Tips for Working With Autodesk Collaboration for Civil 3D

If you encounter issues using Autodesk Collaboration for Civil 3D, refer to the following list and also see How Do I Access Autodesk Collaboration for Civil 3D? and ensure that the setup requirements are met.

Autodesk Account

• Access to BIM 360 Design and Autodesk Collaboration for Civil 3D is managed through Autodesk Account, and is available only in the Classic View of Autodesk Account. For more information, see How Do I Access Autodesk Collaboration for Civil 3D?.

Desktop Connector

• Desktop Connector creates a connected drive on your computer so you can access your BIM 360 accounts and projects. When you view the connected drive in Windows Explorer, it is indicated by a icon. An account within the connected drive, and the projects within the account, are indicated by a hub icon .
• When you save documents to the connected drive, or drag and drop documents to the connected drive from another folder using Windows Explorer, the documents will be uploaded to BIM 360 and made available to other project team members. Likewise, when you delete documents from your connected drive, they will be deleted from BIM 360.
  Important: Deleting documents from your connected drive while it is connected will result in the documents being deleted from the BIM 360 project. You can delete local documents using the Delete Local command if you are using the Desktop Connector offline mode. Deleting local folders when you are in offline mode is not supported. For more information, see How To Clear the Cache of the BIM 360 Desktop Connector.
• Desktop Connector uses your C: drive as the local cache for storing documents. For example, the full path for a project might appear as C:\Users\<user name>\BIM 360\<account name>\<project name>\Project Files\<folder>.

  Desktop Connector does not have a mechanism for specifying a different drive for storing documents.

• There is a delay before changes made in the BIM 360 web interface and changes that other project team members make and save to the project documents are reflected in the local connected drive. For information about the refresh rates, see Access BIM 360 On Your Desktop in the BIM 360 Help.
• Desktop Connector has a Pending Actions window that you can review. For example, when you save a drawing in a BIM 360 project, a Workspace Sync action will be displayed in the Pending Actions window to let you know that the drawing is being uploaded to BIM 360.
• Documents are not downloaded to your local drive until you open them in Civil 3D or manually download them by right-clicking a file in Windows Explorer and selecting Sync. After a document is downloaded, it has a status of Synced.
• Documents that are not downloaded, but exist in the project, appear as proxy versions in Windows Explorer. If a document is not yet downloaded locally, it has a status of Online.
• If synced documents are not opened for a period of 15 days, they will no longer be available in Desktop Connector offline mode. When they are removed from the local cache, they will still be visible on your connected drive but will have a status of Online.
• The specified path and file name for uploaded files must be less than 260 characters. If this length is exceeded, the files might not upload successfully and you could experience unexpected behavior. For more information, see Long Path in the Desktop Connector Help.
• Editing Civil 3D drawings in offline mode is not supported.
• See also:
  • Known Issues in Desktop Connector for BIM 360 in the BIM 360 Help
  • Desktop Connector Notification Messages in the Desktop Connector Help
  • Desktop Connector Support in the Desktop Connector Help

Migrating existing data shortcut projects to BIM 360

You can migrate existing project files into BIM 360, but you will need to take some actions to ensure that the project is properly configured. This section includes best practices for project configuration that you will want to assess prior to migrating a project.

When migrating data shortcut projects to BIM 360, it is recommended to drag and drop the project folders and documents to the connected drive using Windows Explorer. This method uploads the files to BIM 360 using Desktop Connector, which contains functionality that uploads and relinks the xrefs and data shortcut references within a data shortcut project.

• To migrate a data shortcut project, you need to upload all the project data including the host and source drawings. Uploading only the data shortcut project folder (_Shortcuts) or a single data shortcut .xml file to BIM 360 is not sufficient to migrate the project or enable collaboration in BIM 360.
• If the referenced files are not in the same folder structure as the host drawing, either directly within the same folder or in a subfolder, referenced files will be uploaded to a folder named "Related data" in BIM 360 and relinked.

  You can avoid this by:

  • Organizing the host drawings and referenced files within the same folder structure and updating the references before migrating the project files.
  • Migrating the related project files that are within a root folder all at the same time. Uploading a host drawing to BIM 360 by itself, for example, will create a Related data folder and the references will be uploaded and relinked.
  Note: Even if the above requirements are met, a Related data folder may still be created for other linked files when you upload an existing project.
• If referenced files are uploaded to a Related data folder and relinked, you will be alerted with a message informing you that some data was placed in the Related data folder.

  The Related data folder will be created inside the destination folder for the host drawing. For example, if the host drawing is named Align-4.dwg, and a referenced file is located in Program Files\Autodesk\AutoCAD 2020\C3D\Help\Civil Tutorials\, a Related data folder would be created as follows: <destination folder>\Align-4\Related data\Program Files\Autodesk\AutoCAD 2020\C3D\Help\Civil Tutorials\. The referenced file will be placed inside this folder.

• The creation of a Related data folder may cause the specified path and file name for uploaded files to exceed the limit of 260 characters. For more information, see Long Path in the Desktop Connector Help.
• It may take some time before the project documents you upload are available to access in BIM 360. When you initially drag and drop them to the connected drive, their status as shown in Windows Explorer will be New and they will not have a version. You can review their status in the Desktop Connector Pending Actions window. When they are fully uploaded, their status will be Synced and their version will be V1. At that point they are available to open in Civil 3D.
• After the files are uploaded, you can set the working folder in Civil 3D to the BIM 360 project location and select the data shortcut project folder, and then proceed to review the project.
• When you use Windows Explorer to upload data shortcut project drawings using the connected drive, the reference information in the host drawings will be automatically updated to point to the new paths in BIM 360, but the information in the data shortcut .xml files will not be updated. This will not impact the data shortcut mechanism. As long as the source drawings remain in the same path relative to the working folder, the data shortcuts will be found and resolved.
  Note: The original path in the data shortcut .xml files is displayed in the Data Shortcuts Editor, so you will not observe changes to that path after uploading the project to BIM 360.
• After the project is uploaded, some referenced files, such as surface data source files, may need to be relinked.
• Some file types are not supported in BIM 360 and will not be uploaded. For information about file types that are supported in BIM 360, see Supported Files in the BIM 360 Help.

For more information about Desktop Connector messages, see Desktop Connector Notification Messages.

BIM 360

• When BIM 360 account administrators invite members to an account, they can assign the new member to a company and a role. The company and the role can be used to streamline the process of providing access to projects and project folders. The account administrator can also import member names from a spreadsheet. For more information, see Manage Account Members in the BIM 360 Help.
• BIM 360 project members don't automatically get access to the project folders. In addition to inviting members to a project, the project administrator needs to give permissions to the team members to access the project folders. For more information, see How Do I Access Autodesk Collaboration for Civil 3D?.
• The document version starts at V1 and is increased by 1 each time a file is saved. You can view the versions in the BIM 360 Viewer. For more information, see To Use BIM 360 Viewing and Markup Features for your Civil 3D Drawings.

Civil 3D

• Several of the data shortcut-related commands require Autodesk Collaboration for Civil 3D when you are working in a BIM 360 project. If you don't currently have access to the functionality, the data shortcut commands that require Autodesk Collaboration for Civil 3D will display a message after you select them to alert you of the requirement.

  For more information, see About Working With Data Shortcut Projects in BIM 360 and How Do I Access Autodesk Collaboration for Civil 3D?.

• When you open most document types from BIM 360 in Autodesk Civil 3D 2020, the documents are locked automatically so no one else can edit them. For more information, see About Locking Documents Stored in BIM 360.
  Note: You can use the CloudCollabModifiedOption system variable to control when DWG files and DWT files are unlocked in BIM 360 after they are closed in Civil 3D.
  Note: If you are working in Civil 3D 2020.1 or a previous version of Civil 3D, or any version of AutoCAD or an AutoCAD-based product, locking is not automatic when you open a drawing that is stored in BIM 360.
• Automatic locking and unlocking is not supported for survey databases. You need to manually lock and unlock these files when working with them to avoid editing conflicts.
• Only documents that you can open directly in Civil 3D (DWG, DWT, DWS, and DXF) are displayed on the BIM 360 page and the Recent page of the Start tab.
• You might not be able to open BIM 360 documents in the following cases:
  • You are working offline (either using the Desktop Connector offline mode, or you are not connected to the internet) and you attempt to open a document that has a status of Online.
  • Your BIM 360 permissions have changed.
  • You have not signed in to Autodesk Account.
• The working folder for data shortcut projects needs to be at least one folder level below the BIM 360 project folder. For example, <BIM 360 Drive>\<Account Name>\<Project Name>\<Working Folder Name>. It is recommended that a subfolder within \Project Files is set as the data shortcut working folder from within Civil 3D. You can create the Civil 3D data shortcut project within that specified working folder.
  Note: It is possible to set the top level \Project Files folder as the working folder, but only administrators can see the \Project Files folder so it is recommended that you use a subfolder within \Project Files.
• When you are working in a BIM 360 project, use the Check Reference Status command to check for updates of referenced files in the current drawing. In most cases, it is not necessary to close and reopen a drawing to update its references. However, sometimes the reference files may not download and you will need to close and reopen the host drawing.

Data storage environment

• A data shortcut project and its associated drawings need to be stored in the same data storage environment, either on a local drive or a local area network, or in BIM 360. For example, when you are working in a data shortcut project that is stored in BIM 360, the drawing files must also be stored in BIM 360.
• If the current drawing is in BIM 360, the working folder needs to be in BIM 360. If the current drawing is stored locally, the working folder needs to be stored on a local drive or a local area network.
• It is not supported to associate a local drawing with a BIM 360 project, or to associate a BIM 360 project with a local drawing.
• Referenced files (xrefs, data shortcuts, and others) need to be in the same data storage environment as the host drawings. If the referenced files do not share the same data storage environment as the host drawing, you will be prompted to migrate the references.
• Messages will be displayed to alert you if you attempt to use different data storage environments within the same project.