Work with Watch Groups

Design Collaboration automatically checks all project data for changes when it is uploaded and published to Docs. Changes detected include any additions, modifications, or deletions compared to previous versions.

The watch groups feature in the Changes tool allows you to select specific models or items and save them as a watch group. Team members can then navigate to these watch groups to quickly and easily explore and understand the design changes most relevant to them.

Add items to a watch group

To add items or models to watch groups:

1. Click the Changes tool.

   Either an instructional page for first-time use, or a list of existing watch groups for the project is displayed.

2. Click New watch group. A list of the project teams is displayed on the left, and the corresponding models on the right.

3. Select the relevant team, and then select the models you want to watch for changes.

4. Click Next.

5. Use the dialog box to select the items you want to watch. You can select the whole model, or use the search box or expand the model tree to find specific items:

   

   Tip: Use the viewer window and toolbar to explore the model and visualize the items or areas you want to watch for changes. Click the item names or select the checkboxes to highlight items in the viewer.

6. Click Next.

7. Enter a name to create the watch group.

8. Click Save.

9. If there are changes for the items you added to the watch group, the changes are displayed in a tree structure in the Changes list:

   

   Note: There may be no changes to view, for example if your team has not consumed the latest package containing a new model version, or if your work-in-progress model hasn't been shared, or is the same version as the shared model. In this case, the Change visualization interface is not displayed.

10. Use the search box and filters in the Change visualization interface to refine the changes shown in the Changes list.

11. Click a change in the tree to display more information about the change in the right panel:

    

    1. At the bottom of the panel, use the buttons to toggle between the selected versions, and visualize the change in the model.
    2. Click the Close icon to close the panel.

12. Click the Close icon to close the viewer.