Item: Autodesk BIM Collaborate Pro
Rating: 8
Author: Verified User

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

At our company BIM 360 Document Management is being used for three primary functions:

Contract Documents - This is the location where subcontractors go to get the posted set of RFIs that have been vetted by our team and are to be proceeded on. This is how we manage the information that subcontractors should see vs. not see.
Reference Documents - Any additional as-builts, misc. documents or things we want to share with the subs, no more Engyte/Dropbox needed.
BIM information - Turns out BIM 360 Docs is great for the work-sharing of Revit files. AutoCAD does not seem to be stable especially with Xrefs. Cant wait to see this get consolidated with the GLUE file platform.

Pros and Cons

Provide access to updated contract drawings on the iPad and desktop applications.
BIM collaboration with Revit files.
Drawings load very fast.

CAD file collaboration is unstable.
Can not search the text of drawings or specs to find words. This is a huge deal breaker.
Cannot zoom in all the way on the drawing to see details blown up.

Return on Investment

Build it right, once.
Allow guys in the field easy access to updated info.
Always have the posted RFIs.

Integration with glue and field is the primary reason why Docs is better than PlanGrid. I would like for them to remove those silos however and have it under one platform. Unfortunately, it seems like Autodesk swallows up all the small companies so you are more likely to have more integrations when selecting the Autodesk platform. Also, the admin platform is much better than older Autodesk software.

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.

Key Insights

Do you think Autodesk BIM Collaborate Pro delivers good value for the price?

Not sure

Are you happy with Autodesk BIM Collaborate Pro's feature set?

Did Autodesk BIM Collaborate Pro live up to sales and marketing promises?

Yes

Did implementation of Autodesk BIM Collaborate Pro go as expected?

Yes

Would you buy Autodesk BIM Collaborate Pro again?

Yes

Other Software Used

Navisworks, Revit, Adobe Photoshop

Likelihood to Recommend

Bim360 is well suited for hosting drawings and sharing normal sized files with people. Most subcontractors are now using PlanGrid and other software which do not contain the "posted set" so they do not have all the RFIs they are supposed to proceed on unless they open docs and match the posted that the GC has done on docs. This results in them always chasing/updating the posting set, falling behind, and building old work.

Good at what it does, but lacks some features

Overall Satisfaction with Bim360