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
PDF Xchange Viewer and Editor
Score 9.7 out of 10
N/A
PDF Xchange Viewer and Editor is a pdf editing and conversion software offering from Tracker Software Products. It includes features such as create pdf and convert to pdf.
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.
If you'd like to switch from Adobe to a less expensive and more robust solution, you can choose PDF X Change. It does everything other expensive solutions do. We are using it to add some additional information on scanned PDF files and Sign them and it does it in a simple and easy way. You can use to combine multiple files into one, creating PDF from different resources.
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.
There have been a couple of instances where I struggled to locate a feature that I thought was missing. A quick reply from support staff usually help me find and understand the feature better.
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
It's easy to use, making it very efficient for us as we do not have to train additional people on how to use this software. It opens up documents quickly and saves quickly as well. Overall the usability is not an issue for us at all. It is also extremely easy to integrate it with other PDF programs.
Performance wise, PDF Xchange Viewer and Editor is flawless. It runs fast, and I haven't experienced any immediately crashing. The reports save quickly, and the document size is never an issue. It saves into a regular PDF, and we're able to open it on any other program or computer. All text boxes, features, and headers show up flawlessly on other programs.
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.
PDF Xchange hits a sweet spot for me and my users. It is powerful, includes a full suite of creation, markup, and management tools. It is very affordable.
Bluebeam is too much that isn't print and PDF related. It is EXPENSIVE ... more than $300 per person before almost mandatory additional training.
PDF Creator is good for PDF creation. It doesn't include markup and management tools.
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.
