Best Practices in BIM Collaborate Pro

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[MUSIC PLAYING]

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Good morning, good afternoon, good evening

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wherever you guys are.

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Thanks for joining me in this third accelerator

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of three-part series of accelerators

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where we are learning about BIM Collaborate Pro.

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As mentioned in the last two accelerators,

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BIM Collaborate Pro, and specifically

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Revit Cloud Worksharing, have changed

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the way the ace industry works and the way

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we deliver BIM and digital engineering projects.

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Now having said that, we need to understand

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that Revit Cloud Worksharing needs to follow

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certain best practices.

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In this accelerator, we are going

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to talk about all those best practices,

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along with various troubleshooting options.

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So let's get started.

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Just a quick introduction about myself.

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My name is Deepak Maini.

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I'm the National Technical Manager at a company

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called Cadgroup Australia, a qualified mechanical engineer

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with over 22 years of industry experience.

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I'm also an Autodesk Expert Elite, and a BIM 360

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Certified Consultant.

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I've been really blessed that I get to travel around the world

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and do talks at various conferences.

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I have won several top speaker awards as well.

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I've also written a few books on programs,

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such as Navisworks, Bluebean Revu, and Advance Steel.

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Outside my full time job, I also do

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a bit of teaching at some universities locally

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within Australia and also overseas.

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This is the safe harbor statement.

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I'm going to leave it on the screen for a few seconds.

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Before we start, a quick note about accelerators.

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Autodesk Accelerators are designed to help you

01:56

and your team stay ahead of the curve with the latest

01:58

workflows.

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There are several on-demand courses

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and pre-recording coaching available on the Customer

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Success Hub.

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You can also request live coaching through that Hub.

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The performance of your Revit Cloud Worksharing model

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becomes critical if you want to avoid

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slow openings, slow synchronization, and even

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slow saving that can so often become problematic when

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the Revit file size increases.

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The objective of this accelerator

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is to introduce you to Revit Cloud Worksharing platform,

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shed light on the best practices to improve Cloud Worksharing

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model performance in Revit, best practices with linking,

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modeling, and maintenance, and concluding

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with how to recover files and troubleshooting

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if things go wrong.

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In this section, we will be covering the AWS platform

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that BIM 360 sits on, how Revit work shares

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on the cloud, and the numerous international standards

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that it complies to.

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Revit Cloud Worksharing is hosted on the AWS platform

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using CloudFront.

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Amazon CloudFront is a fast content delivery network

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service that securely delivers data, videos, applications,

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and APIs to customers globally with low latency

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and high transfer speeds all within a developer

03:20

friendly environment.

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A really cool thing is that CloudFront

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is integrated with AWS, both physical locations that

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are directly connected to the AWS global infrastructure as

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well as other AWS services.

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Talking about security, the Revit Cloud Worksharing

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platform is secured using Amazon GuardDuty, AWS Firewall, AWS

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Security Hub, as well as AWS Shield.

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And for speed, it leverages global edge locations

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for download optimization to local collaboration cache.

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Also, PAC cache or personal accelerator cache

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uploads delta changes.

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That's how you get the speed performance using Revit Cloud

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Worksharing.

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For Revit Cloud Worksharing, Autodesk

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leverages Amazon CloudFront technology to cache.

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CloudFront has a worldwide network

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of data centers called edge locations.

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Your cloud-based project data connects

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to these AWS global infrastructure locations

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to minimize download latencies.

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This map here shows various edge locations.

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Let's now talk about security and compliance.

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Revit Cloud Worksharing can now be

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hosted on both EU as well as US servers for data sovereignty.

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Now please note that the data cannot be transferred between

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EU and US servers.

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You will have to set them up independently.

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There's another important thing I want to mention here.

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That there is no noticeable speed differences

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choosing either service, even if you are geographically located

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closer to one of the hubs.

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Revit Cloud Worksharing platform is

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complying to several national and international standards,

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such as ISO, PCI, GDPR, and so on.

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You can get more information about the Revit Cloud

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Worksharing security by going to this website here.

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Let's now try to understand the parts of the system by analogy.

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Revit Cloud Worksharing on the AWS platform

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is a cloud service that distributes and maintains

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the parts which make up the model.

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Consider that as long term storage of bricks.

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Now what's personal accelerator?

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It is a local service that collects

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the model contents in advance.

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Consider that as pre-gathering the bricks

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before you need them.

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And what's PAC cache?

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It's a portion of the local drive

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that saves the parts for use.

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Consider that as the area on your local drive

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where the bricks are stored for when needed.

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And lastly, collaboration cache.

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That's where your local and central models live.

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Consider that area as the area where the assembled

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bricks are located.

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This is the location of personal accelerator cache.

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And this is the location of collaboration cache.

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Now what do all these Revit Cloud Worksharing

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parts mean to you?

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If you are not the user who initiated Cloud Worksharing,

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when you open the model for the first time,

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it'll be the slowest because there is

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no local cache of that model.

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It's strongly recommended to avoid clearing collaboration

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cache and personal accelerator cache

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because you'll just end up downloading the stuff again.

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Also, it is recommended to keep the personal accelerator

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running in the background.

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Now we talked about live linking in the previous accelerator.

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Live linking, meaning more bricks changing.

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And more bricks changing, meaning slower opens.

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I just also quickly want to talk about the personal accelerator

07:09

limits right now, although we are going to discuss

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this in detail later on.

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But the PAC limit is 20 files or five gigabytes of data,

07:19

whichever happens first.

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In this section, we will look at the ways

07:25

to plan your project and best practices for folder structure.

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As with any successful project, good planning

07:33

is the key to Success.

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It's important for you to have a clear and precise BIM execution

07:39

plan that outlines the protocols and structure for your project,

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ensuring all stakeholders are on the same page.

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This is really, really important.

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In the BIM execution plan, you can

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outline which linking strategy to employ, whose account you're

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going to be working on, roles, permissions, folder structure,

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naming convention, and so on.

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Now talking about accounts, it is really important for us

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to understand that we should all be working on the same account

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because you cannot share the data across accounts easily

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yet.

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You'll have to manually share the files, which

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defeats the big benefits of BIM Collaborate Pro.

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Now this is something I'm a massive fan

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of to manage permissions using roles or companies.

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That way you can avoid managing users individually.

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This, again, is a critical part of the process.

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Make sure you plan and organize your teams early.

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And always use design collaboration teams to do this.

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You'll have to make sure that all key parts of the teams

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have a backup person or two, and have

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the right set of permissions.

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And as mentioned earlier, it is really important for you

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to determine the linking strategy

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and communicate it early.

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Make sure it is also in your BIM execution plan.

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And lastly, have a light version of your BIM execution

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plan ready for any new member so that they

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can get up to speed quickly.

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Now talking about folder management,

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a logical folder structure is really

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important for a successful project execution.

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To help, we have seen a lot of our customers

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using a numbering system to list the folders sequentially.

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Make sure that your folders have unique names

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and add a team prefix or suffix to the folder name.

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We have seen major issues with duplicate folder names

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when linking.

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As mentioned earlier, I have seen

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a lot of customers using numbers to keep

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their folders organized.

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Personally, I'm a big fan of subfolders because they give

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you more granular permissions.

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And talking about the plans area,

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I reckon plans area is one of the most underutilized

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area of BIM 360 platform.

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In the plans area, when you upload

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PDFs files that have got multiple sheets in them,

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those sheets are automatically extracted as individual sheets

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for you to view and access.

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So if you've got multipage PDF files,

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consider using plans area.

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And finally, add custom attributes to sort and organize

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your data, such as page count, date, or description.

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In this section, we will look at various ways to link models,

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what questions to ask to define your strategy,

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and also how this could affect performance of your project.

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Now here are some questions to ask

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before the start of the project.

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How large is the project going to be?

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We are seeing Revit projects increasing

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in size year over year.

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The larger the project, the slower the performance

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and longer wait times.

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Minimizing file size will help reduce wait times.

10:54

Also, opening times can be improved

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via a worksite strategy and explicitly closing these

11:01

upon open.

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That's really important.

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And we'll learn about it more in detail later on as well.

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The next question you go to ask is, is your project

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across multiple time zones?

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If you have multiple global teams working

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on the same project, the load times

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on caching delta changes when returning to work the next day

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can put a significant strain on your corporate bandwidth.

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And we have seen this with several of our customers.

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And this is because when the team members opened

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their respective models and download

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all changes in the morning, the bandwidth saturation occurs.

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In these instances, having your personal accelerator cache

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running overnight and not turning off the user computer

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minimizes the large cache pulls at one time.

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So on those projects, I would strongly

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recommend to leave your personal accelerator running, which

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means that you should not be turning off your machines

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or you should not be logging out.

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Just lock your computer.

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The next and a really important question

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is, how frequent are the updates needed?

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Do you really need to see the updates right now?

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That's because static links reduce the burden

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on the personal accelerator cache

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and reduce opening times as the links are already cached

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on the user's workstation.

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The other really important question to ask

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is, would there be multiple bidders?

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And what kind of permissions and restrictions

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are required for the successful completion of this project?

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The next important question is, how many files are to be linked

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and their file sizes?

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And finally, how many people are accessing the file at one time?

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Now Revit Cloud Worksharing projects

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allow more users to work simultaneously

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than the traditional server work-sharing projects.

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However, having too many users working on one file

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can cause slowness when syncing and accessing the file.

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In that case, I would strongly recommend

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employing the sync activity monitor that

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can help coordinate times when accessing the model.

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Alternatively, divide the model by teams and link accordingly.

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For example, core and shell or the interior models.

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Or in case of a high rise building,

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separate the podium model from the tower model.

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I have also seen a lot of our architectural customers

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keeping the base building different from the interiors

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model.

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So that, again, could really help you.

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Let's now talk about various linking impacts,

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starting with live linking.

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As mentioned previously, this method of linking

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can cause higher network traffic and therefore

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slower performance when accessing the model.

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And this is due to pulling delta changes from the linked models

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all the time.

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I would strongly suggest not to use

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this kind of linking strategy for a large global project.

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However, if you are in a highly collaborative, fast-paced,

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trusting environment, then you can use this.

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For example, in case of multidisciplinary firms.

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Let's now take a look at some pros and cons of this strategy.

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Talking about pros, this is the most up to date way

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to keep a track of changes from both internal

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as well as external team members.

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This strategy is also really handy

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when you're in a time crunch and the weekly updates or milestone

14:25

packages are too slow.

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And talking about cons, all the changes

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will be visible to everyone after sync to central.

14:35

It also causes a massive strain on network

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due to downloading delta changes to personal accelerator cache.

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And as I mentioned earlier, I do not recommend this strategy

14:46

on large global projects.

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Now talking about shared linking,

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this linking method is the hybrid trust environment.

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In this strategy, the model is released by a designated person

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by sharing their package.

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And all the users who have got the models linked

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through the shared folder can see the version update on open.

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The good thing about this strategy

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is the model does not update until the next package is

15:15

shared by the owner.

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And it reduces bandwidth, hard disk use,

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and also collaborative data loss.

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This strategy also minimizes potential problems

15:27

with incomplete or in-progress content.

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For example, unbound rooms.

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Let's now talk about the consumed linking

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strategy, which is my favorite.

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This type of linking is in a lower trust environment.

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It's a more traditional type of linking where the receiving

15:45

party can review the incoming published model

15:48

before accepting it.

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The whole idea is that you have got a greater QA and control

15:54

over the documentation process.

15:56

In this strategy, the release model is approved and accepted

16:01

by an individual, which in most cases, is the team lead,

16:05

and all users see that version on open.

16:10

The best advantage of this strategy

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is that the model does not update

16:14

until the next consumption by a responsible party.

16:18

And as mentioned earlier, this strategy

16:21

would allow you to review the design prior

16:23

to it impacting your work.

16:25

So the whole idea is that you can run change visualization.

16:29

You can review all the elements that are modified, deleted,

16:33

or added before you consume the package.

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That way you've got a lot more control

16:38

over what you're consuming.

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Because if it's going to impact your work

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and it's going to cause problems for you,

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you can decide not to consume the package.

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So your work will not be affected by the new package.

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In this section, we'll look at the modeling

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best practices hosting and parametric relationships

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and maintenance, hardware, and bandwidth requirements

17:03

for better performance of Revit Cloud Worksharing environments.

17:08

Now publishing sets and models to Document Management

17:11

is a great way to share.

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But sometimes things get stuck for a variety of reasons.

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Let's now talk about some of those main reasons

17:20

and some best practices around them.

17:24

We have noticed on several projects

17:27

that large tessellated models and components

17:29

slow the translation process due to redrawing of every line.

17:34

The same is true for CAD files with complex hatch patterns.

17:39

So I normally say, a basic rule of thumb

17:41

is to avoid complexity.

17:44

Ensure your model is not overly complex,

17:46

turn off analytical settings, and limit room bounding lines

17:50

and so on.

17:51

Reduce CAD imports and links to the minimum.

17:55

This is another big problem that we

17:57

have noticed in a lot of projects with all these CAD

18:01

imports.

18:01

So try reducing CAD imports and links to a minimum.

18:06

I can guarantee you it's going to save you

18:08

several hours at the end.

18:11

And as I mentioned earlier, turn off analytical settings

18:14

when not needed.

18:16

And do not over model.

18:19

And again, I'm going to stress on this.

18:21

Please, please, please specify the LOD details

18:24

in your BIM execution plan and push back

18:27

on the request to over detail.

18:31

And finally, loading only what you're working on

18:33

is really, really important.

18:36

And that's because you can easily reduce the opening times

18:40

and improve the performance by reducing the amount of content

18:43

that you load.

18:44

Divide your model and links into work sets

18:47

and turn these off on open.

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Let's now talk about hosting and parametric relationships.

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If you have employed a live linking strategy,

18:59

then please be aware that any hosted or system elements will

19:03

need to be updated upon open.

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This means that the user that is opening the file

19:08

will borrow these elements and cause other team

19:11

members to lose the ownership.

19:13

So I would strongly recommend that when opened,

19:17

relinquish elements back to the central model

19:19

to prevent the team from tripping over each other.

19:23

And finally, it is a good practice

19:25

to sync your changes regularly to minimize the large delta

19:29

changes.

19:31

And here's a little tip for you.

19:33

Always, always, always refrain from owning systems.

19:37

Relinquish often or separate models by system

19:41

to prevent common use.

19:44

Talking about model maintenance, Revit Cloud Worksharing

19:48

differs from the server-based worksharing

19:50

because there is no more compact central command.

19:54

So on a large and complex project,

19:57

it is recommended to audit your local model when you open it

20:00

for the first time every day.

20:02

Now I know it's too much, but I can tell you

20:04

that it's going to help you in the long run.

20:07

And always remember to relinquish

20:09

all when syncing and purge often, at least once a week.

20:14

The other good practice is to keep up with warnings

20:17

because those warnings can cause major dramas in your project.

20:21

Make this as a team effort.

20:24

And here's another tip for you.

20:26

You can export all your families periodically

20:29

and check for any errors.

20:31

I have seen this so many times that the unchecked family

20:34

corruption can shut the projects down really easily.

20:39

Coming to the hardware requirements,

20:42

please be aware of the system requirements

20:44

for a hassle-free end user experience.

20:48

You will need a minimum of five gigabytes free hard disk space

20:52

on your hard drive.

20:54

And as you might already know, solid state drives are faster,

20:58

but the smaller storage size can cause issues.

21:01

So clean disks often or plan on a larger solid state drive

21:06

sizes.

21:08

The other really important thing is

21:10

to be aware of all combined model sizes

21:14

because you need to make sure that your hard disk has

21:17

at least three times free space of those combined sizes.

21:22

And talking about RAM requirements,

21:25

in Revit Cloud Worksharing environment,

21:27

a good rule of thumb is 20 times the current file size

21:32

plus the sum of all the linked files.

21:35

I would actually recommend you guys make a note of this

21:38

and stick it to your workstation.

21:39

That way you know exactly how much RAM you

21:42

would need for your projects.

21:45

Now Autodesk has also provided you some recommended Revit

21:48

system specifications.

21:50

But the key is do not aim for minimum

21:53

because add-ins and other applications use resources to.

21:57

And here's another tip for you.

21:59

Document Management reports the size

22:01

of all the models and links so you

22:04

can keep a track of what file sizes you are working with.

22:07

And that in turn will help you decide how much free space

22:11

you need on your hard disk and how much RAM you require.

22:16

Now when working with Revit Cloud Worksharing,

22:18

hardware is not the only important factor.

22:22

It is also a good connectivity.

22:25

We strongly recommend that you have an internet speed that

22:28

provides at least five Mbps symmetrical connection

22:31

for each machine.

22:33

Although, I would recommend at least 15 Mbps,

22:36

but five Mbps is minimum for each machine.

22:40

Now please, please, please note that if you

22:44

have lower than the recommended bandwidth,

22:46

the users will experience failures of operations,

22:50

such as syncing with cloud central, element

22:53

borrowing, initiating collaboration, opening

22:56

models and so on.

22:58

And remember that other team members with better connections

23:00

will still be impacted on element borrowing

23:03

if some team members are on a slower connection.

23:07

The distance to the AWS server or edge location

23:10

is also important.

23:11

I would strongly recommend to ping s3.amazonaws.com service.

23:17

And make sure that the latency is less than 100 milliseconds.

23:22

We have also noticed pretty much in every organization,

23:25

IT groups protect exposure to external content.

23:29

So make sure they whitelist all these sites

23:33

so BIM Collaborate Pro can provide you the required

23:36

service.

23:38

Make sure all the team members are on the same Revit built.

23:43

This is really, really important.

23:46

Have a regular look on the Autodesk website for hot fixes

23:50

and bug fixes.

23:52

At any point of time, if you need to upgrade your project,

23:55

make sure you leverage upgrade in the cloud.

23:59

I cannot tell you how many times we have noticed that the issues

24:02

we see in Revit Cloud Worksharing basically stem from

24:06

customers using an outdated version of Desktop Connector.

24:09

So make sure whenever possible, keep the Desktop Connector

24:12

updated.

24:17

In this section, we will look at the limits

24:19

of personal accelerator, difficulties some users face

24:22

when publishing, and have a brief overview

24:25

of leveraging design automation through Forge.

24:29

Now I'm pretty sure you already know this.

24:31

That to work in a Revit Cloud Worksharing project,

24:34

every user has to download their copy

24:36

of the project and all respective links

24:39

into their personal computer.

24:41

But the really cool thing about this technology

24:43

is that the collaboration cache and the changes

24:46

to the live models are handled through

24:49

the personal accelerator.

24:50

This service runs in the background on Windows startup.

24:55

Collaboration cache allows either 20 linked models

24:58

to be stored or five gigabytes of data per project file,

25:03

depending on whichever is exceeded first.

25:05

If these quotas are exceeded, the personal accelerator

25:09

will have to redownload any access of changes

25:13

made to the linked models.

25:14

In other words, if the 21st linked file has changes,

25:19

this will be downloaded from the cloud-based project.

25:23

This will significantly slow model opening times

25:26

and put strain on your internet.

25:29

Also, if there is a lot of activity on the project,

25:33

the personal accelerator cache will increase in size.

25:37

To minimize large data dumps at any given point of time

25:40

onto your workstation, personal accelerator

25:43

can continue to run as a service in the background

25:46

without Revit running.

25:48

Now please note that this service will be terminated

25:51

if you log out or shut down.

25:54

Therefore, if you're working on a large project,

25:57

I would strongly recommend to keep the personal accelerator

26:01

running when you are not in the office

26:03

by locking down your workstation and not logging out

26:06

or shutting down.

26:08

And here's another tip for you.

26:10

Do not delete collaboration or personal accelerator

26:15

cache for your projects you're working on,

26:17

unless you have run out of options

26:19

to resolve your problems.

26:21

Because if you delete collaboration

26:23

or personal accelerator cache, you'll

26:25

just have to end up downloading all the files all over again.

26:29

We'll cover this in detail towards the end

26:31

of this section.

26:33

And lastly, the important tip here

26:35

is to avoid force relinquish.

26:38

This can risk invalidating the other team members data.

26:42

They may lose the work they have not yet synchronized,

26:45

and they may even have to recreate their cached data

26:49

to rectify conflicts in the data.

26:52

Talking about publishing from Revit, as mentioned earlier,

26:55

publishing can fail or take a very long time to process.

26:60

This can be due to a variety of reasons, which

27:02

include corrupt or complex views within the model,

27:06

time timeouts caused by overly complex line work,

27:09

rasterization process, and so on.

27:12

So troubleshoot by performing a DWF Export of your publish set.

27:19

Limit the Raster data as much as you can,

27:22

and leverage the Depth Clipping where needed in the views.

27:27

Also, please make sure that you limit complex View Cropping.

27:33

And avoid complexity in views--

27:35

overly modeled families, highly detailed cad imports,

27:39

tessellated imported geometry.

27:41

All this will cause problems in your project.

27:45

And finally, avoid peak hours for schedule publishing.

27:50

I normally do it at 1:00 in the morning or 2:00 in the morning.

27:54

Now if all else fails, make sure you reach out to Autodesk

27:58

through a support ticket.

27:60

And the support team will try to troubleshoot your problem

28:03

at their end.

28:05

Let's now talk about design automation.

28:08

Design automation can save you and your organization time,

28:12

and provide you with insights.

28:14

Recently, the design automation API

28:17

has been made available for Revit.

28:19

And the customers are now able to create custom Revit family

28:23

content, automate model creation,

28:27

explore and analyze model data, extract and produce

28:31

automated reports, modify existing models

28:35

to maintain company standards, and automatically create

28:39

documentation.

28:40

All this why are design automation API for Revit.

28:44

And if you're interested in knowing more about this,

28:46

you can ask your designated support specialist to schedule

28:50

a Forge overview accelerator.

28:55

Let's now talk about communication,

28:57

my favorite topic.

28:59

Communication is the key.

29:02

What was true in pen and paper environment is true today.

29:05

As a matter of fact, it has more impact

29:08

now due to faster production pace and inability

29:13

to fudge content.

29:15

Make sure you have frequent calls or a shared

29:19

chat among design team.

29:21

And please do not forget to include consultants

29:25

because they could cause major drama if they do not

29:28

do the things right.

29:31

In this section, we'll look at how Revit Cloud Worksharing

29:34

restores versions, downloads published models,

29:38

and manages work-sharing conflicts.

29:42

In any workflow, it is really important

29:45

to be able to restore model to a previous version

29:47

or be able to have a record at milestones.

29:51

And this is where Document Management and Revit Cloud

29:54

Worksharing shine.

29:56

When working with Revit Cloud Worksharing,

29:59

every sync to central is saved as a new version.

30:03

And the program does give you option

30:06

to restore a previous version as the current version.

30:09

But please, please, please note that all subsequent syncs

30:15

will be lost when you make a previous version

30:17

as the current version.

30:19

And no one can restore that back.

30:23

It is also important to note that at this stage,

30:27

versions cannot be downloaded individually.

30:30

But again, as I said, at this stage.

30:34

And talking about Document Management, only published

30:38

versions on Document Management can be downloaded.

30:41

But please note, again, that they'll be downloaded and saved

30:44

as a detached model.

30:47

And coming back to force relinquish,

30:50

if you run into work-sharing and element ownership issues,

30:54

you may have to force relinquish of ownership

30:57

of elements owned by others.

30:59

But please note that this should only be

31:02

used when absolutely necessary.

31:05

And this is because the users who

31:07

still own those elements will have issues saving back

31:11

to the central.

31:12

Therefore, the entire team should be informed about it

31:16

that it will be used because this can break

31:19

links and result in data loss.

31:23

Let's now talk about some troubleshooting options.

31:27

If you think that a part of the system is down,

31:30

make sure you check it first.

31:32

It has become more and more rare, but it still happens.

31:37

Start with confirming that the machine can access internet.

31:41

The next thing that I would strongly recommend

31:43

is to subscribe to the Health Dashboard.

31:46

Because that will keep you up to date

31:48

with all the upcoming maintenance

31:50

or scheduled maintenance.

31:53

The other thing that I strongly recommend

31:54

is to prepare an outage continuity plan.

31:58

Make sure the decision matrix to filter through the options

32:01

during the downtime is clearly specified.

32:05

And if the things are down, please

32:07

feel free to create a technical support case with Autodesk.

32:11

Now if the machine can access internet

32:14

and you do not see any dramas on the Health Dashboard,

32:18

then start with checking if others can sync the file.

32:23

The next thing you can do is to attempt

32:25

opening the model with linked worksets closed

32:28

to identify if there is a problem with links.

32:32

The other thing that I recommend is to try and reproduce

32:35

the problem on another machine.

32:38

You can also open the file in audit.

32:41

Now when you are logging your case with Autodesk,

32:44

gather all journals from the previous 24 hours

32:47

on the impacted user's machine and send the journals

32:51

to Autodesk, noting the model name, version,

32:54

and detailed description in the ticket

32:56

to the support specialist.

32:59

Now how do we read the GUID information?

33:02

Journals record everything that is happening in Revit.

33:07

The journal files are located in your local app data folder.

33:11

And Autodesk has provided detailed information

33:14

on how to read journal files.

33:17

They give you the information about the project, the file,

33:20

the user GUIDs and so on.

33:24

And finally, let's talk about the resources available to you.

33:28

Autodesk has provided several useful links

33:31

that you can access.

33:33

To learn about the program, go to the idea station

33:37

and suggest your own ideas, look at the Health Dashboard.

33:40

There's a free online view that you can look at.

33:43

And also, there is a comparison matrix of Revit server

33:47

versus BIM Collaborate Pro.

33:49

Make sure you take a look at it.

33:51

And lastly, repeating about the Customer Success Hub again.

33:55

This is where you can find several courses

33:58

and learning paths, recorded coaching sessions.

34:01

And you can also request live coaching topics.

34:08

And that's all we have in this accelerator,

34:11

and for that matter, in this series of three accelerators.

34:14

I had a fantastic time recording these three accelerators.

34:19

I hope you enjoyed learning about BIM Collaborate

34:21

Pro and Revit Cloud Worksharing using these accelerators.

34:25

Please keep up the learning.

34:27

And also, please make sure that you visit the enterprise

34:30

Hub to learn about other accelerators that

34:32

are available.

34:33

I'll see you next time.

34:35

Have a good one.

34:35

Cheers.

Video transcript

00:00

[MUSIC PLAYING]

00:12

Good morning, good afternoon, good evening

00:14

wherever you guys are.

00:15

Thanks for joining me in this third accelerator

00:17

of three-part series of accelerators

00:20

where we are learning about BIM Collaborate Pro.

00:23

As mentioned in the last two accelerators,

00:25

BIM Collaborate Pro, and specifically

00:27

Revit Cloud Worksharing, have changed

00:30

the way the ace industry works and the way

00:32

we deliver BIM and digital engineering projects.

00:36

Now having said that, we need to understand

00:39

that Revit Cloud Worksharing needs to follow

00:41

certain best practices.

00:43

In this accelerator, we are going

00:45

to talk about all those best practices,

00:48

along with various troubleshooting options.

00:50

So let's get started.

00:54

Just a quick introduction about myself.

00:56

My name is Deepak Maini.

00:57

I'm the National Technical Manager at a company

00:59

called Cadgroup Australia, a qualified mechanical engineer

01:03

with over 22 years of industry experience.

01:06

I'm also an Autodesk Expert Elite, and a BIM 360

01:10

Certified Consultant.

01:12

I've been really blessed that I get to travel around the world

01:15

and do talks at various conferences.

01:17

I have won several top speaker awards as well.

01:20

I've also written a few books on programs,

01:22

such as Navisworks, Bluebean Revu, and Advance Steel.

01:26

Outside my full time job, I also do

01:29

a bit of teaching at some universities locally

01:31

within Australia and also overseas.

01:35

This is the safe harbor statement.

01:38

I'm going to leave it on the screen for a few seconds.

01:48

Before we start, a quick note about accelerators.

01:52

Autodesk Accelerators are designed to help you

01:56

and your team stay ahead of the curve with the latest

01:58

workflows.

01:59

There are several on-demand courses

02:02

and pre-recording coaching available on the Customer

02:04

Success Hub.

02:05

You can also request live coaching through that Hub.

02:09

The performance of your Revit Cloud Worksharing model

02:12

becomes critical if you want to avoid

02:15

slow openings, slow synchronization, and even

02:18

slow saving that can so often become problematic when

02:22

the Revit file size increases.

02:24

The objective of this accelerator

02:26

is to introduce you to Revit Cloud Worksharing platform,

02:29

shed light on the best practices to improve Cloud Worksharing

02:33

model performance in Revit, best practices with linking,

02:37

modeling, and maintenance, and concluding

02:40

with how to recover files and troubleshooting

02:42

if things go wrong.

02:45

In this section, we will be covering the AWS platform

02:48

that BIM 360 sits on, how Revit work shares

02:51

on the cloud, and the numerous international standards

02:54

that it complies to.

02:57

Revit Cloud Worksharing is hosted on the AWS platform

03:01

using CloudFront.

03:03

Amazon CloudFront is a fast content delivery network

03:07

service that securely delivers data, videos, applications,

03:12

and APIs to customers globally with low latency

03:16

and high transfer speeds all within a developer

03:20

friendly environment.

03:22

A really cool thing is that CloudFront

03:25

is integrated with AWS, both physical locations that

03:28

are directly connected to the AWS global infrastructure as

03:32

well as other AWS services.

03:36

Talking about security, the Revit Cloud Worksharing

03:39

platform is secured using Amazon GuardDuty, AWS Firewall, AWS

03:44

Security Hub, as well as AWS Shield.

03:48

And for speed, it leverages global edge locations

03:51

for download optimization to local collaboration cache.

03:54

Also, PAC cache or personal accelerator cache

03:59

uploads delta changes.

04:01

That's how you get the speed performance using Revit Cloud

04:04

Worksharing.

04:06

For Revit Cloud Worksharing, Autodesk

04:09

leverages Amazon CloudFront technology to cache.

04:12

CloudFront has a worldwide network

04:15

of data centers called edge locations.

04:17

Your cloud-based project data connects

04:19

to these AWS global infrastructure locations

04:22

to minimize download latencies.

04:24

This map here shows various edge locations.

04:29

Let's now talk about security and compliance.

04:32

Revit Cloud Worksharing can now be

04:34

hosted on both EU as well as US servers for data sovereignty.

04:38

Now please note that the data cannot be transferred between

04:42

EU and US servers.

04:44

You will have to set them up independently.

04:48

There's another important thing I want to mention here.

04:50

That there is no noticeable speed differences

04:53

choosing either service, even if you are geographically located

04:56

closer to one of the hubs.

04:59

Revit Cloud Worksharing platform is

05:01

complying to several national and international standards,

05:05

such as ISO, PCI, GDPR, and so on.

05:10

You can get more information about the Revit Cloud

05:12

Worksharing security by going to this website here.

05:16

Let's now try to understand the parts of the system by analogy.

05:21

Revit Cloud Worksharing on the AWS platform

05:23

is a cloud service that distributes and maintains

05:27

the parts which make up the model.

05:29

Consider that as long term storage of bricks.

05:35

Now what's personal accelerator?

05:37

It is a local service that collects

05:39

the model contents in advance.

05:42

Consider that as pre-gathering the bricks

05:45

before you need them.

05:48

And what's PAC cache?

05:50

It's a portion of the local drive

05:52

that saves the parts for use.

05:55

Consider that as the area on your local drive

05:57

where the bricks are stored for when needed.

06:02

And lastly, collaboration cache.

06:04

That's where your local and central models live.

06:07

Consider that area as the area where the assembled

06:10

bricks are located.

06:14

This is the location of personal accelerator cache.

06:18

And this is the location of collaboration cache.

06:23

Now what do all these Revit Cloud Worksharing

06:25

parts mean to you?

06:28

If you are not the user who initiated Cloud Worksharing,

06:31

when you open the model for the first time,

06:34

it'll be the slowest because there is

06:36

no local cache of that model.

06:39

It's strongly recommended to avoid clearing collaboration

06:42

cache and personal accelerator cache

06:45

because you'll just end up downloading the stuff again.

06:48

Also, it is recommended to keep the personal accelerator

06:52

running in the background.

06:54

Now we talked about live linking in the previous accelerator.

06:58

Live linking, meaning more bricks changing.

07:02

And more bricks changing, meaning slower opens.

07:06

I just also quickly want to talk about the personal accelerator

07:09

limits right now, although we are going to discuss

07:12

this in detail later on.

07:13

But the PAC limit is 20 files or five gigabytes of data,

07:19

whichever happens first.

07:22

In this section, we will look at the ways

07:25

to plan your project and best practices for folder structure.

07:30

As with any successful project, good planning

07:33

is the key to Success.

07:35

It's important for you to have a clear and precise BIM execution

07:39

plan that outlines the protocols and structure for your project,

07:43

ensuring all stakeholders are on the same page.

07:46

This is really, really important.

07:49

In the BIM execution plan, you can

07:51

outline which linking strategy to employ, whose account you're

07:55

going to be working on, roles, permissions, folder structure,

07:60

naming convention, and so on.

08:02

Now talking about accounts, it is really important for us

08:05

to understand that we should all be working on the same account

08:09

because you cannot share the data across accounts easily

08:12

yet.

08:13

You'll have to manually share the files, which

08:15

defeats the big benefits of BIM Collaborate Pro.

08:19

Now this is something I'm a massive fan

08:22

of to manage permissions using roles or companies.

08:25

That way you can avoid managing users individually.

08:29

This, again, is a critical part of the process.

08:32

Make sure you plan and organize your teams early.

08:35

And always use design collaboration teams to do this.

08:39

You'll have to make sure that all key parts of the teams

08:42

have a backup person or two, and have

08:45

the right set of permissions.

08:47

And as mentioned earlier, it is really important for you

08:50

to determine the linking strategy

08:52

and communicate it early.

08:54

Make sure it is also in your BIM execution plan.

08:57

And lastly, have a light version of your BIM execution

09:01

plan ready for any new member so that they

09:04

can get up to speed quickly.

09:06

Now talking about folder management,

09:08

a logical folder structure is really

09:11

important for a successful project execution.

09:14

To help, we have seen a lot of our customers

09:17

using a numbering system to list the folders sequentially.

09:22

Make sure that your folders have unique names

09:25

and add a team prefix or suffix to the folder name.

09:28

We have seen major issues with duplicate folder names

09:32

when linking.

09:33

As mentioned earlier, I have seen

09:35

a lot of customers using numbers to keep

09:38

their folders organized.

09:40

Personally, I'm a big fan of subfolders because they give

09:44

you more granular permissions.

09:46

And talking about the plans area,

09:49

I reckon plans area is one of the most underutilized

09:52

area of BIM 360 platform.

09:54

In the plans area, when you upload

09:57

PDFs files that have got multiple sheets in them,

10:00

those sheets are automatically extracted as individual sheets

10:04

for you to view and access.

10:06

So if you've got multipage PDF files,

10:08

consider using plans area.

10:11

And finally, add custom attributes to sort and organize

10:15

your data, such as page count, date, or description.

10:21

In this section, we will look at various ways to link models,

10:26

what questions to ask to define your strategy,

10:29

and also how this could affect performance of your project.

10:34

Now here are some questions to ask

10:36

before the start of the project.

10:38

How large is the project going to be?

10:41

We are seeing Revit projects increasing

10:43

in size year over year.

10:45

The larger the project, the slower the performance

10:48

and longer wait times.

10:50

Minimizing file size will help reduce wait times.

10:54

Also, opening times can be improved

10:56

via a worksite strategy and explicitly closing these

11:01

upon open.

11:02

That's really important.

11:03

And we'll learn about it more in detail later on as well.

11:07

The next question you go to ask is, is your project

11:10

across multiple time zones?

11:12

If you have multiple global teams working

11:14

on the same project, the load times

11:17

on caching delta changes when returning to work the next day

11:20

can put a significant strain on your corporate bandwidth.

11:24

And we have seen this with several of our customers.

11:28

And this is because when the team members opened

11:30

their respective models and download

11:32

all changes in the morning, the bandwidth saturation occurs.

11:37

In these instances, having your personal accelerator cache

11:40

running overnight and not turning off the user computer

11:44

minimizes the large cache pulls at one time.

11:47

So on those projects, I would strongly

11:49

recommend to leave your personal accelerator running, which

11:53

means that you should not be turning off your machines

11:55

or you should not be logging out.

11:57

Just lock your computer.

11:60

The next and a really important question

12:02

is, how frequent are the updates needed?

12:04

Do you really need to see the updates right now?

12:08

That's because static links reduce the burden

12:11

on the personal accelerator cache

12:13

and reduce opening times as the links are already cached

12:17

on the user's workstation.

12:20

The other really important question to ask

12:22

is, would there be multiple bidders?

12:24

And what kind of permissions and restrictions

12:27

are required for the successful completion of this project?

12:32

The next important question is, how many files are to be linked

12:36

and their file sizes?

12:39

And finally, how many people are accessing the file at one time?

12:44

Now Revit Cloud Worksharing projects

12:46

allow more users to work simultaneously

12:48

than the traditional server work-sharing projects.

12:51

However, having too many users working on one file

12:55

can cause slowness when syncing and accessing the file.

12:59

In that case, I would strongly recommend

13:01

employing the sync activity monitor that

13:04

can help coordinate times when accessing the model.

13:07

Alternatively, divide the model by teams and link accordingly.

13:12

For example, core and shell or the interior models.

13:15

Or in case of a high rise building,

13:17

separate the podium model from the tower model.

13:20

I have also seen a lot of our architectural customers

13:22

keeping the base building different from the interiors

13:25

model.

13:26

So that, again, could really help you.

13:29

Let's now talk about various linking impacts,

13:32

starting with live linking.

13:34

As mentioned previously, this method of linking

13:37

can cause higher network traffic and therefore

13:41

slower performance when accessing the model.

13:43

And this is due to pulling delta changes from the linked models

13:47

all the time.

13:48

I would strongly suggest not to use

13:50

this kind of linking strategy for a large global project.

13:55

However, if you are in a highly collaborative, fast-paced,

13:59

trusting environment, then you can use this.

14:02

For example, in case of multidisciplinary firms.

14:05

Let's now take a look at some pros and cons of this strategy.

14:09

Talking about pros, this is the most up to date way

14:13

to keep a track of changes from both internal

14:16

as well as external team members.

14:19

This strategy is also really handy

14:22

when you're in a time crunch and the weekly updates or milestone

14:25

packages are too slow.

14:28

And talking about cons, all the changes

14:30

will be visible to everyone after sync to central.

14:35

It also causes a massive strain on network

14:38

due to downloading delta changes to personal accelerator cache.

14:43

And as I mentioned earlier, I do not recommend this strategy

14:46

on large global projects.

14:49

Now talking about shared linking,

14:51

this linking method is the hybrid trust environment.

14:55

In this strategy, the model is released by a designated person

15:00

by sharing their package.

15:02

And all the users who have got the models linked

15:05

through the shared folder can see the version update on open.

15:10

The good thing about this strategy

15:12

is the model does not update until the next package is

15:15

shared by the owner.

15:17

And it reduces bandwidth, hard disk use,

15:20

and also collaborative data loss.

15:24

This strategy also minimizes potential problems

15:27

with incomplete or in-progress content.

15:30

For example, unbound rooms.

15:33

Let's now talk about the consumed linking

15:36

strategy, which is my favorite.

15:38

This type of linking is in a lower trust environment.

15:41

It's a more traditional type of linking where the receiving

15:45

party can review the incoming published model

15:48

before accepting it.

15:50

The whole idea is that you have got a greater QA and control

15:54

over the documentation process.

15:56

In this strategy, the release model is approved and accepted

16:01

by an individual, which in most cases, is the team lead,

16:05

and all users see that version on open.

16:10

The best advantage of this strategy

16:12

is that the model does not update

16:14

until the next consumption by a responsible party.

16:18

And as mentioned earlier, this strategy

16:21

would allow you to review the design prior

16:23

to it impacting your work.

16:25

So the whole idea is that you can run change visualization.

16:29

You can review all the elements that are modified, deleted,

16:33

or added before you consume the package.

16:36

That way you've got a lot more control

16:38

over what you're consuming.

16:39

Because if it's going to impact your work

16:42

and it's going to cause problems for you,

16:44

you can decide not to consume the package.

16:47

So your work will not be affected by the new package.

16:53

In this section, we'll look at the modeling

16:56

best practices hosting and parametric relationships

16:60

and maintenance, hardware, and bandwidth requirements

17:03

for better performance of Revit Cloud Worksharing environments.

17:08

Now publishing sets and models to Document Management

17:11

is a great way to share.

17:13

But sometimes things get stuck for a variety of reasons.

17:18

Let's now talk about some of those main reasons

17:20

and some best practices around them.

17:24

We have noticed on several projects

17:27

that large tessellated models and components

17:29

slow the translation process due to redrawing of every line.

17:34

The same is true for CAD files with complex hatch patterns.

17:39

So I normally say, a basic rule of thumb

17:41

is to avoid complexity.

17:44

Ensure your model is not overly complex,

17:46

turn off analytical settings, and limit room bounding lines

17:50

and so on.

17:51

Reduce CAD imports and links to the minimum.

17:55

This is another big problem that we

17:57

have noticed in a lot of projects with all these CAD

18:01

imports.

18:01

So try reducing CAD imports and links to a minimum.

18:06

I can guarantee you it's going to save you

18:08

several hours at the end.

18:11

And as I mentioned earlier, turn off analytical settings

18:14

when not needed.

18:16

And do not over model.

18:19

And again, I'm going to stress on this.

18:21

Please, please, please specify the LOD details

18:24

in your BIM execution plan and push back

18:27

on the request to over detail.

18:31

And finally, loading only what you're working on

18:33

is really, really important.

18:36

And that's because you can easily reduce the opening times

18:40

and improve the performance by reducing the amount of content

18:43

that you load.

18:44

Divide your model and links into work sets

18:47

and turn these off on open.

18:51

Let's now talk about hosting and parametric relationships.

18:55

If you have employed a live linking strategy,

18:59

then please be aware that any hosted or system elements will

19:03

need to be updated upon open.

19:05

This means that the user that is opening the file

19:08

will borrow these elements and cause other team

19:11

members to lose the ownership.

19:13

So I would strongly recommend that when opened,

19:17

relinquish elements back to the central model

19:19

to prevent the team from tripping over each other.

19:23

And finally, it is a good practice

19:25

to sync your changes regularly to minimize the large delta

19:29

changes.

19:31

And here's a little tip for you.

19:33

Always, always, always refrain from owning systems.

19:37

Relinquish often or separate models by system

19:41

to prevent common use.

19:44

Talking about model maintenance, Revit Cloud Worksharing

19:48

differs from the server-based worksharing

19:50

because there is no more compact central command.

19:54

So on a large and complex project,

19:57

it is recommended to audit your local model when you open it

20:00

for the first time every day.

20:02

Now I know it's too much, but I can tell you

20:04

that it's going to help you in the long run.

20:07

And always remember to relinquish

20:09

all when syncing and purge often, at least once a week.

20:14

The other good practice is to keep up with warnings

20:17

because those warnings can cause major dramas in your project.

20:21

Make this as a team effort.

20:24

And here's another tip for you.

20:26

You can export all your families periodically

20:29

and check for any errors.

20:31

I have seen this so many times that the unchecked family

20:34

corruption can shut the projects down really easily.

20:39

Coming to the hardware requirements,

20:42

please be aware of the system requirements

20:44

for a hassle-free end user experience.

20:48

You will need a minimum of five gigabytes free hard disk space

20:52

on your hard drive.

20:54

And as you might already know, solid state drives are faster,

20:58

but the smaller storage size can cause issues.

21:01

So clean disks often or plan on a larger solid state drive

21:06

sizes.

21:08

The other really important thing is

21:10

to be aware of all combined model sizes

21:14

because you need to make sure that your hard disk has

21:17

at least three times free space of those combined sizes.

21:22

And talking about RAM requirements,

21:25

in Revit Cloud Worksharing environment,

21:27

a good rule of thumb is 20 times the current file size

21:32

plus the sum of all the linked files.

21:35

I would actually recommend you guys make a note of this

21:38

and stick it to your workstation.

21:39

That way you know exactly how much RAM you

21:42

would need for your projects.

21:45

Now Autodesk has also provided you some recommended Revit

21:48

system specifications.

21:50

But the key is do not aim for minimum

21:53

because add-ins and other applications use resources to.

21:57

And here's another tip for you.

21:59

Document Management reports the size

22:01

of all the models and links so you

22:04

can keep a track of what file sizes you are working with.

22:07

And that in turn will help you decide how much free space

22:11

you need on your hard disk and how much RAM you require.

22:16

Now when working with Revit Cloud Worksharing,

22:18

hardware is not the only important factor.

22:22

It is also a good connectivity.

22:25

We strongly recommend that you have an internet speed that

22:28

provides at least five Mbps symmetrical connection

22:31

for each machine.

22:33

Although, I would recommend at least 15 Mbps,

22:36

but five Mbps is minimum for each machine.

22:40

Now please, please, please note that if you

22:44

have lower than the recommended bandwidth,

22:46

the users will experience failures of operations,

22:50

such as syncing with cloud central, element

22:53

borrowing, initiating collaboration, opening

22:56

models and so on.

22:58

And remember that other team members with better connections

23:00

will still be impacted on element borrowing

23:03

if some team members are on a slower connection.

23:07

The distance to the AWS server or edge location

23:10

is also important.

23:11

I would strongly recommend to ping s3.amazonaws.com service.

23:17

And make sure that the latency is less than 100 milliseconds.

23:22

We have also noticed pretty much in every organization,

23:25

IT groups protect exposure to external content.

23:29

So make sure they whitelist all these sites

23:33

so BIM Collaborate Pro can provide you the required

23:36

service.

23:38

Make sure all the team members are on the same Revit built.

23:43

This is really, really important.

23:46

Have a regular look on the Autodesk website for hot fixes

23:50

and bug fixes.

23:52

At any point of time, if you need to upgrade your project,

23:55

make sure you leverage upgrade in the cloud.

23:59

I cannot tell you how many times we have noticed that the issues

24:02

we see in Revit Cloud Worksharing basically stem from

24:06

customers using an outdated version of Desktop Connector.

24:09

So make sure whenever possible, keep the Desktop Connector

24:12

updated.

24:17

In this section, we will look at the limits

24:19

of personal accelerator, difficulties some users face

24:22

when publishing, and have a brief overview

24:25

of leveraging design automation through Forge.

24:29

Now I'm pretty sure you already know this.

24:31

That to work in a Revit Cloud Worksharing project,

24:34

every user has to download their copy

24:36

of the project and all respective links

24:39

into their personal computer.

24:41

But the really cool thing about this technology

24:43

is that the collaboration cache and the changes

24:46

to the live models are handled through

24:49

the personal accelerator.

24:50

This service runs in the background on Windows startup.

24:55

Collaboration cache allows either 20 linked models

24:58

to be stored or five gigabytes of data per project file,

25:03

depending on whichever is exceeded first.

25:05

If these quotas are exceeded, the personal accelerator

25:09

will have to redownload any access of changes

25:13

made to the linked models.

25:14

In other words, if the 21st linked file has changes,

25:19

this will be downloaded from the cloud-based project.

25:23

This will significantly slow model opening times

25:26

and put strain on your internet.

25:29

Also, if there is a lot of activity on the project,

25:33

the personal accelerator cache will increase in size.

25:37

To minimize large data dumps at any given point of time

25:40

onto your workstation, personal accelerator

25:43

can continue to run as a service in the background

25:46

without Revit running.

25:48

Now please note that this service will be terminated

25:51

if you log out or shut down.

25:54

Therefore, if you're working on a large project,

25:57

I would strongly recommend to keep the personal accelerator

26:01

running when you are not in the office

26:03

by locking down your workstation and not logging out

26:06

or shutting down.

26:08

And here's another tip for you.

26:10

Do not delete collaboration or personal accelerator

26:15

cache for your projects you're working on,

26:17

unless you have run out of options

26:19

to resolve your problems.

26:21

Because if you delete collaboration

26:23

or personal accelerator cache, you'll

26:25

just have to end up downloading all the files all over again.

26:29

We'll cover this in detail towards the end

26:31

of this section.

26:33

And lastly, the important tip here

26:35

is to avoid force relinquish.

26:38

This can risk invalidating the other team members data.

26:42

They may lose the work they have not yet synchronized,

26:45

and they may even have to recreate their cached data

26:49

to rectify conflicts in the data.

26:52

Talking about publishing from Revit, as mentioned earlier,

26:55

publishing can fail or take a very long time to process.

26:60

This can be due to a variety of reasons, which

27:02

include corrupt or complex views within the model,

27:06

time timeouts caused by overly complex line work,

27:09

rasterization process, and so on.

27:12

So troubleshoot by performing a DWF Export of your publish set.

27:19

Limit the Raster data as much as you can,

27:22

and leverage the Depth Clipping where needed in the views.

27:27

Also, please make sure that you limit complex View Cropping.

27:33

And avoid complexity in views--

27:35

overly modeled families, highly detailed cad imports,

27:39

tessellated imported geometry.

27:41

All this will cause problems in your project.

27:45

And finally, avoid peak hours for schedule publishing.

27:50

I normally do it at 1:00 in the morning or 2:00 in the morning.

27:54

Now if all else fails, make sure you reach out to Autodesk

27:58

through a support ticket.

27:60

And the support team will try to troubleshoot your problem

28:03

at their end.

28:05

Let's now talk about design automation.

28:08

Design automation can save you and your organization time,

28:12

and provide you with insights.

28:14

Recently, the design automation API

28:17

has been made available for Revit.

28:19

And the customers are now able to create custom Revit family

28:23

content, automate model creation,

28:27

explore and analyze model data, extract and produce

28:31

automated reports, modify existing models

28:35

to maintain company standards, and automatically create

28:39

documentation.

28:40

All this why are design automation API for Revit.

28:44

And if you're interested in knowing more about this,

28:46

you can ask your designated support specialist to schedule

28:50

a Forge overview accelerator.

28:55

Let's now talk about communication,

28:57

my favorite topic.

28:59

Communication is the key.

29:02

What was true in pen and paper environment is true today.

29:05

As a matter of fact, it has more impact

29:08

now due to faster production pace and inability

29:13

to fudge content.

29:15

Make sure you have frequent calls or a shared

29:19

chat among design team.

29:21

And please do not forget to include consultants

29:25

because they could cause major drama if they do not

29:28

do the things right.

29:31

In this section, we'll look at how Revit Cloud Worksharing

29:34

restores versions, downloads published models,

29:38

and manages work-sharing conflicts.

29:42

In any workflow, it is really important

29:45

to be able to restore model to a previous version

29:47

or be able to have a record at milestones.

29:51

And this is where Document Management and Revit Cloud

29:54

Worksharing shine.

29:56

When working with Revit Cloud Worksharing,

29:59

every sync to central is saved as a new version.

30:03

And the program does give you option

30:06

to restore a previous version as the current version.

30:09

But please, please, please note that all subsequent syncs

30:15

will be lost when you make a previous version

30:17

as the current version.

30:19

And no one can restore that back.

30:23

It is also important to note that at this stage,

30:27

versions cannot be downloaded individually.

30:30

But again, as I said, at this stage.

30:34

And talking about Document Management, only published

30:38

versions on Document Management can be downloaded.

30:41

But please note, again, that they'll be downloaded and saved

30:44

as a detached model.

30:47

And coming back to force relinquish,

30:50

if you run into work-sharing and element ownership issues,

30:54

you may have to force relinquish of ownership

30:57

of elements owned by others.

30:59

But please note that this should only be

31:02

used when absolutely necessary.

31:05

And this is because the users who

31:07

still own those elements will have issues saving back

31:11

to the central.

31:12

Therefore, the entire team should be informed about it

31:16

that it will be used because this can break

31:19

links and result in data loss.

31:23

Let's now talk about some troubleshooting options.

31:27

If you think that a part of the system is down,

31:30

make sure you check it first.

31:32

It has become more and more rare, but it still happens.

31:37

Start with confirming that the machine can access internet.

31:41

The next thing that I would strongly recommend

31:43

is to subscribe to the Health Dashboard.

31:46

Because that will keep you up to date

31:48

with all the upcoming maintenance

31:50

or scheduled maintenance.

31:53

The other thing that I strongly recommend

31:54

is to prepare an outage continuity plan.

31:58

Make sure the decision matrix to filter through the options

32:01

during the downtime is clearly specified.

32:05

And if the things are down, please

32:07

feel free to create a technical support case with Autodesk.

32:11

Now if the machine can access internet

32:14

and you do not see any dramas on the Health Dashboard,

32:18

then start with checking if others can sync the file.

32:23

The next thing you can do is to attempt

32:25

opening the model with linked worksets closed

32:28

to identify if there is a problem with links.

32:32

The other thing that I recommend is to try and reproduce

32:35

the problem on another machine.

32:38

You can also open the file in audit.

32:41

Now when you are logging your case with Autodesk,

32:44

gather all journals from the previous 24 hours

32:47

on the impacted user's machine and send the journals

32:51

to Autodesk, noting the model name, version,

32:54

and detailed description in the ticket

32:56

to the support specialist.

32:59

Now how do we read the GUID information?

33:02

Journals record everything that is happening in Revit.

33:07

The journal files are located in your local app data folder.

33:11

And Autodesk has provided detailed information

33:14

on how to read journal files.

33:17

They give you the information about the project, the file,

33:20

the user GUIDs and so on.

33:24

And finally, let's talk about the resources available to you.

33:28

Autodesk has provided several useful links

33:31

that you can access.

33:33

To learn about the program, go to the idea station

33:37

and suggest your own ideas, look at the Health Dashboard.

33:40

There's a free online view that you can look at.

33:43

And also, there is a comparison matrix of Revit server

33:47

versus BIM Collaborate Pro.

33:49

Make sure you take a look at it.

33:51

And lastly, repeating about the Customer Success Hub again.

33:55

This is where you can find several courses

33:58

and learning paths, recorded coaching sessions.

34:01

And you can also request live coaching topics.

34:08

And that's all we have in this accelerator,

34:11

and for that matter, in this series of three accelerators.

34:14

I had a fantastic time recording these three accelerators.

34:19

I hope you enjoyed learning about BIM Collaborate

34:21

Pro and Revit Cloud Worksharing using these accelerators.

34:25

Please keep up the learning.

34:27

And also, please make sure that you visit the enterprise

34:30

Hub to learn about other accelerators that

34:32

are available.

34:33

I'll see you next time.

34:35

Have a good one.

34:35

Cheers.

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