. And then this is the four-step process where the files get added. You do your version set. You verify your Sheet numbers. And then you verify your titles and any tagged information.

Next, I'm going to jump into RFIs. And under RFIs, I'm going to go over to the right here to go to Settings. And under Settings, this is where you set up your permissions where you can add a member, and then you define the roles of the creator or the reviewer or the watcher.

If I go under Submittals, and under Submittals, I go to Settings, again, Permissions, default values, so who's going to be my default manager? What's going to be my default review time? And what is going to be my watcher list? And then under Responses, this is where I can control my different responses and add them, and then also, specify my different type of submittals.

Then the last thing I want to jump to is go over to Bridge. And in the Bridge app, this is where you have your incoming documents that are being bridged to your project, your outgoing documents that are bridged to other projects, your automations, which is when you turn on the syncing option because you can just bridge something one time and give it to a project versus syncing it which will create an automation. And then the Bridge Projects will show you all the projects and documents that are currently being bridged.

OK, so I gave you some highlights of where some of these various settings are located. And as mentioned earlier, the handout that follows along with this presentation goes much more into detail with some step-by-step workflows along with several links to some resources. So thank you for viewing this presentation about document workflows in the Autodesk Construction Cloud.