Autodesk’s BIM 360 Design Collaboration Gets an Update

BIM 360, launched in 2015, has been an ever-evolving cloud-based document and project management platform. BIM 360 was designed to connect all project stakeholders and allow users to access and work with project data from anywhere—the office, a job site or remotely. In continuing the evolution of the platform, Autodesk recently announced updates to the BIM 360 Design Collaboration module.

Construction project workflows continue to evolve as well. The use of building information models (BIMs) is becoming more and more common. Statistica states that construction professionals using BIM rose from 13 percent in 2011 to 73 percent in 2020. Internal and external project teams are commonly becoming more dispersed, making project collaboration a critical component of the project life cycle. The BIM 360 Design Collaboration updates aim to improve the collaboration workflow throughout all phases of a project.

A main point of focus in this update is the user experience during project setup. New project template functionality is now available for both the Autodesk Construction Cloud and BIM 360 platforms. Autodesk states that the semiautomated setup process provided by the improved templates can reduce the project configuration process by more than 95 percent.

When Design Collaboration is activated, templates can specify company standards and requirements such as folder structure, roles and permissions when setting up new projects. This helps to ensure that everyone involved in a project understands workflows and expectations.

The new templates in the Autodesk Construction Cloud (ACC) Design Collaboration and BIM 360 environments within Design Collaboration allow users to specify the location of a project’s shared folder . They also enable users to select and add teams by name and also set team folder, color, content folder selection and permissions by role or company. DWG file support can be toggled on and off as well.

The Team Setup page in the Template Settings Window. (Image courtesy of Autodesk.)

The JavaScript Object Notation (JSON) file format, a standard text-based format for representing structured data based on JavaScript object syntax commonly used for transmitting data in web applications, allows additional configuration options within BIM 360. JSON files can be exported from an existing BIM 360 project and can be used as a template when creating a new project with the same structure and settings.

In BIM 360, Design Collaboration also allows for scheduled publishing with custom Revit Cloud work-sharing user entitlement. Model coordination configuration also includes coordination spaces on both team and shared folders. Document management and project configurations within BIM 360 include:

Docs folder structure with permission settings by company, role and user
Assignment of a role or company to a user

With more and more projects requiring BIMs, firms of all types are continuing to adopt the BIM process. Ensuring that project standards and workflows are followed correctly throughout the project life cycle can be challenging. Each project is unique and presents its own set of challenges. With multiple teams from numerous firms involved in a project, often in different locations, standardizing projects and collaboration methods while building on past project successes can help projects conclude successfully, on time and on budget.