Cloud Worksharing Option Without LAN Server

[mluther12]

Hi All,

My apologies if I am misunderstanding how cloud worksharing works - that's why I'm here!

My office (4 Revit users) is currently using Dropbox to store our models. As many of you may know, Dropbox doesn't allow us to truly work on a model simultaneously. We have to create detached local copies and sync them to the central model. This creates issues for us, especially when rendering using Enscape (applied materials cannot be loaded when another user opens the model). 

Setting up a LAN server is cost-prohibitive for us. I'm wondering if anyone has any advice on how we can go about worksharing without having to get one installed?

Thanks!

Matt

[Yien_Chao · Accepted solution]

if a LAN server is too pricey.. i dont see any other solution than bim360 or ACC with Design Collaboration.

So you will be able to work and sync on cloud. you will need as many licence as users.

https://www.autodesk.ca/en/products/bim-collaborate/overview?term=1-YEAR&tab=subscription

[mluther12]

Thanks for the response! With BIM Collaborate Pro, do you know if the central model will use the same file path no matter which user opens it? That's the issue we're running into with Dropbox. We can't store Enscape materials in a common model because the file paths are still unique to each user (i.e. C:\Users\User1\Dropbox...).

[Yien_Chao · Accepted solution]

yes it will.

[mluther12]

Thanks, I'll give the trial a try!

[Lance.Coffey]

For Revit Render Appearances, you could still run into issues with pathing, but should be able to address this using the Additional Render Appearance path feature.

For more info on this, see the article: Sharing material appearances with other Revit users

[mluther12]

Thanks for the tip! Could this work using our current Dropbox setup?

[Yien_Chao]

just dont use dropbox for that. you will have more issues than benefits.

[Lance.Coffey]

@mluther12 Yes, the Additional Render Appearance path feature is setup to allow render appearances to be found when they are located in different locations on different systems (this could be used with render appearances stored in a DropBox path).

However, as @Yien_Chao mentioned Dropbox would give a poor experience for multi-user collaboration/worksharing compared to other options.

[mluther12]

Got it. We are exploring other options but this should help in the interim.