[CLOSED] Release & Revision Management for Drawings - Let's Chat!

[TimeraAutodesk]

Release & Revision Management for Drawings

After speaking with so many of you over the years and hearing your feedback, we’re so happy to be able to say that we’re knee deep in designing a release management experience for Fusion 360’s Modeling and Drawings workspaces. As we iron out the wrinkles, we’d love to iron them out alongside you to make sure that what we end up delivering aligns with your expectations.

Today, it’s a struggle to find a way to indicate a drawing is complete and ready for consumption without manually entering and managing this as custom text or attributes on a title block. If we’d like to manage a change process, that’s even more of a show-stopper, so we’re looking at ways that we can help you manage your releases and revisions so that the right data is available to the right people at the right time. 

There are a few things that we’re trying to accomplish for you all: 

• Enable you to transition your drawing data to a released state, complete with a revision value
• Retain a copy of each drawing revision (not just versions), enabling you to track what has changed between revisions and why.
• New properties so that you can consume design revisions on drawings sheets.
• The ability to add users who only get access to released data.

Proposal

Our Designer @chuck.reaumeBEJFK walks through what we're thinking for an initial solution in this video for releasing and revisioning drawings. In a nutshell, we're exploring in these mockups the ability to move a Drawing (regardless of how many sheets are in it) through pre-release, release and revision states via a simple data management dialog accessed from the Document Settings menu. 

Drawings Release & Revision Demo

• Is this what you expect?
  
  
• Is there an alternative way you’d prefer to move through the release and revision process from within the Drawings workspace?
  
  
• Are there additional levels of control for releasing or revising a drawing that you’d like to have in this first update?

Using Properties in a Drawing. Today, we have 2 unique sets of properties that are used in the drawings workspace: Document Properties and Design Properties. Right now, they’re split up and live as auto-populated Attributes in the title block and associated properties in the Parts List, respectively.

We’ve heard from many of you that this just doesn’t cut it, and you need additional auto-populated content in the title blocks (you guessed it - including release and revision states). Here’s what we’re thinking to improve the experience:

• Transition the back-end architecture that we use to populate those attributes to use a more flexible approach, so that we can open the door to supporting Design Properties in the future (i.e. mass, weight, material, etc.).
• Add additional properties to the existing list, including:
  • Revision Letter
  • Release Number
  • Drawing State/Status
  • Additionally, the existing Properties available today would remain:

In the future, we think this approach sets us up to be able to add complexity and deeper levels of customization for fun things like true custom properties in the future. 

• What do you think of the breadth and scope we’ve described above to tie in your release and revision management workflows to title blocks on your Drawings?
   
• What kinds of additional properties would you like to see us add, and/or how would you use custom properties if they were available in the future?

This is just the beginning & we want to talk to you!

We sincerely appreciate your feedback on this project, and we hope you take advantage of any of the below avenues of getting in touch with us. 

• Respond directly to this post by commenting below
• Set up some time to chat with us by dropping time directly on our calendars using THIS LINK
• Email us feedback directly at fusion.drawings.revision.feedback@autodesk.com 

Regardless of how you get in touch with us, we can’t wait to hear from you!

Best,

The Fusion 360 Team

[Garret_H]

I have some questions on this feature and how it will improve my ability to deliver drawings to clients, machinists, fabricators,  and my overall customer experience. 

Will a user be able to include revision descriptions? 

Is there a method to integrate a QC sign off process such as checking or the drawing? Can this be integrated through the Team hub?

Will a tool be added to the drawing space to highlight changes, such as the commonly used revision cloud?

Can changes to the bill of materials be noted with revision manager?

How will this component interact with user defined title blocks?

If multiple drawing pages are used within a single drawing file will the revision tracker include changes only to each individual drawing tab or will revisions need to apply to the entire drawing set simultaneously?

Is there a method to generate drawing records project wide? Transmittal documents? Output to excel files?

Will this tool be able to be to manage drawing sets on a larger projects and go as far to update all drawing title blocks simultaneously to generate a PDF drawing set of the entire project set when required?  

If a model component changes since a drawing was moved to a released state will this drawing be flagged as out of date in some way? Or will the onus continue to be on the design team and project management to ensure that manual follow up happens?

Having a mechanism in place to differentiate a drawing between pre-release and released will be nice, particularly if remote access to view the drawings is possible for team members of varying permission levels.

"The ability to add users who only get access to released data." This feature sounds great, and I would really like to learn more on how access to these drawings happens and what type of automated features are planned for notifications and mechanisms to provide more detailed information to said users.

[Matt_Fox]

This is a great start. 

An additional thing I would like to see would be an option to add a revision cloud around the revised part. 

[TimeraAutodesk]

Hey @Garret_H, these are great questions!

We will be supplying tools for calling out revisions on sheets, right now we're thinking they will be in the form of a traditional revision markers. Is there a preference for rev clouds instead? Also, the Rev property will be available on the title blocks as an additional property in the attributes definition dropdown so they will auto-populate accordingly (i.e. all sheets will Rev to "B" when the Drawing is rev'd).

To dig in deeper to some of your questions, it would be great for the team to hop on a call with you so we can dive deeper. Feel free to find some time on our calendars using this link: https://calendly.com/timera-hart/drawings-rev-mgmt-feedback 

[Garret_H]

I make use of both, as it really depends on who is receiving the drawing, and where the project status.

Revision markers are my preferred method to make note of smaller numerous changes, revision clouds I'll use to indicate either major changes or items that would be easier to miss without that feature.  In today's world of ink and laser jet colour printing being able to add colour is even better.

[Anonymous]

I think this is a great start. Listed below are just some things I would like to see incorporated in the drawing environment.

1. Weld Symbols

2. Sketch in View

3. Spell Check.

4. Local Notes ( symbols with varied shapes i.e. triangle, square, circles etc.)

5. GD&T updates per ASME Y14.5-2009.

6. General Note Library (the ability to create/save notes).

7. Crop Views

This is all I can think of for right now. But, I would love to contribute additional suggestions in the future.

[Anonymous]

Hi Timera,

     Great Video on drawing updates. Thanks

     I would like to chime in on the use of revision letters/no.s on drawings + engineering notices and their function. At the nine plus companies I worked at I can tell you what I found most common and what worked best.

  * Most companies used revision letters - in the early eighties it was double characters due to the manual to computer conversion at that time. It took way too long to incorporate and meet production changes. Tons of changes.

  * Limits on the number of changes before new design/drawing issued - I followed a rule of 8 - this is something I found as a metric mark that an old design needed to be changed and Improved after 8 revisions. new part no./assembly no.

  * Drawing sheets can have revision letters  - this can get confusing with design rev letter and drawing sheet rev  letter. ( this is a political territory that must be worked out with engineering change management - Only a few companies I have seen used both)

  * Have a separate tracking letter system for  pre release drawings and a separate system for production drawings 

  * Ability to change drawings quickly and electronically - companies have no excuse not to release the latest engineering data to the shop floor and guys in the field with well managed CAD systems.

  * Remember who the customer of the drawing IS - do they need to see every correction captured ? NO - advise for special filters set up at the drawing administrator level.

  * Use a flag system with revision letter for notes on changes in design/product build for dimension and features

  * Only have the drawing/dataset capture the necessary data needed. Drawings should not be cluttered with extra information notes that can be handled in a report. Think of the guy using the drawing- what does he need?

Hope this helps: John Gfandjwdello@att.net

[TimeraAutodesk]

Hey @Anonymous , thanks for taking the time to leave us feedback... here are some updates to your other questions in-line:

1. Weld Symbols - The team is working on it delivering weld symbols later this year.

2. Sketch in View - This is coming in the May update! For a sneak peak of what's coming in May, check out the Blog

3. Spell Check. - Great idea, I added it to our request pipeline for review.

4. Local Notes ( symbols with varied shapes i.e. triangle, square, circles etc.) - This will be possible with the sketch functionality coming in May. If it doesn't solve your request please let us know!

5. GD&T updates per ASME Y14.5-2009. - I've added this request to the pipeline for review, thank you!

6. General Note Library (the ability to create/save notes). - our awesome designer @jakefowler  is working on some early thoughts on this project, and I'm sure he'd love to chat in more details about this project with you. 

7. Crop Views - These are on the longer term roadmap, so keep your eyes peeled on the roadmap to see when it comes up. 

Also, feel free to poke around the current roadmap here at any time to see what's on our radar HERE

[TimeraAutodesk]

@Anonymous this detailed feedback is really useful, I'll be reviewing it with my partners this week to make sure we're considering all of these cases as we design for this project. Thank you!

On the pre-release vs release topic you described, we are thinking that pre-release content would be indicated with integers (1, 2, 3), while release content would be managed using letters (A, B, C). Is that a unique enough differentiation to help reduce confusion to track these separate systems in your opinion?

[Anonymous]

Hi,

Thanks for the clear preview. I have a couple of questions:

• Would the release state be linked to components?
• If so, could you request different loading of the model?
  e.g. only released revisions // only release unless it's your own model // latest version no matter whos model it is.
• - if so, it would be nice to mark the released components with green lettering in the model browser?

PS.we're using letters for released revisions, so that would be great for us.

[Anonymous]

Hi Timera,

    Sorry not reply as soon as I could. I see no problem using number revisions for pre-release drawings.Another consideration getting vendor drawings and their revision management system to synch up with the main customer drawing system.  So, in the engineering document system, there is little confusion and the latest production release drawings have both latest and correct engineering from customers and vendors.

Thanks, gfandjwdello@att.net

[emolven]

I am looking forward to a better world in the realm of managing drawings, and would very much like to see revisions and release management in combination with branching and merging[0] that has been on the plans for years now.

I would like to have a production/master branch for drawings (and models) ready and approved for use, and development and staging branches for ongoing development and improvements. Then we could choose to only accept approved material i the master branch, and give the shop floor access to this branch. For larger customer specific projects that deviates from the normal production flow there could have been a branch specific for this project since it will contain modified and one-off drawings that is necessary to keep, but not necessarily having them float around and cluttering op the normal folder structure.  I think it would be a better solution keeping these modified drawings in the same folder as the drawings they are based on, rather than putting them away in a different folder somewhere else. They would, after all, just be modified versions of the original. Then they would only be visible in the specific branch, the shop floor could get access when needed, og otherwise they are stored away and can easily be checked out and merged with modification tho the original if needed. 

[0]: https://www.autodesk.com/products/fusion-360/blog/fusion-forecast-branching-merging/

[husamcivil]

One thing to look for is Version control, getting a preliminary drawing out on the manufacturing floor that is not finalized and proofed can be dangerous. Having different branches for development drawings and prototypes is a good idea, but you need to think about controls within your organization to make sure the access, release and copying of drawing files will not lead to chaos or "midnight acquisition". 
Hope this helps  gfandjwdello@att.net

[olivia.struckman]

Thanks for the detailed feedback @emolven, we will review it with the release management team this week.

What are your thoughts on the Release workflow as shown in the demo video for transitioning a drawing between release states? As Timera describes above, we're thinking of using different tracking systems for pre-release and production drawings. Pre-release content would be indicated with integers (1, 2, 3), while release content would be managed using letters (A, B, C). Do you think this differentiation, with accompanying permissions, is sufficient to help reduce confusion & track these separate systems in your opinion?

[Anonymous]

I have a few more ideas I would like to see added to the drawing environment in Fusion 360:

1. I would like to import a template into Fusion 360, not just the title block. For my workflow, I tend to save out templates as .dwg. Therefore, if I want to import that template into software like AutoCAD or Inventor, I can do so without any problems. I would like to see similar functionality within Fusion 360.

2. Improved performance. Sometimes, when I worked in the drawing environment, the software seemed to lag and wasn't as fluid. If an improvement in performance can be addressed, I believe this, too can be beneficial.

[Anonymous]

---

@TimeraAutodesk All this effort is appreciated. Keep that in mind if my comment has too much of a critical tone. I'll split my main concerns into two main topics:

1. Workflow & user experience
2. Consistency & Clarity

1. Workflow & UX

I highly value the integration of Animation, Rendering, Manufacturing, Simulation... tools in Fusion 360. However, the drawing workspace, which is quite central in my opinion, is disconnected from the otherwise integrated workspace. Below, is a component that has an existing drawing.

• Why is it that I cannot jump into the existing drawing(s) like I could with any other integrated tool? I can only create new drawings.
• It is frustrating that that the components parameters and properties are not available in the drawing and the list of attributes so limited and uncustomizable. 
  
• Why is there such a disconnect for drawings? This goes against everything that Fusion 360 stands for. By the way, I tried using Bommer and OpemBOM to get around this, but they have their limitations, which stem from the way that add-ins are restricted in the drawing space.
• This point is far-fetched, but bring it up anyway: Is the 2D engine of Fusion 360 vastly different from the 3D engine? I find it hard to comprehend that a 3D mouse cannot be used in the drawing space. I've thought about experimenting with title blocks made as sketches in the 3D space, but I stopped when I realised that Fusion 360 does not support parameter-driven text.
• To answer the question "What kinds of additional properties would you like to see us add, and/or how would you use custom properties if they were available in the future?"
  • My first act would be to create a parameter called "Release" or "Rel". This would be the version number that is syncronised across the component, drawing, sourcing documents, and our PLM/ERP system. This is a pain point that has us trying to find hacks and loopholes to make it work.

2. Consistency & Clarity

I strongly believe that fixing the integration between components and drawings is the foundation for everything that doesn't seem to work for me in the drawings module.  That said, my biggest document management pain is the parallel existence of the drawing and the component.

• I cannot export a pdf + 3D object from one space
• The 3D object and drawing have different versions that cannot be automatically annotated in the drawing
• If a copy a component, I do not get the associated drawing

I understand that there may be cases where users do not want to tie the drawing document to the CAD file. But I would claim that the majority of us see the drawing as an appendix to the 3D model; something to be used as a quality control document and/or a contract with the manufacturer on specs and tolerances... A necessity not to be worked on separately.

Please develop the drawing module towards an integrated functionality with the 3D module. If these developments of versions and status do not link to the 3D model, I feel that efforts are being focused on the wrong thing, therefore the demonstrated feature adds 0 value to my workflow, where ECR-ECO change management and approvals are handled outside of Fusion. I honestly do not see how this is better that manually writing a rev and status.

We hope to see an integrated drawing module and a universal revision management system for Fusion 360, not a separate one for drawings. It is rare that only the drawing get sent out. Think of releases in terms of packages that can contain any individual element or a combination of the following:

• 3D data
• drawings
• toolpaths
• simulation/inspection studies & criteria

... and most importantly, let the user control and configure their versioning framework (letters, numbers, display of version in file name...)

Related ideas:

Give users control of versioning and revisions - Autodesk Community

Version parameter reference for drawings - Autodesk Community

Copy drawings with components / component or assembly "save as with drawing" - Autodesk Community

3D Mouse Does Not Work in Drawing View - Autodesk Community

Match Versioning on Drawings and Parts/Assemblies - Autodesk Community

[Jaywix]

As someone that's uses Both Autodesk Inventor and Solidworks, I am very shocked how this is such a disconnect between the modelling Environments and the Drawing workspace.  We are now into October 2020 and a lot of these comments are from may and eariler. how is that Autodesk Inventor "I-properties can be filled out" in either a part or assembly and then populated automatically within drawing boarder attributes.  

Fusion 360 !!! why have model and assembly attributes in the Part or Assembly and then have nothing in the Drawing boarders. 

So i want to created a Custom Template for my Business and I can't even dimension the drawing boarder box like i would do in Inventor. 

I still have a case number open "Case 16863380 " as until this issue is resolved. your getting people to hand over there cash to buy a piece of software that not even got the basics right. 

How do i begin to present my work to customers if the drawing boarders don't meet ISO9001 standards? 

I have spoken to Olivia  via zoom but have heard nothing about actually having a proper Zoom call with a developer or to actually anyone that makes the decisions on the Fusion 360 team?  

[Anonymous]

Hi @TimeraAutodesk 

I was waiting to reply your topic because I was looking for comments from other users...

Generally speaking, all of us have the same feeling: The drawings workspace is like a toy, it is not a professional tool (yet).

I think developers are wasting valuable time trying to solve an issue that is already solved!

In my humble opinion, Autodesk should integrate AutoCAD LT to Fusion 360 and that's it! Done! Hasta la vista baby!

I know you can do that because working in the drawing workspace of Fusion 360 is like working in AutoCAD, the issue is we are missing all those beautiful tools we have available in AutoCAD (Xrefs, Weld symbols, revision tables, sketch tools, dimensions, etc.)

FYI:

We have bought a couple of licenses of AutoCAD LT. The main target of this, is to process DXF files from Fusion 360 and send them to the CAM software of our laser cut machines (yes, we still have to generate DXF files to process a laser cut part because the 2D profile command in the manufacturing workspace is not good enough but this issue is not related to this topic).

I did realize that AutoCAD LT has EVERYTHING we need to get a professional drawing, the issue is I can not get a good output from Fusion to finish a drawing in AutoCAD. This is annoying... 

[engineer1984]

I would like Fusion to give the same title block info from Sheet 1 to the New Sheet that you created.  I don't like re-inventing the wheel every time.  (A proper designer is going make new 2D drawings for the different PN's anyway).

It's frustrating when Fusion 'forgets' what part you were making a drawing of.  I've had it happen that I mistakenly close the window when the initial section / parent view is being shown.  The next time I click parent view, it shows the entire assy.  I have to delete the sheet and start again or take the time to deselect components.  

Adding Details:  Many times the Assy Dwg you are pulling Details from is on a different sheet, due to size limitations.  Right now, the work around is to draw the Assy Dwg twice and draw the Detail view twice.  Once on each sheet.  Is there a solution for this?

Border options on Fusion instead of drawing my own... I.e. professional drawings have a border that uses letters along one axis and numbers on the other.  The revision block can call out where the revision is located on the drawing or two people can interact over the phone and find the revision much easier.  It's common on professional drawings

Dimensioning tools need to be smarter (or dumber)... I.e. I shouldn't have to dimension the center of a circle and have the dimensioning line cover up the center lines.  That's not professional.  

Generally speaking, Fusion 360 drawing tool is unprofessional.  It's hard to point out all the issues... I would prefer if the drawing team viewed multiple professional manufacturing drawings to get a sense of what is required in a drawing.  For me personally, I appreciate automation if it is available, but I get the feeling that Fusion attempts to be 'too smart' in their solutions.  I can put together a 2D drawing for vendor work in AutoCad quickly.. with very little automation.  I understand there will always be connectivity issues between the model and the 2D dwg, but some things are too difficult in Fusion.  It can be hard to make a leader in Fusion, for example.  Or right clicking before I can choose a snap point to measure to / from.  

The drawing tool needs a lot of work to be considered professional.  

[engineer1984]

I've thought about going down this path, but then the drawing won't update with the model...

Also, I recently had parts waterjet and the vendor was having a really tough time with the DXF file I sent over and it worries me deeply...  Was it a one time bug or is the DXF file that Fusion exports bad?