Likelihood to Recommend 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.
Read full review For drawing plumbing where you are usually not needing any kind of taps it does really well. Once you become familiar with it, you can draw underground really quickly. Their water closet carrier families are great! Being able to draw a restroom skid with such a high level of detail is a definite plus. Also, being able to create point files easily since their hangers, floor drains, and cleanouts have the points embedded in them. For a small BIM department I think Trimble SysQue is a good option. They manage the database and you can send a request in for more content if it is needed. For larger BIM departments or people that are doing cloud spooling with Stratus or MSuite it becomes more problematic especially on the mechanical side with needing to use taps and the functionality of them being less than stellar. Larger BIM departments are usually able to have a person manage their database internally and that helps keep the content parameters consistent. Most MEP Fabrication content that I have used does very well with taps and the piping is able to be run quickly and does not need to be processed.
Read full review Pros 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. Read full review It allows Contractors to use Revit with Spooling functions. The database of millions of native Revit Families. Excellent support from Trimble. Read full review Cons 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. Read full review The ability to erase points that have been written to a TFL file would be a great addition. Fitting to fitting placement can act up from time to time. I think that the spooling can continue to improve. Read full review Support Rating 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
Read full review Alternatives Considered 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.
Read full review Benchmark Fabrication MEP
Read full review Return on Investment 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. Read full review It has allowed us to produce high level detailed models It gives us the ability to produce point files that aid in a speedier layout process for the field. Read full review ScreenShots