Your ideal: How do you want to share progress and ultimately make decisions?

[kat.ingalls]

In an ideal world, how would you prefer to communicate - to share updates and progress - with your team?

And then (again, think big: your ideal) how would you want to work with your team to (a) make and (b) communicate decisions?

Some ideas to get us started:

• via email or a chat tool?
• Face-to-face? (If so, how do you track this to make sure it doesn't fall through the cracks? Communicate decisions out?)
• WIthin your design tool?
• Take pictures of whiteboard sessions, have a "activity center" type feed in your design tool?
• ...something else entirely?

[rishivadher]

Hi

In ideal conditions I would like not having to pay for “saves as” our “open as” would like to access any kind of data anywhere, something like the sunglass project our the Autodesk Beta Mocup360.

Have also some kind of information on history based and the volume, mass and the kind of material with a supplier, have some kind of report export like the reports on the stress and other dynamic motion to better explain the client, supplier, team members, to work globally with all.

All this on private our Autodesk servers. Have control of others platform like “teamviewer”

And of course all those items that you refer above that you refered.

[tdtwohy]

Seeing as I create for models and designs for clients,

I can't think of a reason why my clients would need to work on the designs in the program they are made in... I mean, they generally don't know the software and them being able to mess with the design is a MINUS.

I usually use some method of simply displaying the model and text or talk on the phone about it.

Now, if they could JUST view the model on 360 (like for free using a simple entry password I create) while I made changes in real time with tools available to me (not the client)... that would be QUITE useful.

Colaboration based modelling is good for complex projects with many hands involved (like small comanies, workgroups etc.), sure, but it does NOTHING for the more typical clients who don't have and don't care about learning the tools required to create a product themselves. 

[Oceanconcepts]

I'll assume a Vulcan mind-meld is off the table for now. Failing that, I'd like the ability to: 

1) Send, or preferably share, a file version that our client could view, rotate, pan, zoom, and in which I could embed animations where appropriate, to illustrate how components interact. Bonus points if I could include particular views, components, or details in the same project document/ file. 

2) The ability to tag portions of the design (similar to tagging photos) with embedded messages that would appear in a distinct field apart from the drawing (not obscuring anything) and that would allow for additional text input from the client, or for ongoing conversations.  These conversations or notes could be shown and hidden at will.  

3) The ability to append lists to this document to call out outstanding issues, schedules, etc.  Kept free form and not restrictive, so each user could develop a strategy that works for them.  I'm thinking a kind of central white board for a project.  

4) The ability to send an email when this file is updated or changed, but only if I decide to, i.e. not auto updating with trivial changes, but me (or our clients) deciding when a change warrants notifications being sent. 

In short, to have a central place for notes, conversations, illustrations, and updates, linked to the web and email system we are all using already. 

I would envision this document as distinct from the actual design file, but linked to it.  It would be great if this could be accessed via web browser by giving out a time limited url and a password, similar to the way other cloud based sharing works (as in Apple's iTools .mac, Mobile Me, iCloud). 

In my case, I'm the only one actually working on the CAD file, but I take lots of input from others- including accepting other CAD files.   So a really robust and broadly accepting import (and export) function is a core requirement for collaboration.  Team collaboration, in the sense of others working in Fusion on parts of the design, is a non-issue for me- and I suspect a large percentage of potential Fusion users.

Ron

[kat.ingalls]

Thanks Rishi, Tom and Ron. Fantastic feedback. It sounds like all three of you work more individually, and not in the context of a team - is that right? It sounds like viewing capabilities for clients trump active design collaboration utilities in your case. 

There's some great tools in development for this type of "view-only" type of content sharing... Stay tuned! 🙂 Thanks for weighing in!

[rishivadher]

Hi , in my case is a yes.

And I think more than the importance of viewer of the kind of file type, because when sending some kind of CAD data to other down-stream our upstream the model has to be water-tight. And these because the Large majority  industry of product development and manufacturing is “PME-small and median company’s”, and there is no one and one kind of CAD system for all, there several CAD, CAM, CAE, etc, with their own system. So the importance of a nice file to send is of importance o production, and I don’t mean STL, our OBJ, because those are END file type.

Let’s see the new surprises ::-)

[kat.ingalls]

It looks like you may already know what's in the works! Are you in the Beta for Mockup? What do you think?

[rishivadher]

it's nice but, lets see what in future the colaborations tolls will look like. As beta agreement the discussion should be on those forum 😉

[Oceanconcepts]

In my case I do work as part of a "team"- loosely defined, but I'm the one who takes the lead in CAD and physical designs and I'm responsible for about 50% of the UI design.  Others handle other aspects of the project- software development, electronics design, manufacturing process, engineering evaluation, etc. They provide feedback to me and I to them.  The reality is that I don't work individually and there is quite a lot of iterative, organic collaboration, but it's taking place across disciplines that don't use the same tools or necessarily even speak the same design language- personally I think this makes for a better, more unified overall design.

But I think you mean that I work individually in the sense that I'm not, say, designing the knobs and someone else the case, and in that sense yes, I'm on my own. 

Ron

[kat.ingalls]

Good call, Rishi! Just testing you? 😉

And Ron, thanks for the clarification. Biggest challenge is collaborating between different disciplines, then? And agreed on multidisciplinary design processes being better! I'm a firm believer that big innovations come from conflict and working through different mindsets to reach a unique perspective on a problem.