Autodesk BIM Collaborate Pro (formerly BIM360) is a construction software for project managers, site managers, and Building Information Modelling (BIM) managers. It is designed to connect the office and site components of construction, providing cloud-based access to plans and models.
$480
per user/per year
GCPay
Score 8.2 out of 10
Mid-Size Companies (51-1,000 employees)
GCPay simplifies the application for payment processes between general contractors and subcontractors by automating the payment application process. Create and exchange lien waivers, organize and collect compliance documents and improve subcontractor communication. Integrate directly with a construction ERP platform to save time and gets subs paid faster.
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.
Their customer service is top notch and as a whole I don't like customer service departments, but they listen to you and help you with your problem, this includes telephone service and email. Their email and telephone number is listed on every page of their website, unlike other companies that try and hide this information. They will train your company to use the system and your users, and the system can be used on any internet capable device such as computer, tablet, or phone. Subcontractors can fill out the invoice by percentage complete and/or actual dollar amounts, and they can easily upload photos or other documentation needed to complete the invoice. If you need to have document(s) notarized you can use your own service or GCPay has a service that will notarize the document(s) for you for a fee. Finally, you control the level of reviewers you want for your company and situation. We have some items that have 2 reviewers and others that only have 1 reviewer. Overall, we are very happy with this system and number of hours we save every week verses having to manually enter all of our subcontractor invoices
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.
When waivers have been completed by the subcontractor, but have not been reviewed by the GC yet, I wish the OW tag would stay up until the waiver was either reviewed and approved or rejected. (OW stands for outstanding waiver)
That the GC had the option to update the amount paid to the supplier. Right now if the unconditional lien waiver is received and is a different amount the only way to update this is sending GCPay an email. We don't do this and would love this as an option, so the tier vendor spreadsheet was accurate.
It's not very difficult to use for majority of all our users. We really like storing and managing all our project data in one location so users have only one option to access the requested information. Managing our architectural engineering projects with two workflows in one system is really a good asset
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
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.
The fact that your files are not on your servers. Anytime that the Autodesk servers go down you are down; it does not happen very often but when it does there is nothing you can do about it except wait.
Because of how BIM360 licensing is setup it does force you to manage the personnel on a project closer. This can at times be viewed as a negative but in the long run is positive because with better management comes better profit.
