Autodesk continues to add great new features to BIM360

By Nick Harris 

Firstly, and very importantly

The Preview Release of Desktop Connector for BIM 360 is now available. This adds desktop connectivity to your BIM 360 workflows, connecting your Docs Project Files in the cloud to your windows computer. The Desktop Connector for BIM 360 enables the following workflows:

• See BIM 360 Docs project files and folders on your desktop computer.
• Upload, download, open and delete files in your BIM 360 project.
• Upload and create folders in your BIM 360 project.
• Edit files on your desktop – save changes in your BIM 360 project.

For more information and to download a copy of the Preview Release of Desktop Connector for BIM 360, please visit this page.

For support and help documentation, please visit this page, and please take a look at the workflow videos below if you want to see a little more.

The March 15, 2018 BIM 360 Docs web update delivers document and file management enhancements including:

• Folder download (as ZIP file) for “Project Files” folders
• File renaming and list view improvements for “Project Files” folders
• Viewer and Markup Panel enhancements
• Document-level Issue export

Download Folders and Contents

Many customers use BIM 360 Docs to distribute project files and documents to project team members.  With online access on both web and mobile, everyone on the project team can be confident that they are accessing the most recently published project information.  In this release, Autodesk has enhanced the distribution experience by adding the option to download one or more project folders (and contents) as a ZIP file.  Please note that this is available only for “Project Files” folders at this time.

File Renaming

It has also updated the layout and capabilities for files in “Project Files” folders, including the ability to Rename a file.  To rename a file, simply select the edit icon or the “Rename” option from the menu.  The action will be tracked in the Activity Log, and the version-specific file name will be displayed in the Version History.

Autodesk has updated the List View.  The first column is now “Name” (with file extension displayed) and the second column is “Description” (both Name and Description are editable).  This replaces the previous layout of 1) Document Name and 2) File Name.

Viewing Experience and Markup Panel Improvements

The updated mark-up panel now provides an experience consistent with the Issues panel, including the ability to filter and sort.  This is especially useful when your drawing or model has a large number of mark-ups and you need to sort or to filter down to only those mark-ups created by a particular project team member.

The menu option for designating whether a mark-up is PRIVATE (default setting) or PUBLISHED has moved in the viewer panel.  Before, you could find this option in the “three dot” menu in the upper right corner.  Now you just need to click on the “PRIVATE” text or icon in the panel  and the menu will appear, allowing you to change the mark-up to “PUBLISHED.”  The “Edit” and “Delete / Archive” options remain under the three-dot menu.

The viewing and navigation experience has also been improved.  Now you can display a callout (or manually created) hyperlink preview by hovering over the link.  You can also navigate directly with one click, instead of the previous experience that required two clicks (one to display the thumbnail, and one navigate to the document).  The thumbnail design has been improved as well.

Document-Level Issue Export

In addition to the previously-available project-level Issue List export, Autodesk has added a document-level option.  To export the issues specifically related to a document, select the “Export” option in the Issues panel.  Please note that this will export only those issues that are displayed in the panel (based on filter settings).  Since the default setting “hides” closed issues, you will need to modify the filter settings to include closed issues in your export.