We recently announced new cloud offerings for our AEC customers, including an exciting upgrade to BIM 360 Design, our flagship collaboration offering for AEC teams. If you are an existing subscriber of the AEC Collection or BIM 360, this post is for you.
We’ll break it down in simple terms in this post. We won’t cover all scenarios but if you need help, please contact our Support team, your Autodesk Reseller, or post in our forums.
What are the new offerings?
On February 9, 2021, Autodesk announced the availability of three new cloud offerings for our AEC customers: BIM Collaborate, BIM Collaborate Pro, and the inclusion of Autodesk Docs in the AEC Collection. These three offerings provide increasing levels of functionality and support for our AEC customers on the path to digital transformation.
- The first offering is a rebranding and upgrading of BIM 360 Design to “Autodesk BIM Collaborate Pro“. This rebrand reflects two important additions to the offering at no additional cost:
-
- Access to new modules – Model Coordination and Insight* – now included in the offering. You may use these on new projects or existing ones in BIM 360.
- Access to the new Autodesk Construction Cloud platform, as well as continued access to the BIM 360 platform. (These are two separate platforms, project data in one is not connected to another)
2. “Autodesk BIM Collaborate”, our newest offering for AEC teams, was created with project reviewers in mind. You told us that not all team members need co-editing access in Revit, Civil 3D, and Plant 3D. So we included the powerful modules — Design Collaboration, Model Coordination, and Insight* — to allow you to review and comment on designs, visualize changes in context, and manage issues to ensure resolution. Everything that’s available with BIM Collaborate Pro is included in BIM Collaborate, except the design co-authoring services (i.e. Revit Cloud Worksharing, Collaboration for Civil 3D, and Collaboration for Plant 3D).
3. And finally, the inclusion of Autodesk Docs in the AEC Collection makes it easier for collection subscribers to store unlimited data and manage projects centrally in Autodesk Docs, a cloud-based common data environment. This update makes it simpler for teams to work from a single repository from the start of a project through to construction, resulting in more integrated workflows and connected data across teams, disciplines, and deliverables.
> Check out this comparison chart to understand how BIM Collaborate and BIM Collaborate Pro differ.
What changes for me if I’m already working in BIM 360?
Here’s the best part of this update: Nothing is changing in your BIM 360 projects. This means you can continue business as usual in ongoing BIM 360 projects. You can continue using the BIM 360 platform and workflows you know and love, while also gaining access to new capabilities and connections.
> If you were a BIM 360 Design user, check out these new capabilities you can leverage with the Model Coordination & Insight* modules:
- In Model Coordination, you can run automated clash detection to better understand and assess constructability of your ongoing designs. Yes, you can run this on live projects in BIM 360! We know this will be a huge plus to design teams and help minimize errors in the design.
- In the Insight* module, you can view advanced project analytics and a summary of all design issues in your projects. Over time, as your team regularly uses the issues feature to track and close on edit requests, your team’s managers and lead designers will have a better overview of any open action items. (Please note: round-trip design issues are coming soon to the new Autodesk Construction Cloud platform)
Here’s how we recommend you set up access:
- First things first: Your contract manager will need to give the rest of your team access to the new modules and platform. To do this, they’ll need to navigate to the new offering name “BIM Collaborate Pro” in Autodesk Account and click the “Access Now” button. See FAQ, where it’s covered in further detail. Doing this will result in the creation of their new Autodesk Construction Cloud account, where they can set up your team, new projects, and test out the capabilities of the new platform.
- Don’t forget: To use the Model Coordination and Insight modules on ongoing projects, your contract admin will need turn on and assign it to your team from BIM 360 Account Admin.
> If you are a BIM 360 Docs user and do not have BIM Collaborate Pro (formerly BIM 360 Design), please continue ongoing work in your projects as before.
> If you have both, BIM 360 Docs as well as licenses of Autodesk Docs in the AEC Collection, see “What happens if I have Autodesk Docs in the AEC Collection”.
What’s the difference between the two platforms?
Our product teams have worked hard to build a smarter, more connected experience for the entire project lifecycle in the new Autodesk Construction Cloud platform.
- Over time, we will add support for Europe datacenter and centralized issue management that round-trips into desktop tools. Until then, we recommend you continue to leverage BIM 360 if these are important to you.
- We recommend keeping ongoing commercial BIM 360 projects as they are for now. If you move an ongoing BIM 360 project to the new Autodesk Construction Cloud platform, you may lose access to specific features for the time being, like round-trip issues to Revit and Navisworks. We underscore “for the time being” because these will be added to the new platform over time.
- If you have a current BIM 360 project that is set up on Europe datacenter, you will be able to access the new Model Coordination and Insight* modules in the BIM 360 platform only.
What happens now that I have Autodesk Docs in the AEC Collection?
All AEC Collection subscribers will receive Autodesk Docs licenses on a 1:1 basis. This means one Autodesk Docs license for each collection license, whether on a single or multi-user subscription. Single user subscribers should already be seeing the Autodesk Docs entitlement in Autodesk Account, listed along with the other products in the collection. If your team was on a multi-user subscription, the entitlement(s) will be added to your account between February 15 and April 30, 2021.
Some of our customers may have subscriptions to both, AEC Collection as well as BIM 360 Docs. We’ve covered this scenario in our FAQ, but as a recap, here’s an example for how seats will be allocated in this case.
A customer has 10 subscriptions of the AEC Collection and 5 subscriptions of BIM 360 Docs. Once Autodesk Docs entitlements have been added to their account, they will be:
– automatically allocated 10 subscriptions of Autodesk Docs,
– and maintain access to their 5 BIM 360 Docs subscriptions.
This brings the total number of BIM 360 licenses in their account to 15.
However, since these 5 BIM 360 licenses do not include access to the new Autodesk Construction Cloud (ACC) platform, they will only see 10 licenses available for use on ACC projects inside the ACC platform.
>> Don’t forget to bookmark our FAQ and share with your teams.
TL;DR Can you recap this for me?
In summary, here are the most important takeaways for you and your business:
- The new functionalities and access have been added at no additional cost.
- You can continue using BIM 360 on your current projects. Moving forward, you can start new projects on either, the Autodesk Construction Cloud platform or BIM 360.
- The BIM 360 platform and new Autodesk Construction Cloud platform are two separate platforms, project data on one is not connected to another. We recommend you continue ongoing projects in BIM 360.
- Your contract manager will need to enable access to the new modules and platform.
- For AEC Collection subscribers: Look out for an automatically generated email from Autodesk once Autodesk Docs has been added to your contract(s). Once your Contract Manager has given you access to the new platform, you and your team can centralize project information in one location and access from anywhere. Learn more about Autodesk Docs here.
- For BIM 360 Design subscribers: You should have seen your subscription update to the new name “BIM Collaborate Pro”. Once your contract manager has given you access to the new platform, you’ll be able to use the new modules in both BIM 360 and Autodesk Construction Cloud. Once access is enabled, you can run automated clash detection in the Model Coordination module to assess the constructability of your designs and view advanced project analytics in the Insight* module. Learn more about BIM Collaborate Pro here.
- For team members collaborating in Revit, Civil 3D, AutoCAD Plant 3D, and Desktop Connector: You may see new logos in the product interface depending on the installed desktop version. Both BIM 360 and Autodesk Construction Cloud projects will be available under the updated in-product logo.
From the team at Autodesk,
Happy exploring!
Contributions by Esther Dsouza, Chris Aquino, Amie Vaccaro, Sonia Sachdev, and Brey Tucker.
Please bookmark our FAQs:
- FAQ for Autodesk Docs in the AEC Collection
- FAQ for the BIM Collaborate & BIM Collaborate Pro offerings
- Resources for all 3 offerings
*Insight refers to the project analytics module on BIM 360 and Autodesk Construction Cloud platform.
