Worksharing using dropbox

[Harywijaya.2]

Hy Everyone,

I have project and in my company there are 3 drafter
I want this project must be done using 3 drafter.

Firstly, I've created Central file in Central Folder in my dropbox.
and then i save as become new local file into another folder in my dropbox too

The case is,

There are another person in team using my dropbox account in another computer
But when he open the central file, he can't open as new local file. why that's happened?

thank you all

[dmiller_SCE]

I believe the workflow that you are trying to execute will not work. Please see link for more information.

https://knowledge.autodesk.com/support/revit-products/troubleshooting/caas/sfdcarticles/sfdcarticles...

[chris.kershaw]

This workflow dose technically work I used it for 6 months on a project if you save the central as you say in the dropbox folder & everyone should then be able to open it & create local file. if that's grayed out it could be they are opening in the wrong version of Revit or even the wrong build.  

I would strongly advise not to use dropbox though as it will corrupt your model if you sync at the same time as someone else or if 2 people select the same thing it will crash  

Look up Collaboration 4 Revit its the only realistic way of sharing models between company's its expensive but it will work out cheaper than dropbox after all the lost work you will get with it  

[ben]

Have you tried saving your local on your computer instead of Dropbox?

[Harywijaya.2]

Not yet tried to save local file in local computer @ben

but the problem is my partner when open central file in dropbox, option to create new local unavailable / gray

thank you for you respon

[Harywijaya.2]

your reason fully make sense for me

if the worst case, central file will be crash or corrupt

i never heard collaboration 4 before, may i get tutorial to using that (if can, for newbie)

what do you think for BIM 360? i am still learn for that

[ben]

I don't know much about it because I've never done Collaboration in the cloud, only within network.

There's a project I'm working on where the engineers were using an add-in called BIMcollab.

https://apps.autodesk.com/RVT/en/List/Search?isAppSearch=True&searchboxstore=RVT&facet=&collection=&...

I haven't used it either, I just go to their shared A360 folder, which is kind of like Dropbox, but it lets non Revit users see the 3D model

Are you and your coworkers working together on this project on a company network or different networks? If you're all on the same network then there's no need to C4R or BIMcollab or any other stuff, just save a central model on the shared network and everybody can open and make a new local from that.

[dgorsman]

The more complex systems don't directly access a file in a cloud-managed folder like Dropbox does, rather they create a copy to work on and set a flag or two to indicate to others on the system it's being worked on.  When the file is closed the copy is pushed back through the cloud system and the flags are reset.  The process is usually implemented "behind the scenes" so the user doesn't have to go through any complex check out/check in procedures.

Dropbox and other generic systems don't do this as they are built for files which can use a much simpler process.  When dealing with something more complex like Revit projects you need to be using a tool designed to handle them.

[fabiosato · Accepted solution]

Hello,

The dropbox folder mapping MUST be the same on all computers, the ideal scenario would be to map the dropbox folder on the c: drive, since this is common to all users.

[Drafting.Calhoun]

I am trying to add the online option of using the Revit work-sharing for group projects at my college.  AutoDesk currently does not have education pricing for Bim 360. Does anyone know of an affordable workaround to use have students able to access the central file?

[ben]

Procore might have some kind of educational discount...maybe

[chris.kershaw]

Unfortunately I dont think there is any viable alternative & my guess is Autodesk know this. So you can no longer buy C4R (the bit that makes it work )   just by its self you now have to by a huge bundle of extras (none of which I would use) and more than double the original price, which is massively frustrating for us. As a company we were intending to switch all 50+ Revit users to the C4R online service but after they packaged it with all the other useless software and huge cost increase we have abandoned it 

[willieP9MYR]

Hi Chris,

When you say no alternative, do you mean no alternative to BIM360? I'm really curious to hear what your company's solution has been.

[chris.kershaw]

No its not BIM360 (its very confusing the naming), we are talking about working on the live model in the cloud and when this post was started that was called 'Collaboration for Revit' (C4R) and that was the only thing that works. since then Autodesk have changed the name multiple times stopped selling the C4R on its own & bundled it a package of 7 or 8 things I think its called A360 design now but the A360 stuff is extremely confusing. We had 18 licences of C4R and had intended to switch the whole company of over 50 seats to it. Autodesk then increased the price which stalled our decision, they then bundled it with all the other stuff none of which has any use for us & again increased the price. At this point we gave up as it was just too expensive & have now gone back to the company servers. If they reduce the price and just sell us C4R again would would switch back to it for the whole company 

[iainsavage]

C4R became BIM 360 Design which has now been changed (again) to BIM Collaborate Pro (has to be the design/pro version, not the docs/collaborate version, for live sharing).

The subscription used to be for multiple seats (I think 25 ?) but its not clear if that’s still the case.

Autodesk seem to have a particular skill in making this very confusing and opaque.

https://www.autodesk.co.uk/products/collaboration-for-revit/overview

https://www.autodesk.com/bim-360/product-matrix/

https://www.autodesk.com/products/bim-collaborate/compare

https://www.autodesk.com/products/bim-collaborate/overview

[ben]

That is the thing that gets kind of annoying with Autodesk, zero consistency. They are always changing everything, and not like minor changes or improvements, major & drastic changes that are difficult to keep up with; so much that it doesn't even feel like you're using the same program, method, or workflow from year-to-year. Just like 360Glue used to be a thing, but now it's like it worked too good so they had to do away with Glue & split it into two different program/subscriptions. It's almost like if they make something, it works, and becomes popular, then they try to change it & split it up in order to require you to buy two or more seats/subscriptions.