We’re excited to share a major milestone in the Informed Design workflow — our first publicly discoverable content experience is launching in Revit!
With this feature:
Building product manufacturers will be able to share their published Informed Design products with the general public instantly, with literally the flip of a switch.
Revit users, like architects and engineers, can discover these public Informed Design products, customize them according to the manufacturer's pre-defined rules, and use them in Revit projects — without needing ACC access at all.
Why Public Content?
Benefits for Publishers
Up until now, as a manufacturer publishing Informed Design products, it was only possible to share them with architects, designers, and other consuming audiences in two ways:
Direct Project Folder Access: Invite each individual to the product's ACC project folder by email.
This option requires every recipient's email address.
ACC Bridge Outgoing Automation: Set up an Outgoing sync between your product's ACC project folder and each recipient's ACC project, so their project members can access your published products.
This option requires knowing each outside firm's ACC project, to create the Bridge syncing data from yours to theirs.
But what if you want to share your products with anyone who might be interested in using them – without having to know exactly who they are in advance?
With the new Public setting, manufacturers can share Informed Design products with minimal administrative effort – no manual invites, and no more ACC access requirements or folder permission checks standing in the way of their products' potential audience.
Benefits for Consumers
Previously, as an architect or designer using Informed Design in Revit, you needed both an ACC subscription and specific project folder permissions to access published products – either as a direct member of the ACC project folder or via ACC Bridge Incoming Automation.
The new Public setting for published products removes those hurdles and opens product discovery to everyone:
No ACC Access Requirement: Access public Informed Design products without being invited to an ACC project folder, and without being an ACC user at all.
Streamlined Product Browsing: Browse all publicly discoverable Informed Design products in a single list in the Revit Add-in, with options to filter by Publisher or Revit Category.
How to Access Public Content
As a Publisher
👉 Ready to make your products public? Join our tech preview: Get started here.
Publishers participating in the tech preview follow the process below to share their products publicly.
Create a Publisher:
For each manufacturer, our team is creating a new Publisher profile under their chosen brand or business name, and links that Publisher to the manufacturer's designated ACC account.
From then on, every product published to project folders in that account will be eligible for public sharing.
Publish Products with Appropriate Output Availability:
In the Informed Design Add-in for Inventor, set the output availability carefully. Output files can be requested by the Permission-Unenforced audience from any representations and drawing templates you set to Available (toggle On) on the Outputs tab.
The Permission-Unenforced audience includes recipients of ACC Bridge Outgoing Automation, and the general public when the product's Public setting is switched On.
Share Products Publicly:
Each product published in the Publisher-linked ACC account will have a Public toggle in the Informed Design Web App, located in the product administration UI on the Releases tab. When the Public toggle is switched On, the product becomes available in the Informed Design Add-in for Revit.
In the Revit Add-in, the product is listed under the manufacturer's designated Publisher name, and both the Permission-Enforced and Permission-Unenforced audiences can design with any of its usable (non-Obsolete) releases.
As a Consumer
👉 Architects and designers using the Informed Design Add-in for Revit can start browsing public content today!
New products will become available in the upcoming weeks as publishers join our tech preview and start sharing. Here's how to discover and use them.
Design with Public Products:
In the Insert dialog of the Informed Design Add-in for Revit, turn on the Public Content toggle to display all products shared publicly by manufacturers.
Public products can be refined by Revit Family Category or by Publisher using the dropdown menus.
After selecting a public product release, any designer can customize it to create variants, and insert those variants into their Revit projects as RFA – with no ACC access needed.
Request Outputs from Public Products:
Anyone accessing a public product can request files from output representations and templates the publisher marked as Available at publish time, without any ACC permission checks.
Select an instance of a public product, then activate the Generate Outputs command on the Informed Design ribbon. If the command is enabled, a dialog will let you choose from the non-RFA outputs available for the release.
Results of these output requests are uploaded to a designated folder in ACC Docs or Fusion Team – you will need access to either ACC or Fusion Team to view and download these files.
Changes to Access Permissions
👉 To simplify the administration of published Informed Design products – both privately and publicly shared! – we've altered our access permissions model to better align with authorization in the Informed Design API.
A product may be accessible to a Permission-Enforced audience only, or to the Permission-Unenforced audience as well, depending on how its access is currently scoped.
Permission-Unenforced Access
In the Permission-Unenforced access mode, we do not check the ACC project folder's member list in the origin project before granting access to the product.
ACC Bridge Access (Public = Off): the Permission-Unenforced audience includes individuals with indirect access to the product's ACC project folder, as recipients of an ACC Bridge Outgoing Automation.
Public Access (Public = On): the Permission-Unenforced audience is the general public. Anyone can access the product without logging into ACC.
The Permission-Unenforced audience can request outputs from any representations and templates that were set to Available (toggle On) for the release on the product definition's Outputs tab.
Permission-Enforced Access
In the Permission-Enforced access mode, we confirm that the user is on the ACC project folder's member list before granting access to the product.
The Permission-Enforced audience for a product includes only individuals with direct access to the product's ACC project folder, as project members with sufficient folder-level permission.
The Permission-Enforced audience can request outputs from all representations and templates that were listed for the release on the product definition's Outputs tab, including those set to Unavailable (toggle Off.)
Impact of output type availability in the product definition.
Feature Availability for Permission-Enforced Access Users
This chart lists the features available to the Permission-Enforced audience at each access level.
Each access type in the Informed Design API is listed with the minimum ACC project folder permission needed to meet its authentication criteria.
Feature Availability for Permission-Enforced Access Users
Still have questions?
Leave a comment below or visit the Informed Design Forum.
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