4 New BIM 360 Features that Help Save Time and Automate Project Set Up

Let's face it, setting up a collaboration platform for a new construction project that involves multiple companies and variable access levels can be tedious and time consuming. It is not the most glamorous task, but getting it right from the start sets the whole project up for a more streamlined operation once its up and running. So how can we take this laborious project set up task and simplify it? 

With the 4 recent releases to our BIM 360 project setup workflow, project admins can spend less time on backend administrative setup and more time executing a successful project!

Configurable Roles

The ability to configure roles was the first of the four new features released and allows Admins to configure permission settings to the BIM 360 modules. This means that rather than being stuck with whatever preset permission settings are given, users can customize the settings for any of the roles to better fit their needs.

For example, if you wanted to give every BIM Manager on your project access to the Model Coordination and Document Management module but not the Project Management Module, you could define this in your settings so that anyone marked as a BIM Manager had those same access levels. 

Configurable roles is just the beginning of creating a more flexible admin function. 

Custom Roles

To take role settings a step further, custom roles allows users to create their own unique roles outside of the 36 predefined roles that are standardized within BIM 360. Why is this great? It means that you can create your own naming for roles that may be tailored specifically to your company and then adjust permission levels for each role as well. At its core, this is an account level setting that is set to improve standardization across a companies whole organization, ensuring that role naming is consistent and recognizable. 

Let’s say you work with specialty subconsultants like a Landscape Architect that you want to add in as its own role separate from the Designer or Subcontractor role. Or if you are working on a complex project that breaks down roles on a more granular level. With the new custom roles feature, users can create the role structure that works best for their specific needs.

“We want to serve up information in a way that is as concise as possible and gives users visibility into the information that is relevant to them,” said Andy Leek, VP of Technology and Innovation at PARIC Corporation. 

“Custom roles allow us to expand our standard roles and simplify access across the entire company, this makes project set up much faster. By using custom roles we’re continuing to increase our efficiencies on every project.”

Andy Leek, VP of Technology and Innovation, PARIC Corporation

Document View Only & Permission Experience

Not everyone on a project needs access to edit files. In fact, having a “view only” setting can be critical to protecting intellectual property and maintaining security. With the new permission level of “view only” users are now able to ensure that the right information is in the right hands. 

This means that you can add someone to the project, whether it is an owner's rep or a subconsultant, and give them permission to view files within a folder but not be able to download or edit. This is critical if you wanted to share project files or design documents for some level of external review but don’t want to risk losing key information. 

In addition to the “view only” setting, users can also maintain document control by viewing the file activity log. This log shows who has viewed, downloaded, or changed a document making sure you are always up to date on the status of a particular document.

Finally, with the release of the “view only” status, we also completely redesigned the user experience for managing folder permissions.  This design provides greater visibility and control over permissions settings including enhanced capabilities to view folder contents when assigning permissions, view individual users permissions via role or company settings, as well as filter, sort and search to find the permission level you are looking for. 

Project Templates

Last but certainly not least is the release of project templates and the ability to copy project settings from a previous project to a new one. Prior to this release, teams could use a project template to start a new project, however in order to maintain permission setting for various folders, users would need to go back and do all of this on a case by case basis. 

With this release users can now create a template and maintain permissions for various workflows including:

• Folder structures and role permissions within the Document Management Module
• Issue settings including issue types, root causes, custom attributes, and role based permissions
• Cost Management settings including budget code templates, custom attributes, document templates, financial markup formulas and other module-specific settings

These updates were highly requested from users and it is easy to see why! Here are a few key benefits that the new easy project setup tools will bring: 

• Time Savings - As we already mentioned, setting up a new project from scratch can take a lot of time, especially when you need to manually create permission settings for each user and reprogram workflows you’ve already created. With this release users can automate project set up by carrying over all of the permissions and workflow setting they established in previous projects. 
• Maintains Control - When it comes to project information, security is key and teams can’t afford to use tools that put information at risk. With enhanced permission settings and ability to customize roles based on your specific needs, users can easily ensure the right people have the right information. 
• Enhanced Flexibility - Not one size fits all when it comes to setting up a project. With the new features in BIM 360, teams can customize roles, permission levels, and workflows to meet their personalized needs. 
• Simplifies Onboarding - Setting up a project is the first step, but as new team members are added to projects, it can be daunting to onboard them with the right access levels. By creating custom roles from the start, adding members to the project is as easy as assigning them their appropriate role level and knowing that everything downstream will carryover. 

We are thrilled to continue improving our project set up capabilities and are always happy when new features save time and automate workflows. Because at the end of the day, our goal is to help construction teams work smarter and faster!