12d Synergy vs. Autodesk BIM Collaborate Pro

12d Synergy and its ability to handle all file types really suited the engineering industry.

Autodesk Bim 360 is well suited to the majority of construction projects in my opinion. On the construction side I could see how the straightforward nature of the platform would be well liked. The new update with the widgets is a great touch and allows for ease of site visits by showcasing good to know info like project location on a map and the local weather. You can also customize the "widgets" as you see fit to add more information if necessary to the home screen. From my experience as a LEED consultant, Bim 360 does not differ much from other platforms used for submittal review like Procore. It is easy enough to search for what you want but searches do take a while and you need to move the cursor over every time you search and do not find what you're looking for, which seems very unnecessary. Overall it is fine for reviewing documentation but isn't anything extraordinary.

Incentivized

• Manages multiple files in a folder, while allowing file sharing (AutoCAD, xrefs, etc.)
• Delivers HUGE (2, 3, or 5GB) files with minimal bandwidth

• Live updates between design teams. This keeps the team up to date for quicker design and frees up personnel from having to do file transfers.
• The cloud-based platform gives your company a little bit of a break on computer requirements.
• Allows multiple offices and/or cloud-based consultants to collaborate on a design as if they are one office or one company.

Incentivized

• 12d Synergy could provide additional analytical reporting on user behavior and usage out of the box.
• Improved speeds when referencing shared files from other 12d model projects.

• Bim360 is extremely unintuitive and frequently confusing to end users.
• There are multiple avenues of sharing and collaboration for models and information. The advantages/disadvantages of each and how to perform even the most basic of tasks requires extensive training and mentoring for even the most advanced of users.
• There are many enormous limitations and constraints to BIM 360 that are not immediately obvious and even contrary to published marketing materials and even product naming.
• Development cycles of the product are seemingly monthly, but incredibly minor. This makes the desperately-needed and glaringly obvious massive usability, capability, and performance improvements into deal-breakers and hair pulling events. Change cannot come fast enough.
• There are no integrations into Microsoft's Azure AD SSO or other 3rd party SSOs available for SMBs. This makes the provided MFA a huge headache for all SMBs.
• There are no integrations into the Microsoft 365 ecosystem for SharePoint/OneDrive or Outlook. This is desperately needed for most organizations using Bim360.

Incentivized

The 12d Synergy team is always ensuring our issues and needs are resolved promptly. Whether it be on the forum or phone, they are kind and helpful

AutoDesk support is slow and if you are not an enterprise customer they will likely tell you to go to forums and post for help pushing the support on the high-level end-users (some of which are AutoDesk employees). I haven't actually had issues requiring support with docs altough there are some features I wish it had

Incentivized

Hands down prefer 12d Synergy. Bentley ProjectWise is overly complex, expensive and has a very cluttered interface.

The saving in reduced field changes/mistakes quickly paid for the license plus some. The software allows for easy data collection, especially at project completion for field software by checklist creation. Furthermore, the internal punch-list tracking, tracking completion lists and punch lists created for us by others is optimal compared to the competition. We chose Bim360 over other options due to its ability to import out of other software programs directly into the system, adding reports in one location and then distributing it to subcontractors and internally from there to fix deficiencies. It does the tracking, importing, markups of pictures and document viewing well and fulfills our needs.

Incentivized

• 12d Synergy has solved our multiple office syncing issues, adding the ability to have staff from remote offices collaborate together on projects.
• Email saving used to be a nightmare, however, staff finds 12d Synergy's email saving easy to use and are able to search for saved emails quickly.

• Positively we use for all safety items, so its potential to save money is really something cannot be quantified. It has helped document trends, big items leading trends and odd ball cases which overall helps perfecting process to eliminate those trends and save time.
• Negative impact is we need to pay for another program to handle budget, submittals and bidding so we are paying for two systems and paying for all employees to learn each system and possible make errors since there are differences in the systems.

Incentivized