From Chaos to Control: Design Collaboration on Autodesk Construction Cloud for Infrastructure Projects

RAMYA PALANI: OK, folks. Let's get the legal stuff out of our way. You know the drill. This is where we tell you that the future is unpredictable, even though we are very excited about the potentials of our product. We can't guarantee any specific results. Don't make any big decisions based on what you see here today. If anything gets too confusing, just laugh it out. We're all friends here. Nothing to worry about. Welcome to our session, From Chaos to Control. Today, we'll be discussing how to share data between infrastructure teams.

We know infrastructure projects are complex, multiple teams, scattered data, and intricate workflows, which can quickly lead to chaos. But what if we could bring order to this complexity? Today, we'll explore the Autodesk Construction Cloud and its Design Collaboration module and how it can revolutionize infrastructure projects. By the end of this session, we will understand how to set up Design Collaboration, different types of sharing methods, and the trust levels associated with it. We will also learn to leverage Bridge tool for Design Collaboration. So this is a quick recap of what our objective was, why you are in this session in the first place.

A little bit about the speakers. I am Ramya Palani, a Customer Success Advisor at Autodesk. I am also a Subject Matter Expert for BIM Collaborate Pro. I have seven years of experience, and I have a Master's degree in architecture. I'm very passionate about empowering designers, merging the line between the AEC industry and technology. I also help the customers achieve their goals by traveling with them together. Over to you, Anthony.

ANTHONY MIES: Thanks, Ramya. We also have Stacey Morykin here. She's going to be available for the live demonstration of this class. And during that portion, I will let her introduce herself. As for me, my name is Anthony Mies. I'm also a Customer Success Advisor and a Subject Matter Expertise here at Autodesk. Have a background in civil engineering, and I'm passionate about helping civil industry, the civil industry, modernize the way they design.

OK, here for the agenda, let's get started. Today, we'll begin by understanding the Autodesk Construction Cloud and the offerings it contains. Next, we'll dive into the challenges infrastructure teams face setting the stage for how Autodesk's Design Collaboration is a solution to the chaos. We'll then explore the setup of Design Collaboration and learn how the different levels of trust and sharing methods will ensure data security and controlled collaboration. And finally, we'll see how we expand collaboration beyond a project team by bridging the gap. And of course, we'll wrap up with a conclusion, summarizing key takeaways.

What we will not be covering in this class is the Autodesk Construction Cloud tools like Docs, Model Coordination, Build, or Takeoff. And as a reminder, we will also not be diving into coordination between Revit and Civil 3D models.

RAMYA PALANI: Well, thank you, Anthony. What is Autodesk Construction Cloud? What is ACC? What is ABC Pro, BIM collaborate? I know. Autodesk is not tired of throwing acronyms at us. Right? So in today's session, as a precursor, we are going to cover what is Autodesk Construction Cloud and how big it is. So Autodesk Construction Cloud is your end-to-end solution for all design and construction projects. BIM Collaborate Pro enables the design team, which is the first one. Takeoff and Build, second and third, helps the construction side of our industry. And Tandem, the very last, helps with the building owner side of things.

So in totality, Autodesk Construction Cloud is a web based tool which offers centralized cloud platform for AEC firms. Docs is the Keystone that connects AEC collection and Autodesk Construction Cloud. Docs is available as a part of your AEC collection at no additional cost. If you are not using it at this point, please, please go ahead and leverage Autodesk Docs in your day to day. You get unlimited storage with Autodesk Docs. This also streamlines communication, document sharing and data management, maintaining a common data environment.

Doc is the key that is going to give you the common data environment. So within Docs, Autodesk BIM Collaborate Pro is one offering, also called ABC Pro. It is beyond just a common data environment. BIM Collaborate Pro enables design professionals to collaborate on design models in real time, and that is where your Civil 3D comes in, your Revit and Plant3D comes in, which enables the collaboration side of things.

Next, let's understand what exactly BIM Collaborate Pro gives from a features point of view. The first piece is document management. Document management is where you store files. And then your share files. You also have permission along with it. And this is where your file automatically gets locked and makes sure that nobody else is opening your DWD file and working on it. The second piece is collaboration for Civil 3D. So this is the BIM Collaborate Pro piece of it.

Collaboration for Civil 3D is built to handle Civil 3D models, data shortcuts and xrefs making cloud based teamwork a reality. The third is Design Collaboration itself. Design Collaboration streamlines the sharing and tracking of design data, keeping everyone on the same page. And finally, model coordination automates clash detection to identify and resolve issues early, minimizing costly rework down the line.

For today's session, our focus is entirely going to be on the tool Design Collaboration, or we'd like to call it the module. This transforms how teams work and share data, especially those who focused on infrastructure projects. All that is well and good. Now, your next question, obviously, I can hear you guys in your mind voice. That's great. But how does this resolve my pain points today?

ANTHONY MIES: Great question. And thanks, Ramya. OK, let's get into what those pain points Ramya was alluding to previously. Picture this. You're a civil engineer, knee deep in a massive highway project. Survey and geotechnical data needs to be incorporated. Drainage and other utility engineers are revising their plans. The bridge team is also waiting on the latest alignment, as well as land and life.

Suddenly, your inbox is flooded with emails containing attachments, markups, and conflicting versions. You spend hours just trying to figure out who has the latest file. Sound familiar to anyone? Well, it definitely did for me when I was in industry. These are the frustrating everyday realities for civil design professionals. Collaboration can often feel more like a chaos, costing you time and money.

OK, let's contrast this chaotic scenario with a solution. The Autodesk Construction Cloud's Design Collaboration module tackles those collaboration headaches head on. It's your project's command center, connecting everyone and everything. As shown, ACC Docs, is that common data environment, linking the civil engineer to survey data, geotechnical information, utilities, architectural plans, and the like. No more confusion. Everyone's on the same page. Forget endless file transfers, version conflicts and lost markups. ACC's Design Collaboration module lets civil teams collaborate seamlessly and effectively in the cloud.

Now let's see how we can enable Design Collaboration on our ACC projects. Before we get into the product, let's talk about the setup. When we set up Design Collaboration, there are three key steps. Taking that visual from the previous slide, the first step would be to create a shared folder. To set this up, this will be where all the design consultants can share their files with each other, connecting the teams at large. Next, we'll set up teams, where each participating design consultants folder within Docs will be transformed into a team space.

This team space will be read by the Design Collaboration module and the shared folder. And lastly, using the information that are in those team spaces and within those teams folders, we'll create, share and consume data from each other's teams folders using Design Collaboration.

RAMYA PALANI: Let's get quickly started with two steps. So first and foremost, how do you access Design Collaboration? So in order for us to access Design Collaboration, your project admin who administers your project, or who would have created your project, first should have enabled Design Collaboration module for himself and for others. So within your project, your project admin can navigate to Members. And here, project admins, please make sure your Design Collaboration radio button is turned on for all of the participating members. And please make sure that it is turned for yourself, because the creator, by the end of the day, if you don't have it turned on, it might get a little messy.

The next stop, we are going to see how to share packages or create a shared folder within Design Collaboration. So in this create shared folder, first we are navigating to Design Collaboration module. Click on the module picker and go to Design Collaboration. Once we are in the Design Collaboration, the first message that we always get here is the welcome message. Please note that you will, every single time you come here before the setup, you will be directed to this message. You have to make sure you are setting it up if you are using Design Collaboration.

So here I've said, get started. And now, the first thing that you see is shared folder. You have to set up that common folder. That's the first stop. So you have two options. You can leave it as it is with the default, or you can pick and choose which one, which folder you are going to make as a shared common folder. So in this view, what you're seeing on the left is the Docs version of the same folder. And on the right is the Design Collaboration setup of the same project. So here, I'm trying to-- if you want to change your folder to a common folder that you have in your template, you will simply click on the pencil, and then navigate through the project files, and select one of the file.

Once you select that, to the bottom right corner, you have the select folder that gets activated. And you can hit Select. For this example, I'm simply going to go ahead and use the default option as the shared folder, and then I'm going to go ahead and click Next. Then it will ask you, hey, are you sure this is your folder. Because once a shared folder is created, you cannot go back. As soon as I create, you can see on the left, you are seeing a shared folder that just got created by Autodesk Construction Cloud. I did not do anything, and it got already created.

So Design Collaboration is the one that is enabling. As soon as you're done with this share, you can see two other tabs that got populated, the Teams tab and the Manage tab. So now, the next step is, we are going to see how to create teams. So in this example, we are going to see how a civil team is getting created. So simply click on Select Existing Folder and navigate through the list of folders where you have all the design team listed. Select a folder and then click Create Team.

As soon as you create team, you can see, under shared folder, a copy of that is created. A CS, civil site, is already created. And you will also have an opportunity to rename your teams, but that will not change your folder name. OK, so what you are seeing here is the comparison of Docs and Teams. So far, what have we seen? We have seen that once you create a team, a folder gets created in your Docs. Or once you create a shared folder, a folder gets created in your Docs.

Autodesk Construction Cloud tools like Teams and Docs are very, very closely related. Without the Docs, we do not have the Teams, or without the Teams, we do not have the Docs. It goes to and fro. Anthony, can you move the slides? OK, so like Docs have a folder version, where everything is stored and all of that, Design Collaboration has Teams for it. It's very similar to the folders that we have for Docs.

ANTHONY MIES: OK, next, we'll get into how sharing files internally and the different levels of trust. OK, now let's look at the sharing methods and the levels of trust. In this method, the first option, we'll look at a Docs only method that uses a high trust environment. In this workflow, you'd XREF or DREF directly from a Docs folder. This will be in a Teams live working folder. This especially is utilized in an internal environment.

Next, we'll talk about a medium trust environment, or what we like to call the shared method. In this method, this workflow is to create packages and Design Collaboration, and they get published to the shared folder. The last option is the consumed method. This is for a very low trust environment. This workflow is to consume a already created package to update the model. This is when the recipient is ready.

I just want to note that on any project that's active in ACC, you can choose a combination of these methods for each project, for any, and this can be throughout the duration of the project, as well. Now let's go to an example for the sharing methods of a high trust environment. In a high trust environment is the easiest method to use within ACC. In this workflow, teams directly access each other's working folders. As a note, this method does not require Design Collaboration to be enabled on a project, unless you are using design shortcuts or data shortcuts. This approach is ideal for internal collaboration within a team, and can also be used to work externally with trusted consultants.

Members need at least a view plus download permission to link files. XREFs can be used to link directly to other teams' folders. Now let's get into what this looks like. For this example, I'm going to be in Civil 3D, and I'm going to be in the similar project that Ramya was showing earlier. It's the SM consulting project AE 2020 for Civil 3D C4C project. In here, I'm in the civil site folder. And what design drawing I will be opening in this DWG is the CU dash storm and sanitary DWG.

As I open this, you'll notice a couple of things. One, right away, my file references manager pops up. You'll notice that, in this drawing and in this example, I am-- excuse me. Before linking that, let me show you what attaching a DWG or a XREF looks like, using the high trust method, or what we call the live linking method. In this example, I'll first want to navigate to Autodesk Docs, and then go through the same folder structure as I was just starting from the Autodesk Civil 3D home page.

Here, I'll go to the design folder. And because I am in the civil site, I'm going to go directly into the survey folder. You can already notice a couple of things. One is because I'm working directly within another team's folder. That might not be what's necessary for you, but in this example, this is how the consultants want to work together. Here, you'll reference this as you normally would. Just specific to cloud reference types, always want a relative path. You also always want to make sure this is an overlay and not an attachment.

I'll use the geographical reference data to reference this together. Click OK. Give me some unrecognizable, unreconciled layers. As you notice, this came in, and I can see that this is directly from the survey folder. If I highlight this, you can notice where it's found at. Biggest reason for the type of link that we have is because you'll notice my username here within the C files. And you'll notice it's directly within the project file's design survey folder.

RAMYA PALANI: Hey, Anthony, I have a situation. I'm just going to candidly ask this. So let's say you are my project manager, and I am working under you. Right? I'm a designer. Let's say, I don't have permission to this survey. Right? But then you are directly linked because you're a project admin and you have access. So what happens if I open the storm file?

ANTHONY MIES: That's a great question. If you don't have access to the storm file or to this V dash SP file, and you want it to see it, you will not be able to, unfortunately. It will give you an error when opening the desktop connector. And let me just hover over here. This desktop connector will give you an error that you will not be able to load this reference.

RAMYA PALANI: OK. Thank you.

ANTHONY MIES: Great question. Thanks, Ramya. OK. Let's go over the sharing methods for a medium trust environment, or what we like to call the shared folder or the shared method. In this example, teams share files to a common folder, which is that shared folder that Ramya showed us how to set up. In this workflow, teams cannot access other teams folders and instead access that shared folder. They will directly share their packages along with PDFs and other documents directly within the shared folder.

Let's go through an example of how to go through and create a package. In this example, you'll notice here is the project timeline at the top of the screen that we're interacting with currently. This home tool screen shows packages shared and consumed by collaborating teams throughout their project's life cycle. This is the official record of deliverables exchanged. You notice different nodes. You'll notice, even as I scroll through here, that some nodes, and as I click on them, will have multiples. You'll notice that by the number denoted on top of it.

As a project admin, you'll be able to switch between any team and see all teams' packages that they shared. As a project member, you'll only notice packages that have been shared by your team, and then public packages, no work in progress, or no models that have been shared on other teams timelines. Clicking on any of these packages will give you the details of it. As a note, if the project is subject to litigation, this is a very good way to identify the origin of critical decisions.

Design collaboration facilitates a project timeline, which is a digital audit trail documenting every transaction. Let's go through how to create and share a package. On the timeline, you notice that I went, and up to the top right, clicked the share package option. Here, you can notice that this model that I'm selecting, the CU dash storm and sanitary, has references included. You can notice that the CM, GP, utility, and SM drives are all included because they are referenced to this drawing.

Once I have made sure to select references, and you'll notice the toggle that I just had, I'll click Save. Once I'm happy with the information that I've included in this package, I can change the name of it here to storm and sanitary data. Click Enter. The package will be saved. I will have to save the package before sharing it. One thing I want to notice, again, is this model has references. I can go and explore those references here, just as a reminder.

Click Escape. And as soon as I'm happy with the name, I'll click Share. I could give it a package name, or I can add a package description. For example, this file contains both data references and shortcuts. Once I'm happy with creating the package, I'll click Share. Now, as I go up to the project timeline, you can notice that the civil site package was shared. And you'll notice that the node at the very right side of the screen is now, too.

OK, now let's get into, once we have this package shared, how do I go from Civil 3D and link to it. Very simple. Here is how I would. So back in that same storm file here, I'm actually in the storm and sanitary file here. I removed the references. Let's say I want to add one. So let's go to attach a reference directly within here. Autodesk Docs, again, this is coming from the desktop connector. Just navigate to the SM consulting. Navigate to your project that you have here.

Rather than, as in the last example, going through design, I'll go through Shared. So here in the Shared folder, I will click the Survey file, The Survey folders, and this VSM is what I want to link to. Double click that. Using the same relative path and overlay, and of course, using geographical data to locate this, I'll add it to this file. Just give it a little bit of time to load up. And once it does, you'll notice this is a very similar linking method for any typical Civil 3D user, as if you were on a local area network.

Now, because of the power of the desktop connector, we can just path these links directly to the cloud.

RAMYA PALANI: I have a question, Anthony. So does it automatically-- once it is linked, does it automatically go ahead and link it again? Let's say, the VSM file is getting updated, and let's say the survey team is sharing new set of files. Then what happens?

ANTHONY MIES: That is a great question. In this linking method for the shared folder and for the shared method, Whenever the survey team creates a new package, which therefore would update this shared folder, and again, just as a call out where this is found out, now, no longer in the Design folder. It's in the Shared folder here under the survey teams. Once they create a new package, just as if your survey team was local, and on prem, and working on the local area network, as they updated their file, you would get a notification here, just like I'm getting this unreconciled notification here.

It would update you or let you know that there are updates available, and you would just need to reload those. And you would be able to get the latest and greatest right away. That's the beauty of Design Collaboration. You always know you're on the latest and greatest file version.

RAMYA PALANI: So in summary, so if I am the civil engineer, then I get to control the files. I can share only when I am ready? Or, for example, if I'm the survey engineer, I will share the files only when I am ready, and you are the civil engineer. You will consume it, or you will link the file only at my control, only when I share.

ANTHONY MIES: Yeah, you are correct. OK, let me get back to the presentation here. And we'll go through what the consumed method looks like. In this workflow, teams do not have access to each other's team folders. Each team can only share a package containing their models when ready, and other teams can choose to consume the packages when they require. This is a very low trust environment, again. And the biggest differences between these three versions, or these three methods, is the level of control and who has the control.

In the very high trust environment, the control is not to be found, really. Your live linking whenever an update is created or a DWT is saved that you're linking to, you will see those updates right away. In the middle method or the medium trust environment with a shared folder that I just went through, you'll notice it might not be as evident until you start to get put this into practice. But what Ramya's question alluded to, when the survey team creates a new package, that now puts the control into the survey teams hands.

So they can choose when their data gets updated and when those updates are shared to other team members. Now here, in the consume method for the low trust environment, we put the control in everybody's hands. So the control now will be, not only in the team that is sharing the information, but it will be in the control of the team that is consuming or consuming that information, as well. So here, let's go through what consuming a package looks like. Here, again, in the simple site timeline, we'll click on the node.

What we can do here is, again, just like we did with the Shared folder, we can notice that this model has references, and that the DWG contains four references, the CM, GP, and the utility. Again, the SMDWG not be included, actually, like it was in the previous version. And that is because it is a design reference. In order to get that package to be included with this package, we will need the survey file, the survey team to share that directly. One, because it's coming from the survey team, of course.

So now, as the architecture, I come into the consumed package that I just did. And I can notice that, as I consume it, these files are getting put directly within my Consumed folder under the CS, civil site. As you consume other teams' packages, the Consume folder will populate with those team names. Now, let's put this into practice. Back here in Civil 3D, I will do the same thing as I've been doing. Let's detach a reference. Now, let's add a new one.

Here, I can go, instead of to the Shared folder, I'm going to go directly within the Design folder. So for civil site, in this example, I've been consuming surveys data. Let's go into this Consumed Survey folder. Here, we'll get that VSM project DWG. Again, very the same relative path overlay. I'll locate using geographical data that I've set up with my datums already. Give it a little bit of time. And you'll notice in this live demonstration, the existing ground is already here.

And you can notice that there might be some layers to reconcile. We can do that if we need to. But you'll notice, as I click here, rather than now going directly within the Shared folder, I'm actually using my civil site folder, my Consumed folder, but linking to the survey data that I've consumed, as I just showed previously. You can notice employing these on a project is pretty simple. This just determines which path you want to take for the link that you're referencing to. And that's it.

Just as a really quick callout, data shortcuts work very similarly. Once you set your working folder, you have access to these here, and can promote these, and create a reference if you need. Because of the way that this is employed, and just the file pathing itself, you can use, like I said at the very beginning, a multitude of these options on the same project. You might be very close with the survey team, or the survey team might be in house. You might want to do a live linking version for those. Whereas with the land lite or other teams, you might want to use, either the Shared or the Consumed method for those.

Those should all just be called out in the BIM executed plan at the beginning of the project.

RAMYA PALANI: So in the example, all the three examples that you showed, so the first example is me directly linking to the survey team. So I should have really good connection with the survey team so that I can link with them. And then the second, you went ahead, and I believe you went to the Shared folder, which is the common place where they share. And then the third one was just within the architects folder, or within the consumed folder where you're going ahead and sharing. Correct?

ANTHONY MIES: Yes. And just as a callout, because I think I misspoke a little bit. The reason that the survey data that was linked to the civil engineering's folder in this previous example that I saw, the reason that it wasn't included in the package that I consumed is because it was actually the survey data. It's not because it was a design reference. I apologize if I misspoke there. It's because it wasn't the civil engineers. It wasn't their data. It was the survey data. So in order to get references from other teams in the consumed method, that team needs to create a package that you will consume.

RAMYA PALANI: Right. OK, that makes sense. Thank you, Anthony.

ANTHONY MIES: Now, over to you, Ramya.

RAMYA PALANI: Thank you, Anthony. That was great. Thank you. It's a bit complicated. Or maybe complicated is the wrong word, but it's tiny changes, but it has a huge impact when it comes to permission and all of that. Thank you. That was very insightful. So we saw how Anthony was able to collaborate with his core team, just by a few clicks. In the next tool, we are going to see how we can collaborate externally, where if you have an architect, or if you have a consultant who does not want to share data with you or work out of your hub, then what happens? Then how do you share the file with this particular group of architects?

And they'll be like, hey, come on, give me your data file. And you'll be like, no, I don't want to share data file with you. So we are going to see a situation where you have totally somebody who is not working out of your hub, but you still want to collaborate with them. The tool that will help you do it is Bridge. Bridge will help you connect two different projects from the same hub, or from different hubs, but two different projects, and transfer data without having any kind of permissions, or references or anything.

All the Bridge will do is take the file or, and the version, lock it at that point, and transfer it to the destination project. So that is what Bridge tool is going to do. We have two different bridges. One bridge is just for Autodesk Docs, where you will just click a couple of files, and then save it momentarily. And then you have Design Collaboration. That is what we are going to see now. So Bridge for Design Collaboration will automate in the background, just a few clicks away.

Like how Anthony created packages and he was sharing vital information with the packages, the same thing will happen, but for a team that is not associated with you anyhow. Next slide, Anthony. Thank you. So in this video, we are going to see how to, first, bridge two different projects. Yeah, OK. So I am in the project and clicked on Bridge. I've clicked Bridge a Project, typing the email ID of the person whom I want to bridge with. And then I'm writing a cute note saying, hey, I'd like to bridge with this particular project. Please grant me access. And then hit Send Invitation to the project.

So what this invitation would do is it would go in as an email. So this is the destination project. So the destination team is clicking through the link. Once they click through the link, they will be asked, so which project do you want to link to. So the person who receives the invitation will have an opportunity to select through the projects and hit Bridge. Now it is bridged. So here, this is the project that the destination team decided to bridge with. And you have all of that to the right corner. What you're seeing to the right, you have a panel where you're seeing the total number of shared information, how many folders got shared, and then how many teams got shared.

And all of that good, good information, you will be seeing here. Because we just bridged it, we are not seeing any information now. So in this video, we are going to see how to share files within Design Collaboration. Here on the left, what you're seeing is the project team. And the right, what you're seeing is the destination team. So the project team will have to enable Bridge by going to the setup, and against the team respective team you want to bridge, you will simply click the Bridge automation and bridge it.

And then, the thing is typical. To the left corner, you will be seeing bridged. Only the Civil team is here is bridged. Click on the plus button. Create a package. Rename the package. So I'm sending 70% at de-set alt. And I'm going to go ahead and select which are the set I want to send out and models. I'm also marking up the references that I want to send out. So these are the references I will be sending out. However, only the native XREFs along with the file will go, not the ones that this team used as a reference from others.

And then once I know everything is good, I will put a quick note in there saying, hey, this is for internal and external, so that people who are receiving it are aware that this went even to the other teams who are not collaborating here. And then hit Share. Once I hit Share, what you can see in my timeline is-- so I'm going to pull my timeline down now. And in my timeline, what I'm seeing here is the node with the icon there. So that icon is called the Bridge icon, and that is the only package that got bridged, and it got transferred.

In my target folder, what I can see is the civil site is getting populated because we just sent them the file. And then if the target bridge team has Design Collaboration activated, you will also be able to visualize this package in their Design Collaboration. So you can see the received package as external, and their internal collaboration files as internal. So this is the distinction between typical Design Collaboration and Bridge for Design Collaboration.

In this example, you have a very separate timeline for externally shared files, which you are collecting. And this Bridge can be automated. Once you automate it, every single time civil, only the civil team sends a package out, it will be received by this particular team. You will have an option to pass it every now and then whenever you wish. Over to you, Anthony.

ANTHONY MIES: Thank you, Ramya. In conclusion, we've talked about setting up the Design Collaboration module, what that looks like. We've talked on all these things here. Setting up the Design Collaboration module, different sharing types and trust levels, and learning how to leverage Bridge for cross-project collaboration. Thank you for that beautiful demonstration, Ramya. Next, we'll just talk about some additional resources here. We'll talk about learning CC. That's a Autodesk hosted site where you can learn how to organize, distribute and share drawing models and documents across the project life cycle, everything from Autodesk Docs to Model Coordination to Design Collaboration, which was what we just went through and more.

There's so much more information. We just touched the tip of the iceberg, even for Design Collaboration. There are webinars that we host, as well, and additional resources out on our Autodesk's help page that will include here, as well. Thank you guys for your time, and we hope you learned a lot from this lesson.