Community
AutoCAD MEP Forum
Welcome to Autodesk’s AutoCAD MEP Forums. Share your knowledge, ask questions, and explore popular AutoCAD MEP topics.
cancel
Showing results for 
Show  only  | Search instead for 
Did you mean: 

AutoCAD MEP and Mobile workflows

3 REPLIES 3
Reply
Message 1 of 4
bagchis
1882 Views, 3 Replies

AutoCAD MEP and Mobile workflows

Are there AutoCAD MEP users out here looking to share drawings with stakeholders or people out there in the field working with Mobile devices. The AutoCAD MEP team is interested in hearing more about these type of field collaboration workflows, what type of challenges you currently face and how we could make this experience better for you. Also think of collaboration workflows you would normally do with traditional pen & paper, photos, markups etc today, but feel we can make more effective by leveraging the advantages of mobile devices such as anytime, anywhere access to the latest data. 

 

We would appreciate your feedback in this area, please feel free to send your comments directly to me via email at shibai.bagchi@autodesk.com or by replying to this thread below. We look forward to hearing from you.

 

Shibai Bagchi

Product Manager, Autodesk

3 REPLIES 3
Message 2 of 4
smbrennan
in reply to: bagchis

Shibai,

 

Before I begin, I just want to say that I work for an electrical contractor with 400+ employees that primarily works in Chicagoland.

 

While we are not currently using mobile devices, we are starting to look in that direction. Everywhere from the estimator all the way to the electrician could have a great use for mobile devices. In my opinion, without any experience using mobile devices in such a manner, PDFs with the ability to markup would be best for us. Estimators, Electricians, Project Managers, and CAD Designers could all utilize a mobile device to take notes more effeciently, especially between our electricians and anyone not on the job-site.

 

That leads me to an area of concern, again without having any experience actually trying it, is file storage. I know Autodesk has their 360 Cloud that allows 25GB for every user. But, what if we want to stay within our corporate environment, how can we utilize the concept of the cloud while still using our own file server?

 

I also recently (last week) discovered the app BlueStreak for the Autodesk Labs, which sounds like a great idea. But again, is there a way to incorporate this into an existing network, such as Microsoft Exchange? I haven't had a chance to really play with it, nor have I been able to get anyone else at work to install it. However, if I can create "chat rooms" for each job and invite other users in, then communicate with them in a live-format, and have that dialogue automatically saved to a storage location so I can always recall what someone said 2 months ago when a job first started up ... I could see a great potential for that as people start using mobile devices more.

 

Thanks,

Shawn

Shawn B.

  ||    
To help improve Autodesk Products, please Click Here to Vote for ideas and submit your own.
Message 3 of 4
bagchis
in reply to: smbrennan

Shawn,

 

Thanks for the feedback. When you get a chance please check out the following 2 videos on Design Feed, its a new collaboration Desktop/Mobile feature we introduced in the recent 2014 release.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dw53FfI6jXM

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PXFEE6Vyz8E

 

It enables you to have a discussion feed going inside a drawing, and multiple people can collaborate from both desktop and mobile devices. Let me know if this was something you had in mind, curious to hear your thoughts. You can send me an email directly, I will happy to discuss more offline.

 

Shibai

Message 4 of 4
dtiemeyer
in reply to: bagchis

We are a MEP design firm, and historically the 'free viewers' from Autodesk did not display ABS/AMEP content correctly. With 2014 that seems to be fixed, which was step one. I can see instances where we would use it to verify field conditions (from 'existing' CAD drawings we have), and add handwritten notes/corrections. But I must reiterate what the other commentor said, that having these things live outisde our corporte network makes for a HUGE pain in the rear as far as versioning control goes. If Autodesk would just work with the assumption that we can access our corporate file structure through VPN or something and just allow that 'design feed' tool to create some type of 'redmarks' file with the same filename as the original DWG in either the same directory or a subdirectory, that's all we need. Keep it simple, make it work.  Until you integrate with our corporate 'live' file structure, it's easier to just print PDF's of the existing CAD drawings and mark them up in Bluebeam.

 

Just my 2c.

 

My other CAD is a Cadillac and I like to Revit to the Max!

Can't find what you're looking for? Ask the community or share your knowledge.

Post to forums  

Autodesk Design & Make Report

”Boost