Introducing a new A360 !

[rahul.bhandarkar]

Hi,

Today we will be introducing a new A360 to all our customers. You will notice a banner inviting you to try out the new experience, check it out and let us know what you think .

http://blog.a360.autodesk.com/youre-invited-new-a360/

Thanks.

[Chad-Smith]

Aesthetically I think this is a great improvement, but functionally it's pretty bad.

1. My project files are now broken. When I select a comment in the 3D Viewer it no longer orientates the model to view the element being commented on. In fact, the whole model is out of view.
2. I have a project file which can no longer open.
3. In the 3D Viewer, where are the comment leader lines? They were great for quickly identifying the elements without having to select the comment first.
4. The comment Reply needs to be aligned with the text of the comment being replied to. Otherwise it looks like a new comment.
5. Can we no longer comment on an element/point anymore?
6. Where did the model element search go?
7. In the breadcrumb path (top-left) I'd like to be able to select the file name to go back to the Overview.
8. The Activity feed is almost useless now. You used to be able to reply directly in the feed which was nice and fast. Now you have to open the file to do so. There was no need to open the file again just to reply, if you already knew what is in the file. Opening the file is a redundant step.
9. The old Wiki Page should open in a View mode first, rather than an Edit mode.

Honestly, I'm once again confused as to the direction which A360 is heading. It seems to have been pulled back in simple social functionality to become a simple file storage and viewer. It's lost a number of it's core collaboration features.

It is feeling more like MS SharePoint in OneDrive for Business, which I don't know if this is a good thing.

I'm hoping the near future improvements which are coming will help in answering the direction it is taking.

[ilai_rotbaein]

Hi Chad,

You are correct, there is a small number of features that were enabled in the previous version of A360 and are not present in the new A360 (yet..). For a list of the features that are making their way into the new A360 soon, please check out our FAQs. As you can see, the commenting functionality you've pointed out is in progress and will soon be added to the new A360 as well.

The reason we've made the change to A360 is because we found that the focus of many of the A360 users is mostly around their data and since collaboration is a big piece of the A360 value, we wanted to make that collaboration experience more centric around that data to make it more intuitive and easy to adopt. We are planning on adding a few more additions to this new A360 that will make the collaboration and design management experience even more easy and productive than it was before so stay tuned for updates. I also recommend checking out some of the new features added in this new A360 like the 'Live Review' function and the design overview screen.

In this blog post here you can find more details on these new changes in A360 and the story behind them. I'll be happy to hear your thoughts and see whether there are additional things we can improve as we go forward to make A360 even better.

Thanks,

Ilai Rotbaein

A360 team

[Chad-Smith]

Thanks for the follow up reply.

A few more comments:

1. The new design is certainly quicker to brower around.
2. One very small thing I did notice today was the file version number is ambiguous. For example the version button might say V. 2
   The problem I have with it is that is looks like it reads as version 0.2
3. And associated with file versions is the download process. There needs to be some visual clarification of which version file you are downloading.
4. On the file Overview page I am missing the Upload New Version, Rename, and Delete actions.

I'm still finding more and more files whose model views are no longer working.

[Anonymous]

Hello,

I am wondering whatever happened to the commenting with automatic orientation and markup function? It was the single best function of A360 and I can't seem to find it anymore. Where is it hidden? 🙂

[Bud_Schroeder_ADESK]

Hi Mark,

Thanks for sharing the feedback.  Are you talking about the pointed comments?  If so, this is covered in the A360 FAQ. Be sure to check it out, there is a lot of great information in the FAQ that will help answer questions.

In Progress "longer term deliverable":

• Branching & Merging
• Improved Office Files Viewer
• Markup & Measure
• Upload Content from other cloud storages
• Active Directory Integration
• 2 Factor Authorization
• Point & Object Comments (Line Leaders)
• Discussion
• Deep Search (Search within design data)

Hope this helps asnwer your question and thanks for posting to the A360 Feedback Forum.

[Bud_Schroeder_ADESK]

Hi Chad,

Thanks for the updates and please let us know in a new thread any specific issues around viewing files. Also if you switch back to the old UI, do you see the same issue, or is it only in the new A360 UI?

Thanks for all the great feedback.

[Chad-Smith]

I found out my issue with some models not working.
There must have been an underlying change to the service between the old and new which my browser privacy extension was stopping. I had to enable these new cookies.

[Bud_Schroeder_ADESK]

Thanks Chad for the update.

[aaronwagner]

Bud and Team,

Appreciate the work on the new format.

However, it's not ready for market. The "not a feature (yet)" argument is getting really old for people I try to market this to and they're looking at me like I can't be trusted. People can't afford to buy "not yet"... it might be helpful if you label this as "beta" and not "new version." Many of the missing features are real deal breakers.

[Chad-Smith]

I also can't find the Upload > Composite, so that I can upload a project of multiple Revit files.

I thought it might have been superceded by the Upload > Assembly, but that doesn't seem to work with Revit files.

[BrettWright]

Hi Chad,

From the new UI , the Upload Assembly IS supposed to be the Composite upload option which should open a dialogue and allow you to pick the parent file like prior.

If that isn't happening on your end can you send a few screenshots of what you're seeing as well try the below?

1. You said models, can you try one different model and it's referenced files to see if that makes a differenct in the upload operation? (assuming you etransmit first, yes?)

2. is it happening to all your models, or just one inparticular?

Please let me know if you see different results from a different file .

[Chad-Smith]

I just tried a different project and it's reference files, and they didn't work either.

I am simply uploading the files as an Assembly, without doing anything in Revit first. I believe this is how it was working using the older Composite feature.

[BrettWright]

Hi Chad, can you possibly share the files with me so that i can try on my end please?

share with me directly at first.last@autodesk.com (using brett.wright for first.last)

[Chad-Smith]

Done.

[BrettWright]

Hi Chad,

I completed uploading those 4 files into the old A360 (composite) and the new A360 (assembly).

They both uploaded and i'm able to view them fine it appears.

here were my steps using Chrome.

Old A360

Downloaded them all into the same folder from you, went into a360, selected upload into a project folder, picked composite and then identified the correct parent file.

New A360

Same process but when uploading, selected Assembly, see screencast .

Wondering if there is a difference between what you and i are doing perhaps?

Please let me know, as this seems a bit odd.

[Chad-Smith]

Hi Brett,

Just looking at the recording it looks as though it hasn't worked on both accounts.
You'll notice in the Model Browser that there are no Structural Framing/Foundation elements or MEP elements that should have come through from their respective files. Also there is no site shown which should be there since you also selected the Site file too.

[BrettWright]

Hi Chad, sorry i missed that in the first place, I assumed all was good since there was so much information showing up.

Stay tuned, i've sent to the dev team to test.

[aaronwagner]

Hey all -  I just wanted to say the new tutorial feature is a cool idea!

[aaronwagner]

One suggestion here: "Assembly" is already an industry-standard term. Re-using the term here may cause confusion. Not as severe as Revit /= "BIM" but still an awkward label. What was wrong with "Composite?"