Integrated BIM tools, including Revit, AutoCAD, and Civil 3D
Professional CAD/CAM tools built on Inventor and AutoCAD
Any referenced datasets can be downloaded from "Module downloads" in the module overview.
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.
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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?
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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.
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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