& Construction
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Integrated BIM tools, including Revit, AutoCAD, and Civil 3D
& Manufacturing
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Professional CAD/CAM tools built on Inventor and AutoCAD
Integrated BIM tools, including Revit, AutoCAD, and Civil 3D
Professional CAD/CAM tools built on Inventor and AutoCAD
Transcript
00:07
What is Worksharing?
00:09
Well, it's the cornerstone of BIM, that's what it is.
00:12
BIM to me is coordination and coordination starts with us being able to actually physically work in the same model at the same time.
00:21
Revit is basically the only modeling program that can allow multiple people access to the same live data.
00:29
This used to be a lot cooler before Google Docs came along, which does basically the same thing.
00:35
Look, I'm using it for my scripts right now.
00:38
Come on, you think I'm smooth enough to just blurt out these perfectly articulated words of wisdom on demand.
00:44
This is like my third time running through this.
00:47
So, in this video, I'd like to explain what Worksharing is and to bring you through a live Workshared Revit model.
00:54
So, what is Worksharing?
00:56
We try to make this easy.
00:58
Simple steps for an end user are to open Revit, click "Open Within Revit".
01:04
Browse to your project.
01:06
Open the model with the Create Local checkbox checked.
01:10
Enjoy your day and sync often.
01:12
It should be that easy.
01:14
Sometimes people make it harder than it needs to be, but it's basically this easy.
01:20
So, what is it?
01:22
So, for one, we have a Central Model.
01:25
So, that Central Model is going to reside on your company's server.
01:29
Wherever that may be, my company's server happens to be in the Amazon Cloud.
01:33
Doesn't matter.
01:35
That Central Model sits on your file location on your central server.
01:40
Never open this file directly. I'll show you how to open it.
01:44
Never copy and paste this file.
01:47
Local copies of a Central Model find their way back to it, trust me.
01:52
This is the file that contains all of the users saved data.
01:57
So, what happens is, once you create a Central Model on your server, as we saw in this slide,
02:02
it's going to physically make a copy, and it's going to put it on your C drive.
02:07
This file keeps a live link back to your Central Model.
02:12
Each time you open the project, you're going to overwrite this file and I'll show you the moment how that works.
02:18
We do what's called a Synchronize, and I always say synchronize often because here's what happens.
02:26
When you make an edit to an element on your local drive, you own it.
02:31
Other users cannot edit it.
02:33
So, what happens is, I come in in the morning and I start clicking on walls, doors, windows, whatever.
02:39
Once I click on those and make edits to those, I own them.
02:43
If someone else comes along and they try to edit the same thing or something that's affected by what I'm editing,
02:49
they get a warning saying that Eric W owns the element.
02:53
Would you like to place a request?
02:56
So, what happens is I'm actually borrowing a work set.
02:60
I can cough it up.
03:01
So, what I'm going to do is I can click Relinquish or I can sync my model with Central.
03:07
I prefer a good sync.
03:10
So, once I synchronize my model, it's going to save all my changes back to the Central Model.
03:17
It's going to relinquish ownership of any item that I have ownership of,
03:22
and it's going to pull down all of the changes from other people's models.
03:27
If they relinquished, I need to synchronize essential to see that they have relinquished their stuff as well.
03:33
So basically, we start with the Central Model that resides on our server.
03:38
We're coming in the morning. We open it up, it makes a copy to our C drive.
03:44
So, we synchronize our local model, which is going to save the changes back to the Central Model.
03:49
And it's also going to grab any changes anyone else's made and we're going to see them in our model.
03:55
Does that make sense?
03:56
Well, here, let's take a look.
03:59
I'm going to jump into Revit.
04:01
Now notice that I have this model here and it has this little icon in the corner, which indicates to me that it's a Central Model.
04:10
But what I'm going to do is I'm going to do it the old-fashioned way. And under Models, I'll click "Open".
04:17
I'll browse to the directory where I'm keeping my model.
04:20
Notice that I'm going to have an Architectural Model or whatever the model is, and there's going to be a backup folder.
04:27
All of our backups are stored within this folder.
04:30
Notice when I select it, I'm going to get some choices down here for Worksharing, we've been talking about that.
04:38
If we create new local,
04:41
what it's going to do is this Architectural Model have an underscore, then it's going to have my username appended to it.
04:48
Create New Local is checked by default, so I'm going to keep that checked on and I am going to click "Open".
04:55
Now if I have opened this before, there's already going to be an existing copy on my C drive.
05:02
That's fine. I'm going to overwrite the existing copy.
05:08
Now my model is open.
05:11
So, what I can do now is on the Quick Access toolbar,
05:15
notice I have a Save icon as well as a Synchronize Now icon.
05:21
If I click this icon, I can either synchronize and modify settings or just simply synchronize it now.
05:27
I'm going to click "Synchronize and Modify Settings" just to show you kind of how it works.
05:33
Central Model location is going to be here.
05:39
You can browse for it. You can change that model location.
05:43
But like I said before, people like to overcomplicate the stuff, just let it go where Revit wants it to go, trust me.
05:50
You can compact it. I don't recommend doing that a lot. And I've said this before.
05:54
If Autodesk says something is going to be slow, it's going to be slow.
05:59
I could make a comment. We can save the local file before and after synchronizing.
06:04
Whatever, all these settings I'd like to just keep.
06:07
I'm going to click "OK", and now my model is synchronized.
06:12
So, what's going to happen is if I go to Windows Explorer and I go to where I'm keeping that file.
06:19
There's a Revit Temp folder, that's for each specific user, and it's generally an empty folder for some reason.
06:25
But if we go toe Architectural backup, this is where all of our files are chatting back and forth.
06:32
These are backup files and these actually are going to talk to the files that are on our C drive.
06:40
So, if I go to my Documents folder, you'll see I had a few Central Models.
06:45
I like to clean this directory, but my Architectural file is right here.
06:53
And if we go into our Backup folder, you'll see the same basic files.
06:58
These are the files that chat back and forth with the Central Model from your local model.
07:04
I'm going to close out of there.
07:07
I'm going to hit my drop-down, I'm going to Synchronize Now.
07:10
Now, when I close out of this model, I know that I've created a local model and there's a Central Model.
07:18
What's nice is in Revit 2020, if I just go to my Splash screen, we'll notice that if I hover over it,
07:25
it says my saved model that was on the desktop, my local copy saved path is on my C drive, right?
07:34
So, if I click this model again, it's going to tell me, listen, you're going to create a local copy of this.
07:40
Click "OK".
07:41
We're going to overwrite that local copy and you're free to go about your day.
07:47
So, that's basically how we get in and out of a Workshared project.
07:52
The next video is going to bring us through how to turn on Worksharing.
Video transcript
00:07
What is Worksharing?
00:09
Well, it's the cornerstone of BIM, that's what it is.
00:12
BIM to me is coordination and coordination starts with us being able to actually physically work in the same model at the same time.
00:21
Revit is basically the only modeling program that can allow multiple people access to the same live data.
00:29
This used to be a lot cooler before Google Docs came along, which does basically the same thing.
00:35
Look, I'm using it for my scripts right now.
00:38
Come on, you think I'm smooth enough to just blurt out these perfectly articulated words of wisdom on demand.
00:44
This is like my third time running through this.
00:47
So, in this video, I'd like to explain what Worksharing is and to bring you through a live Workshared Revit model.
00:54
So, what is Worksharing?
00:56
We try to make this easy.
00:58
Simple steps for an end user are to open Revit, click "Open Within Revit".
01:04
Browse to your project.
01:06
Open the model with the Create Local checkbox checked.
01:10
Enjoy your day and sync often.
01:12
It should be that easy.
01:14
Sometimes people make it harder than it needs to be, but it's basically this easy.
01:20
So, what is it?
01:22
So, for one, we have a Central Model.
01:25
So, that Central Model is going to reside on your company's server.
01:29
Wherever that may be, my company's server happens to be in the Amazon Cloud.
01:33
Doesn't matter.
01:35
That Central Model sits on your file location on your central server.
01:40
Never open this file directly. I'll show you how to open it.
01:44
Never copy and paste this file.
01:47
Local copies of a Central Model find their way back to it, trust me.
01:52
This is the file that contains all of the users saved data.
01:57
So, what happens is, once you create a Central Model on your server, as we saw in this slide,
02:02
it's going to physically make a copy, and it's going to put it on your C drive.
02:07
This file keeps a live link back to your Central Model.
02:12
Each time you open the project, you're going to overwrite this file and I'll show you the moment how that works.
02:18
We do what's called a Synchronize, and I always say synchronize often because here's what happens.
02:26
When you make an edit to an element on your local drive, you own it.
02:31
Other users cannot edit it.
02:33
So, what happens is, I come in in the morning and I start clicking on walls, doors, windows, whatever.
02:39
Once I click on those and make edits to those, I own them.
02:43
If someone else comes along and they try to edit the same thing or something that's affected by what I'm editing,
02:49
they get a warning saying that Eric W owns the element.
02:53
Would you like to place a request?
02:56
So, what happens is I'm actually borrowing a work set.
02:60
I can cough it up.
03:01
So, what I'm going to do is I can click Relinquish or I can sync my model with Central.
03:07
I prefer a good sync.
03:10
So, once I synchronize my model, it's going to save all my changes back to the Central Model.
03:17
It's going to relinquish ownership of any item that I have ownership of,
03:22
and it's going to pull down all of the changes from other people's models.
03:27
If they relinquished, I need to synchronize essential to see that they have relinquished their stuff as well.
03:33
So basically, we start with the Central Model that resides on our server.
03:38
We're coming in the morning. We open it up, it makes a copy to our C drive.
03:44
So, we synchronize our local model, which is going to save the changes back to the Central Model.
03:49
And it's also going to grab any changes anyone else's made and we're going to see them in our model.
03:55
Does that make sense?
03:56
Well, here, let's take a look.
03:59
I'm going to jump into Revit.
04:01
Now notice that I have this model here and it has this little icon in the corner, which indicates to me that it's a Central Model.
04:10
But what I'm going to do is I'm going to do it the old-fashioned way. And under Models, I'll click "Open".
04:17
I'll browse to the directory where I'm keeping my model.
04:20
Notice that I'm going to have an Architectural Model or whatever the model is, and there's going to be a backup folder.
04:27
All of our backups are stored within this folder.
04:30
Notice when I select it, I'm going to get some choices down here for Worksharing, we've been talking about that.
04:38
If we create new local,
04:41
what it's going to do is this Architectural Model have an underscore, then it's going to have my username appended to it.
04:48
Create New Local is checked by default, so I'm going to keep that checked on and I am going to click "Open".
04:55
Now if I have opened this before, there's already going to be an existing copy on my C drive.
05:02
That's fine. I'm going to overwrite the existing copy.
05:08
Now my model is open.
05:11
So, what I can do now is on the Quick Access toolbar,
05:15
notice I have a Save icon as well as a Synchronize Now icon.
05:21
If I click this icon, I can either synchronize and modify settings or just simply synchronize it now.
05:27
I'm going to click "Synchronize and Modify Settings" just to show you kind of how it works.
05:33
Central Model location is going to be here.
05:39
You can browse for it. You can change that model location.
05:43
But like I said before, people like to overcomplicate the stuff, just let it go where Revit wants it to go, trust me.
05:50
You can compact it. I don't recommend doing that a lot. And I've said this before.
05:54
If Autodesk says something is going to be slow, it's going to be slow.
05:59
I could make a comment. We can save the local file before and after synchronizing.
06:04
Whatever, all these settings I'd like to just keep.
06:07
I'm going to click "OK", and now my model is synchronized.
06:12
So, what's going to happen is if I go to Windows Explorer and I go to where I'm keeping that file.
06:19
There's a Revit Temp folder, that's for each specific user, and it's generally an empty folder for some reason.
06:25
But if we go toe Architectural backup, this is where all of our files are chatting back and forth.
06:32
These are backup files and these actually are going to talk to the files that are on our C drive.
06:40
So, if I go to my Documents folder, you'll see I had a few Central Models.
06:45
I like to clean this directory, but my Architectural file is right here.
06:53
And if we go into our Backup folder, you'll see the same basic files.
06:58
These are the files that chat back and forth with the Central Model from your local model.
07:04
I'm going to close out of there.
07:07
I'm going to hit my drop-down, I'm going to Synchronize Now.
07:10
Now, when I close out of this model, I know that I've created a local model and there's a Central Model.
07:18
What's nice is in Revit 2020, if I just go to my Splash screen, we'll notice that if I hover over it,
07:25
it says my saved model that was on the desktop, my local copy saved path is on my C drive, right?
07:34
So, if I click this model again, it's going to tell me, listen, you're going to create a local copy of this.
07:40
Click "OK".
07:41
We're going to overwrite that local copy and you're free to go about your day.
07:47
So, that's basically how we get in and out of a Workshared project.
07:52
The next video is going to bring us through how to turn on Worksharing.
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