Teams needing an efficient way to collaborate on workshared models are choosing BIM 360 Design (formerly Collaboration for Revit) for their projects. Regardless of geography, BIM 360 Design allows multi-disciplinary project teams to collaborate in real-time. Not only does this enable teams to collaborate in real-time, it also eliminates the need for individual teams to publish and reconcile models by uploading weekly model snapshots.
Although the benefits of BIM 360 Design are undeniable, setting everything up requires more steps than some expect. Unique to BIM 360 Design is its status as both a BIM 360 service and individually licensed product. Because of this status, BIM 360 Design requires a two-part setup process.
Process Overview
This two-step process includes enabling the Design Collaboration service within the BIM 360 project, and secondly assigning a license within the Autodesk Account portal. Unlike other BIM 360 services, enabling the Design Collaboration service for a project team member does not grant access to BIM 360 Design.
Enabling Design Collaboration for a project only grants permission to use BIM 360 Design on that project. BIM 360 Design is a bring your own license product. For this reason, the project-based permission must be paired with a license managed through the Autodesk Account portal.
Both the license and project-based permissions are required for BIM 360 to work. The process to accomplish both of these tasks is outlined below.
Part 1: Enable Design Collaboration for Project
The first part of the BIM 360 setup process aligns with the setup of other BIM 360 services. Specifically, the Design Collaboration service is the project setting for BIM 360 Design. As a project setting, a BIM 360 project administrator must enable the Design Collaboration service.
To achieve this, complete the following steps as a BIM 360 project administrator:
- Visit the BIM 360 Administration Portal at https://admin.b360.autodesk.com
- Click Sign In, and then enter your Autodesk ID (typically your email address) and password.
- Choose Projects from the Account Admin menu.
- Select an existing project or create a new one.
- Choose Members from the Project Admin menu.
- Click the Design Collaboration icon to enable it for the selected user. The Design Collaboration icon changes from
to 
.
Part 2: Assign BIM 360 Design to User
BIM 360 Design is offered only as a single-user subscription. Because of this status, a second step is necessary to complete the setup process. Like assigning access to a single-user subscription to Revit, only a Contract Administrator or Software Coordinator can assign a BIM 360 Design license to users.
Contract Administrators and Software Coordinators can achieve this by completing the following steps:
- Visit the Autodesk Account portal at https://manage.autodesk.com
- Choose User Management from the menu along the left side of the portal.
- Locate the user whose account you wish to assign a BIM 360 Design license to. Click Edit Access.
- Locate BIM 360 Design from the list of Products. Check the Assign checkbox.
With both a license and Design Collaboration project permission in place, users should now be able to fully leverage everything BIM 360 Design has to offer project teams. Of course, our CADD Care team is here to help should you encounter any further issues setting up BIM 360.
Finally, are you using BIM 360 Design on your projects? Let us know about your experience in the comments below.
