CC Jul-Aug 2021

SOFTWAREfocus
Autodesk Docs for viewing and sharing documents
Review request and reviewer dialogue
Autodesk Docs
The handling of all documented information about a project is finally coming of age, as
Autodesk incorporates Autodesk Docs into its Construction Cloud applications
It's quite difficult to comprehend that the
construction industry is still largely
fragmented, with an estimated 25% of
companies within the industry working on
half a dozen different applications and,
globally, as much as 70% still heavily reliant
on paper-based systems. According to
Autodesk, who quoted the figures, this
makes integration on a typical project
where team members are trying to
collaborate and share data on different
systems and platforms extremely difficult.
In such a situation, applications don't 'talk'
to each other, team members publish
documents in different formats, and office
and field managers need to be trained on
several different applications to correlate
the information and set up reviews and
approval processes to handle site issues
with disjointed team members - manually,
haphazardly, or using an uncontrollable
email system. It's no wonder that errors
creep in, time schedules lengthen and
issues remain unresolved.
This, then, is the background to Autodesk
Docs, the CDE-based document
management platform that brings together
documents, drawings and models into a
single, cloud-based environment to
standardise document control and create
effective, secure and auditable approval
workflows. With Autodesk Docs, team
members have access to a central
repository which connects documents and
data across platforms, creating a single
source of truth that allows reviews,
markups and annotations to be conducted
centrally, and ensures that documents are
made available to team members with the
right permissions, in the right versions and
just when they need them.
FULLY DOCUMENTED
Until recently, Autodesk Docs was a
standalone CDE or Common Data
Environment, but it is now included within
the three principal Autodesk Construction
Cloud solutions for the construction
industry. These are BIM Collaborate with its
Design collaboration, clash detection and
model coordination tools; Autodesk Takeoff
for 2D and 3D takeoffs and Scope
Analysis; and Autodesk Build with its range
of construction-based tools. It is also
available with Autodesk's AEC Collection.
As a cloud-based application it acts as
the central document storage facility for all
construction documents and data, and is
available through an MS Explorer-style
browser. It also includes complete access
and permissions control using folder-based
assignments of permissions based on
individuals, roles or companies.
Documents and models are
automatically assigned versions when they
are uploaded to the CDE and are available
for visual comparisons with earlier versions
of the same document, allowing project
team members to easily keep track of
design changes. Documents also include
full MS Office 365 integration, which allows
MS Office documents to be checked in and
out within the browser - similar to the way
SharePoint works.
A comprehensive set of customisable
review and approval workflows enables
Autodesk Docs users to initiate, audit or
review documents, locate issues in both
2D documents and associated 3D models,
and assign review processes to team
members. They can also submit
transmittals and produce reports that
provide complete audit trails and
communications history on their
subsequent completion and/or closure.
The review process provides additional
tools for locating issues within a floorplan
or 3D model. You can effortlessly switch
views between either or share them on a
split screen.
CDE ISO 19650
To facilitate the sharing of documents and
models between applications used on a
typical project, Autodesk Docs supports
ISO-19650 for construction project
workflows as the default standard, with its
naming conventions assigned to individual
folders within the CDE.
Additional and customisable attributes can
be assigned to documents within ISO-
19650 to define status, revision levels and
classifications. New files uploaded to the
CDE are auto-checked against the file
naming convention, and those that don't
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July/August 2021