Open a Workshared Project Independent of the Central Model

Use this procedure to open a project independently for clients who want to see changes or make changes without saving them.

Clients can view the file and modify it without worrying about borrowing elements or owning element worksets. This practice is also useful for project managers who are not working in the project but might want to open it for review without interrupting the team.

1. Click File tab Open (Project).
2. In the Open dialog, navigate to the central model and select it.
3. Select Detach from Central.
4. Click Open.

If a non-workshared project is opened with Detach from Central selected, Revit ignores the option, and opens the project normally.

If a workshared project is opened, you must choose whether you want to detach and preserve worksets or detach and discard worksets.

After you open the project, it no longer has any path or permissions information, and the default file name is the original filename with "_detached" appended. The project is in a state similar to when worksharing was first enabled; all elements in the project can be modified, but no changes can be saved back to the central model. If you save the project, it is saved as a new central model.

Note: If a longer-lasting independent copy of the central model is needed, such as when the central model is suspected to be corrupt, detach from the central model and save it as a new central model. Note that existing local files cannot synchronize with this new central model, and new local files created from the detached central model cannot synchronize with the old central model.