Smooth Collaboration: Automatic Synchronization of Projects in Autodesk Docs with AutoCAD Architecture and AutoCAD MEP 2025

SHILPA ARORA: Hi, everyone. Before we get into the presentation, this is a safe harbor statement. Just want to highlight that purchasing decisions shouldn't be made based upon this presentation.

Good afternoon, everyone. Thank you for being here today. My name is Shilpa. Along with me is Sridhar my co-presenter. Our topic for today is automatic synchronization of projects in Autodesk Docs with AutoCAD Architecture and MEP 2025.

Before we deep dive into it, let's tell you a little more about who we are. I'm Shilpa. I have about 14 years of experience, out of which seven years in Autodesk. I'm working as a senior software test engineer in AutoCAD Architecture and MEP team. I'm mainly responsible for AutoCAD Architecture and MEP toolsets, and mainly responsible for overall quality of the products to ensure a successful release along with taking care of all the automations.

Yeah, now I will request Sridhar to give a self-introduction.

SRIDHAR SUBRAMANI: Thank you, Shilpa. Hi, everyone. I'm Sridhar Subramani with over 25 years of CAD experience using various CAD tools. I'm working as senior principal product owner for Autodesk for the last 20 years, managing all the AutoCAD tool sets. I'm a frequent presenter at the AU for the last 10 years. In my primary role, I mostly engage with customers to understand their pain points and needs. So convert them into wishlist items and prioritize them to build the roadmap for future releases.

I also look at the discussion forums and answer product related questions and also create a lot of technical solutions which are published on Autodesk support site. OK, so without further ado, let's get started with our presentation.

SHILPA ARORA: Thank you, Sridhar. So now comes with a problem statement. Let's understand what is the problem now. As Autodesk Docs is a cloud based, centralized data environment on Autodesk Construction Cloud platform, which enables multiple users to concurrently work on the common projects. So now when multiple users are working together on a same project, then they may encounter several challenges, such as those listed below.

Like several users working on the same set of drawings at the same time, they may cause conflicting changes. Users may experience synchronization issues, or manual notification may be required to notify others so that everyone can get the latest changes. So this manual notification process is time consuming and tedious.

So here's the class summary. So today, we will be discussing on automatic synchronization feature enhancement in AutoCAD Architecture and MEP. So this feature is applicable for ACA and MEP, basically AutoCAD Architecture and MEP. So the projects ACA and MEP projects hosted on Autodesk Docs now support automatic synchronization of changes across multiple users. With that, two or more users can collaborate more efficiently and effectively across offices and geolocations. Additionally, user can also determine whether a drawing is available for editing or currently locked by others.

So here's the agenda for today. So we'll start with introduction to project navigator, and then we'll discuss about how to set up Autodesk Docs and desktop connector. Followed by hosting or architectural projects using project navigator and then moving on to automatic synchronization, drawing file operations via project navigator. Then automatic synchronization, modifying design data. And we'll end up with reviewing the synchronization by reviewing the lock and unlock mechanism.

Now, I'll request Sridhar to start with the project navigator introduction.

SRIDHAR SUBRAMANI: Yep, thank you, Shilpa. So before we dive deep into the project navigator and talk setup, I want to give a quick introduction about AutoCAD toolsets and especially the AutoCAD Architecture toolsets. The AutoCAD Architecture toolset gives you all the tools you need to complete your project faster and scale your project pipeline. Boost architectural design and drafting productivity by up to 61% with time saving features and task automations.

For example, you can access our library of 8,000 plus architectural components with multi-view blocks, or you can automatically generate your floor plans, elevations, sections, and ceiling grids. And also, you can quickly place walls, doors, and windows with real-world construction. So this is a quick overview of AutoCAD Architecture. Next slide.

Project navigator. So project, before we look at various components of the project navigator, we'll know how to create a new project. So we create a new project using project browser. So we'll first look at the project browser where we can create and manage all the active projects. This becomes your dashboard for the project where you may enter and view project-centric information.

Project navigator. So the project navigator palette has four different tabs, which we will explore one by one. The project tab tells you the basic information about the project, such as the name, the number of your project, and how many levels and divisions that exist within your project. Where you may edit, no, specific data entered in the project browser.

The Constructs tab manages all your drawing containing the actual design data, including the objects representing the physical building components, but not the annotations. Whereas the Views tab is where we manage all the constructs that we have created, we assemble them and add our annotations for specific representation. For example, such as overall floor plan, reflected ceiling plan, and elevations and schedules. Et cetera. Finally, the Sheets tab, as it implies, is where we create and manage sheets for printing or publishing, and where we drag and drop our views onto the sheets for further annotation. Next slide.

Yeah, so Project Navigator. So in Project Navigator, we can also now create new projects, as you say, and we can do the project collaboration by like moving your projects from one location to another location or moving your projects from the local machine to the Docs which we will be talking in a short while. Next slide.

SHILPA ARORA: Yeah. Thanks Sridhar for sharing about a brief intro on project navigator. All right, so now we will get started with setting up Autodesk Docs and Desktop Connector. Yeah, so there are two prerequisites to set up Autodesk Docs. First one, we need to ensure we are installing the latest version of Desktop Connector. And second one we need to ensure we have permissions for the projects hosted on Autodesk Docs. If you don't have the permissions, you can consult your CAD admin to have the access rights.

So once you have both the prerequisites, we can download the latest version of desktop connector. There are two ways to download. First way is we can download from Autodesk Account Portal. You can log in to the Accounts Portal with the account and can download it from there. And the second way is it can be downloaded from the Autodesk Help page using the browser.

So once you have downloaded, then we need to install the desktop connector. So the exe will be there in the local machine. So once the desktop connector is installed, then we are all ready to host the architectural and MEP projects. So there are two ways to host the projects. So one way is you can navigate to the Autodesk Construction Cloud and can start a new project from there. And second way is if you have the local projects in your machine and those projects can be moved from local machine to Autodesk Docs.

So now we have done with the hosting. Next step is to synchronize architectural and MEP projects. So once we have synchronized the projects, then we are good to start with the other workflows. So there are two steps to synchronize the projects. So we can open the project browser and browse to the Docs folder and then choose the DWG project file on your computer, just like a local folder. The image is shown here. So once you have selected the right project and then it will start connecting your Autodesk projects and syncing from the Docs.

So now I'm going to give a demo on how to synchronize the project. So here I have two machines. User A on my left hand side and user B is on my right hand side. So in one of the machine I'll just show how to synchronize the project. So I'll go to the project browser. I'll browse to the Autodesk Docs. My local D, C folder. Go to your path where your project is located. And then select the APG file.

So once you have synchronized, then you will see your project-- whole project is getting synchronized to your local machine and we can see the project in the construct tab as shared by Sridhar earlier. So it is showing the tree structure of the project, which is hosted on the Docs. So this is how we can synchronize the projects from Docs.

Moving on. We will get started with automatic synchronization. So I would like to touch upon how automatic synchronization works, as it is a cloud based platform. So the files hosted on Docs gets automatically synced to the cloud and making sure all the updates are instantly available to the users. Next, the real time updates. The changes made are synced back to Autodesk Docs in real time when saved.

Last but not the least, the file locking mechanism. When user is working on a file, Docs makes sure that the file is locked so that it can prevent others from making the conflicting changes. So a few benefits of automatic synchronization. It has high efficiency, no need for manual uploads or file sharing. All the changes get synced automatically.

Great collaboration. Multiple team members working on a different files can always access to the latest data. And third, reduced errors. It eliminates the risk of working with outdated files and conflicting changes with the help of file locking and unlocking mechanism.

All right. So now we are going to show how automatic synchronization work when user is doing the file operations via project navigator. So as an example, I will be having a user A machine as Shilpa and you user B will be acting as Sridhar. So we will show how user A is making a change and can synchronize the changes across all the other user's machine. So we will see how it works in a demo.

So user A creating a new construct A and then in the project navigator, so we will see. It will instantly resynchronize in user B's machines. Similarly, when user B is creating a new construct on his local machine, we can say we can see that user A's project navigator gets automatically synchronized and updated.

And how it works on a backend is there are local desktop connector folders located in each user machine. So when user A is making a change, then local desktop connector gets updated on user A machine followed by local desktop connector folder, getting updated on user B machines. And then we can see that the project navigator gets updated. So there are series of operations happening at the back end, but user will see-- on a user facing, we can see the project navigator gets updated automatically. So there will not be a manual intervention required to see the changes.

Similarly, when user B is making a change, same set of operations will follow. And we can say when user B makes any change and it gets synchronized to user A machine. So these are the screenshots where user A is creating a construct called New construct. And we can see here this is a local D, C folder, as I stated earlier. It gets updated in the local D, C folder of user A machine, and then in the user B machine we can see that new construct is also reflected in the project navigator as well as the local D, C folder of user machine.

All right. So now we will go to demo. Demonstrate how user is actually creating a file or modifying the file, and it gets reflected in other user's machine. So this is user A project navigator. So I'll be acting as user A and I will make a change, and then we will review the changes in other user's machine. This is on my right hand side is user B. So let's try to create a construct here.

So I will say Const_wall. Press OK. So we can see here the new construct has been created. Let's try to open the construct, and then create a wall here. All right, so now we can see my project navigator is showing the new construct. And if we look at my user A local folder, we can see const for Const_wall is also showing in the local D, C folder. Now I will request Sridhar to show the user B machine and see how the changes get synced.

SRIDHAR SUBRAMANI: Yeah, thank you, Shilpa. So now that Shilpa has created a new drawing file, which is a new construct, underscore wall, I will try to double click and open the wall. And now I'll see a message saying that this drawing file is read only. You just click. No, because we all know that Shilpa is still editing the drawing file or the construct. So meanwhile, so let me go ahead and create a new construct.

So I'll right mouse click in the project navigator and create a new construct. So I'll call this new construct as ground floor. Core one. And I'll select this as ground floor. Just open the drawing file. And then for instance, I'm just going to draw a couple of walls here. I'll add a door on one of the walls. My design is complete. So what I'll do is I'll just go ahead and save the drawing file, and close the construct.

So the new concept, which I've created has been closed. So now let me see the construct that Shilpa had created. Is it available for me to editing? So when I double click the construct, I can see I can open the drawing file. Now as well as I can also add new building elements into the construct. So once I've added a couple of windows here, let me go ahead and save the drawing file, and I will close the drawing file. And let's review these changes in user A machine, which is Shilpa's machine, to see how the changes look.

SHILPA ARORA: Yeah, thanks, Sridhar. So now we will switch to user A machine so we have seen how Sridhar had created ground floor core one file. So let's look at the file. Let's open the file and see.

So first thing we can notice that without making any changes or pressing the Refresh button or without even closing the product, I can see the ground floor core one is automatically get synced to my user A machine. So I don't have to worry about whether other people are creating a new construct or making any changes to it. So it gets automatically synced. So I can see ground floor core one is automatically created here, shown here, and then I can see the changes as well from Sridhar.

So now let's look at the other machine which Sridhar had modified. Let's const_wall. So we can see here the changes made by Sridhar can be seen in my machine as well. So which means the synchronized are working well and instantly. OK, let's close the machine. The drawings. OK, so now let's switch back to the presentation.

All right. So this was a demo on how we can synchronize the file operations, whether it can be creating a new file, modifying a new file or existing file or deleting any existing file. The changes get synced automatically.

So the next is automatic synchronization modifying design data. So now we have seen the operations at the file level. Now we will see how the synchronization works at design data level, which means we are modifying the design data, and then checking whether the synchronization works. So here in this case is, as an example, user A is working as a working on a ground floor, constructing walls or doors or anything else.

Then user A opens the ground floor construct in project navigator, create a wall or a door or anything else, any other design. Then user A needs to save and close the drawing. And then we will, as a result, we will see the drawing gets synced across all the user's machine.

Similarly, user B is working on a first floor, creating the layouts for rooms or adding the windows. So user B will open the first floor construct and then edit it simultaneously while user A is working on the ground floor drawing and user B is working on the first floor drawing. And then we will see how both the drawings get synced to each other's machine.

Two things to take note on is make sure that all the users can save their progress regularly for automatic synchronization to get kicked in. So let's say we are making a lot of changes, but we are not saving it. Then we will not see the automatic synchronization. So we need to save the drawing so that automatic synchronization to get kicked in.

The next thing is we have a sys-var, system variable to reduce the sync synchronization time. So the default time is 30 seconds. If we want to reduce the synchronization time to five seconds, minimum is five seconds. So we can reduce by setting this sys-var. Let's see a demo on synchronizing the design data changes.

All right. So now as a user A, I will open the ground floor drawing. So I want to modify the design data of my existing drawing. So let's try to add a door here. And then I will save this drawing. And let's look at user to machine who is working on first floor drawing and see how the changes get synced.

SRIDHAR SUBRAMANI: Yeah, thank you, Shilpa. So Shilpa was working on the ground floor drawing, as we know. So I'll try to double click the drawing file. You see, we can see our read only message here. That means the drawing file is still under editing. So what I'll do is either I can open the drawing file as read only, or I can just go ahead and close the drawing file.

So while a ground floor drawing is under design changes, let me open the first floor drawing to make some more changes. For instance, I'm going to add a window on one of the walls here. Maybe another window here. So once my changes are done, I'll just go ahead and save the drawing file. And then I'll close the drawing file here.

So let me go ahead and close the drawing file here. And now I can review and see whether the ground floor drawing is available for editing. So let me try to double click the ground floor drawing.

Looks like the ground floor drawing is still in a read only state. As soon as Shilpa closes the drawing, the ground floor drawing, then I'll have this drawing available for editing. So either we can wait for the drawing lock icon to be released, or we can continue to work on other drawing files while the ground floor drawing is available for editing purpose.

So for instance, it might take like about five seconds to sync the changes because that's a system variable setting that we have done on the application. So now the drawing is ready for editing. So what I can do is I can review the changes that were done by Shilpa, which is user A. If I feel like not, I need to make further changes on the design, I can just drag and drop the position of this door on the wall.

Once the changes are done, I can always save the drawing file and then close the drawing file so that it's available for other users to work on the drawing file. As soon as I close the drawing file so you don't see the lock icon, we will see some more options, like how to know whether the drawing file is in read only state or is being edited by other users. So while I have closed the drawing ground floor, it should be available for Shilpa to continue to review the new changes that I have done.

SHILPA ARORA: Yep. Thanks, Sridhar. So as we have seen, that first floor drawing was modified by Sridhar as he's working on his set of changes. And at the same time, he has also updated the ground floor drawings. And he initially he could see a read only message because the file was still open and in editing state at my end. So once I closed the drawing, Save and Close the drawing, then it's ready to be used in other user machine.

So now let's review the changes done from Sridhar. I will open the ground floor drawing and we can see here the changes made by Sridhar is synchronized. And at the same time, we have seen that the modification was done at the first level drawing. So it looks like the first level drawing is not yet synchronized. Sometimes it may take a while due to the network issues, but yeah, if you have set this is to five seconds, then most of the time, the changes gets reflected instantly. Yeah.

At the same time, we can see that the user 2 machines, the lock symbol. OK, we will talk about the lock symbol in the later slides. You can see that the lock symbol is seen when one user is working on a particular drawing so that it prevents other users in making the changes.

So meanwhile, I can also show the local DC folder, how it looks. So we can see here the lock symbols gets reflected here as well. Yeah. OK. I will close this drawing.

All right. So once we close the drawing, then we should be able to see the lock symbols getting removed. So you can see the ground floor gets removed. And the first level still showing the lock symbol. Maybe it's a-- synchronization is taking some time on my user machine. OK, we can get back to this one later. Meanwhile, let's go to the next part.

So that one we can review when we are doing the demonstration for lock and unlock mechanism again. So now moving on, we also want to share on how the locking and unlocking mechanism works. So basically, locking is very crucial for the synchronization to work. So when user is opening a file for editing, we saw that the lock symbol was showing. So the file gets locked so that no one else can make edits in order to prevent the conflicting changes.

So this even makes the collaboration even stronger and smoother. So as an example. So we will see. We will share here. User A is opening the construct drawing for editing. And then in the demonstration, you should have seen the lock symbols in the earlier demo for the file level or at the design data level. So the lock symbol will be shown on the drawing tab as well as on the construct on the file level as well in the project navigator.

And when user B is opening the same drawing, then we can see the dialog showing the read only mode. So if user wish to open the drawing in read only mode, and then the drawing will be only in the read only mode. And when the user tries to save the drawing or still continues to edit the drawing and save the drawing, it should show the drawing file is right protected message, so that it prevents the conflicting changes. So we will share in a demo how it works.

So here is a snapshot of showing the lock symbols in the project navigator as well as the local D, C folder of user A machine. And then the user B machine also should show the lock symbol as well as the local D, C folder of user machine. So now is the unlock mechanism. So once first user closes the drawing, basically he finishes his work and closes the drawing, then lock symbols gets removed from the project navigator construct drawing as well as from the local DC folder on the user A machine as well as from the other user's machine as well.

Then other users can open the drawings in the Edit mode. So we can see here the lock symbol will no more be seen in the project navigator as well as the local D, C folder. So now let's switch to the demo.

All right, so now I will open second level drawing. So let's say am trying to do some modifications by-- maybe I want to add a wall here. All right. So I've added a wall here. And at the same time, let's say other users unknowingly want to change at the same file. And then let's see what happens in the other user machine. Yeah.

SRIDHAR SUBRAMANI: OK, so now Shilpa was editing the second level drawing. So when I go to the project navigator, when I try to double click the drawing file, I can see a read only message, which you have already seen a few times now. So I'll still go ahead and open the drawing file and then maybe switch to the top view here. Now, here on the drawing file, you can see the lock icon. That's the first way of knowing the file is read only for you.

The second way is to see the lock icon on the construct itself, like next to the second level text information. So we can continue to review the drawing or we can just go ahead and close the drawing file. So that we will wait for all the design changes to be completed, and then we can come back to the second level drawing.

So while I have closed the second level drawing, let me go ahead and open a different drawing file. For example, construct wall in this case. So right, I'll open the construct wall while [INAUDIBLE] the second level drawing is being edited, our [INAUDIBLE] is ready for me to update. So what I'll do is I will just go ahead and add a design element here.

Once I've added here, I've just saved the drawing file. So while I'm working on this drawing file, you can see a lock icon is placed on concept_vault. The same thing can be seen on user A machines that the file is locked for editing. So now that my design changes are done, so I'll just go ahead and close the drawing file, and then try to open the second level drawing.

So now as we know the second level drawing is available for editing, and the lock icon was already removed. So we can continue to make the new changes. For example, I'll erase one of the wall here, change the orientation to top view, save the drawing file, and then just go ahead and close the drawing file.

As soon as I close the drawing file, the lock icon is removed from the second level construct as well. The same things will be reflected on all the user's machines within five seconds of the synchronization time. So it depends on the time that you have set using the system variable.

In real world scenarios, you might not need to know the syncing every five seconds. So for example, you want to know the syncing maybe every one to two minutes, or maybe every 30 seconds. You can set the system variable value accordingly. So that the project navigator is not constantly syncing with the changes. Yep, so that's a quick demo on lock and unlock behavior.

SHILPA ARORA: Yeah, thanks, Sridhar So now we can see the second level drawing is also available for editing. So similarly, we can see the lock symbol in both the user's machine. So yeah, so this was a demonstration on lock and unlock mechanism. So till now we have seen, we have shown the demonstration for two users simulation. So, but in a real world use case, multiple users can work simultaneously.

More than two users are working on that. So this application, this is applicable to all the users. So when one user is making a change, all other users, be it five or 10, the data gets automatically synced without any manual intervention.

SRIDHAR SUBRAMANI: So that's the end of our presentation on Autodesk Docs. Automatic synchronization. Here I want to share some more update for you. So we have an opportunity for you. So we want some of our users to join the AutoCAD Inside the Factory event. So with this event you will have an option to explore all the new features that we are working on for the upcoming release, as well as you can also meet the people who are working behind these features like product managers, designers, developers.

You'll get opportunity to talk to them and share your feedback on the new features that we shared in the demo, as well as can help build our future roadmap. So please click on the-- please use the QR code to join the Inside the Factory event. And we look forward to seeing you there at the Inside the Factory event. Thank you.

So that's the end of our presentation. So we are-- now the floor is open to questions. So you can ask us any questions on AutoCAD Architecture in general, or with the demo that we have shared today. Thank you, everyone. Next slide.

SHILPA ARORA: Yep, thank you, everyone.