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Project teams are now able to overcome the barriers of corporate firewalls and physical location by enabling centralised access to Revit. Now, instead of having to use FTP sites to share models and software or resort to other workarounds to collaborate, team members in all disciplines, from multiple firms or sites worldwide, can access and work on models hosted in the cloud. A360 Collaboration for Revit provides significant benefits that are amplified for global building project teams.

It's not only globally dispersed project teams that will benefit from centralised access to project data, as project members within a firm working on a single project will also find efficiency savings. According to one early adopter of the software, Leo Gonzales, BIM manager at the US-based Newman Architects, "Collaboration for Revit provides us with greater flexibility. If they're on the road, at a job site, or just working from home, our users can access their Revit projects as if they're sitting in one of our offices."

The New Haven, Connecticut and Washington DC based architectural and planning firm's portfolio spans historic building renovations through to mixed use urban planning, with a particular focus on public projects, such as schools, libraries and sports facilities. Autodesk Revit is their primary design tool, with around 20 users.

The two offices were originally connected using a Virtual Private Network, with designers using the 'work sharing' features of Revit to enable multiple team members to work at the same time on a shared, master building model, known as the Revit central file. As the model grew, the time it took to open, synchronise and save work to the central file over VPN became excessive.

Initially the firm checked out faster network appliances to speed up data flow across WANs, but found that they were expensive and would require ongoing investment. Other workarounds were suggested, including establishing a VPN connection between the design firms and a virtual desktop for Revit software. This required additional hardware, more powerful graphics cards, increased bandwidth and extra software licences/subscriptions for the firm hosting the Revit central file.

Jeff Cap, director of IT at Newman Architects, comments: "Beyond the access and security risks caused by such an arrangement, the host company would have to shoulder a significant IT burden, in terms of cost and support."

The firm need a scalable solution that would not pose an unacceptable load on its own IT resources and that would satisfy the financial constraints of management. That solution was A360 Collaboration for Revit, which it started using as soon as it was available in 2014. The immediate reaction to the software was amazing. "Our jaws dropped when we first tested the service," states Gonzales. "We could open or save our work to a Revit central file in the cloud in virtually the same amount of time as it does on our local area network."

This was confirmed by Cap, who says: "Partners and consultants can now access Revit projects as if they're sitting in our office, but without the risk of accessing our internal network and without the cost of additional hardware or Revit software licences."

He expands on that further. "External team members and project contributors who do not use or have access to Revit software can view, search and socially interact on models, discuss challenges and successes, and stay current with project activities. This is ideal for building owners or others who want to have visibility to the project status, but don't need full access."

A360 Collaboration for Revit has other benefits, including the reduced need for in-person meetings or colocation of teams, helping companies to lower travel expenses and providing a better work-life balance for project team members. Physical distribution of teams enabled by Collaboration for Revit can also relieve the requirement for office space for all project team members.

Finally, with location no longer a limiting factor, project leaders have more options for accessing people with the right skill set for a project, resulting in better allocation of team resources.

A principal feature of the cloud-based software is Communicator for Revit, a chat tool that enables project team members to communicate directly with each other, in real-time, within the project models. It means a designer in any location can chat with other team members and attach files, images or Revit screen captures. Teams may not be sitting together, but they're connected better than ever before. Using real-time chat within project models helps designers not only to stay in touch, but also to know instantaneously who is working in the model and what they are doing.

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