Revit Cloud Worksharing Best practices

Solution:

1. Introduction

1.1.Scope

• • Ensure that good model performance of Revit cloud workshared models to avoid slow openings, synchronizing, and saving, which can become problematic as the Revit file size increases.
  • The objective of this document is to shed light on best practices to improve Cloud Workshared Model performance in Revit.
    • Note: These are general best practices. Workflow may differ from project to project.

2. Best Practices

2.1.Modeling

• • All warning messages shall be regularly reviewed and resolved.
  • When possible, replace model lines with detail lines. Use Model Lines sparingly since they are easily mistaken for a drawing error in other views.
  • Minimize Room separation lines as much as possible by using room bounding elements whenever appropriate. When these lines begin to overlap with other bounding objects, such as walls and columns, they may cause errors.
  • When possible, link your files. Don’t import them or bind the links.
  • Restart Revit before performing memory-intensive operations, such as printing an entire document set.
  • Verify that the Revit accelerator process is not disabled in the Windows startup options within Task Manager.  
    • Note:
      • When disabled (not visible in the running processes), it will not download the cloud worksharing delta files and it will not create the PacCache folder for collaboration file access and use on the local.  
      • If the PacCache folder is not listed under your local user, this is another good indication the process is not running.
      • Typical file location:  C:\Users\%USERNAME%\AppData\Local\Autodesk\Revit
      • Check the Revit accelerator by reviewing the journal for PAC Hit / PAC Miss. At least one PAC Hit indicates correct data caching.
  • Purge unused objects if you face increased file size only. Perform Purges three times consecutively as materials don’t purge the first time.
  • Reduce the number of loaded DWG and RVT links as much as possible; load only what you are working on.

2.2.Collaboration

• • Verify that the same Revit build is installed on all computers that work on worksharing files. Working with different builds leads to unexpected errors.
  • This is the general recommendation, as we are constantly fixing newly discovered issues, and users with older updates can reintroduce behavior that has since been fixed. Having said that, there are milestone updates, and as long as everyone has a version after those versions, they should be fine. It is also required for Revit Cloud Worksharing that the security fix updates be installed. Having said that, we do prefer everyone to be on the latest update and on the same version.
  • Open only the necessary worksets to speed up opening and saving time.
  • Close worksets that are not required, rather than changing their visibility.
  • Before leaving a project (for lunch, a meeting, or when at the end of the workday), synchronize and relinquish all your worksets so others can edit them, and then close the model.
  • If users forget to synchronize and elements are required, a Project Admin can Force Relinquish. This risks invalidating the user's data and should be used as a last resort.
  • Avoid multiple syncs occurring at the same time to prevent multiple "Reload Latest" events for other users. In Revit 2020 and later, there is a BIM 360 Design Sync indicator on the status bar to indicate whether the model is being synced or is available to be synced.
  • Do not leave the model open overnight. As a best practice, close Revit every four hours or so to clear its memory.

2.3.Model Linking

• • Whenever possible, avoid linking Revit models through Desktop Connector. Best practice is to link Revit models as Cloud Models through the Revit Cloud Worksharing Service, using the External Resource button in the Import/Link RVT dialog.
  • Do not link Revit cloud workshared models from the Desktop connector. Always link RCW files from the External Resource option.
    • Note: When a central file with noncloud workshared Revit models (through desktop connector) is published, the noncloud workshared models will not be visible in the BIM 360 Web browser.
  • Use the Autodesk Desktop connector to link non-Revit files, for example: AutoCAD files.
  • Try to avoid linking models from the local drive/server. It will slow down the opening and synchronizing process. Save all the data in BIM 360 and link models and files using the Autodesk Desktop Connector.
  • Place Revit links into separate worksets that are not visible by default, and then you can control the visibility of each link in any view or in the entire project. Close these worksets when not in use.
  • Close all the link worksets during model open (if the model is heavy) using the Specify... option.
  • Check if the host model has been linked in any linked model with the reference type as ‘Attachment’. If this scenario happens, change the reference type of the linked host file inside Revit link from ‘Attachment’ to ‘Overlay’.
  • If the project is using Design collaboration, it is recommended that users link the models from the consumed folder. Refer to this article for more details.
  • We recommend using either the shared folder or the consumed folder. The key is to avoid live linking where possible because this can introduce too many changes and it can be hard to track.  
  • Linked models do not exist in a dot release version when linked to another model, so builds should not affect linking. However, best practice is to check if all users work with the same Revit build whenever possible, though it is not necessary for linking models.

2.4.Publishing

• • In publish settings, select only those views that you would like to publish to BIM 360.
  • Remove unnecessary links before publishing.
  • If the Revit model fails in extraction, audit the model and republish the data.

2.5. Backup

• • Store the backup for the model in the cloud. Find the possible options for backing up cloud projects.
  • Ensure that the models are not saved on the cloud in the same folder under the same name. Each model saved on the cloud has a unique GUID, which is used when creating local copies of Revit Cloud Workshared files.

3. Infrastructure

3.1.Bandwidth

• • Autodesk recommends a minimum of symmetrical 5-Mbps bandwidth for each machine as a minimum for performance. For each user, with a utilization factor of 0.3, once you get over ~15 concurrent users.
  • Endpoints that must be accessible from the client desktop to support BIM 360 Design:
    • dcs.b360.autodesk.com
    • dcs.autodesk.com
    • otg.autodesk.com
    • developer.api.autodesk.com
    • docs.b360.autodesk.com
    • accounts.autodesk.com
    • cdn.accounts.autodesk.com
    • ase-cdn.autodesk.com
    • fonts.autodesk.com
    • smetrics.autodesk.com
    • *.cloudfront.net
    • *.amazonaws.com
    • api.mixpanel.com
    • *.evergage.com
    • *ravenjs.com
    • *.cloudflare.com
    • *.newrelic.com
    • googletagmanager.com
    • *.web-platform.io
    • *.sentry.io