View Revit model but not Sync - permission level

[dtiemeyer]

Hello,

Is there a permission level in BIM360 that will allow a user to open a Revit model in Design Collaboration, but not sync?  in effect, 'view only' mode?

[gareth.spencer1]

Hi @dtiemeyer ,

When you say view a Revit model in Design Collaboration do you mean open the Revit model locally on their machine or within Design Collaboration?

Below are the permission levels which can be assigned to individual members, roles and companies.

[dtiemeyer]

Hi Gareth, thank you for the response. My terminology might not be exactly correct, I'll try to explain it more clearly.

We have a Revit model saved in the Autodesk cloud (I believe the cloud hosting is called 'BIM Collaborate').

I would like for certain users to be able to open the model in revit on their local machine, and view/measure/print, but not SYNC.  There seems to be only 2 levels of permission in the 'Roles' tab of BIM Collaborate, the 'little blue man' symbol which means the user cannot even get to the file through Revit and 'the yellow gear' symbol which means full edit ability. 

When I attempt to use 'Revit Viewer Mode' it throws the following warning at me 3x, but then it opens the model and does what I'm looking for. Just wish there was a 'right' way to do this without user getting these warnings.

 This warning also suggests 'editing a detached copy' which is a ridiculously overly-complicated endeavor with cloud hosted Revit models compared to central models hosted on-prem.

If you have any other suggestions, I'm open to investigating. Thanks again!

[RSomppi]

Couldn't you use the published model for this?

[dtiemeyer]

Hi Rsomppi,

Since we work for many different architects, many still use 'live linking' not publishing so that will not always work for us. Thank you for the response.

[RSomppi]

Live linking, publishing and viewing read only are separate subjects. Right tool for the job, so to speak.

[dtiemeyer]

Then why did you suggest using a published model when I inquired about viewing read only? Please elaborate on how to perform your suggestion, perhaps I am mis-understanding it.  Thank you.

[RSomppi]

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@dtiemeyer wrote:

Then why did you suggest using a published model when I inquired about viewing read only?

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Couldn't they view the published model through BIM 360 without being able to make changes?

[dtiemeyer]

In my OP I stated my desire was for "view/measure/print, but not SYNC."  I believe measure and print are not available in the the BIM360 model viewer. 

[gareth.spencer1 · Accepted solution]

Hi @dtiemeyer ,

The problem I see there is the models you are trying to view have been workshared so multiple users can edit at the same time. Now because they are set to worksharing unless the other users have a license of BIM Collaborate Pro they are going to have the error message every time they try and open the models. 

You can set levels of permissions on the folder which the files are saved into. The members permissions is either Member or Project Admin.

I would questions why do you need people to open the model locally in Revit? In Autodesk Docs & BIM 360 Docs you can view, measure, and print directly from the web browser. So there is no need for Revit locally a license of Docs is cheaper than a license of Revit. Plus you can show someone how to do the basic stuff in an hour or so, but with Revit it could take a lot longer. 

Now to get around this you will need to save a detached model into a separate folder for others to open locally in Revit if that is the way you wish to go. 

[dtiemeyer]

Hi Gareth, thanks again for your response. There are a few reasons for this desired workflow:

1) 95%+ of the time, we do not configure the BIM Collaborate site, and regularly Docs is not part of the process configured by the architects. The entire thing is being used like a glorified WAN to work on live-linked Revit models and nothing more, and it's out of my hands to empower other features.

2) Our engineers like to open the architectural model while they are designing systems. The linked arch model is sometimes missing things (detail lines, annotations, etc.) when linked into MEP model.

I understand and appreciate the benefits you list of 'view/measure' within the Docs environment. Thank you for all the feedback!

[RSomppi]

You're welcome.