Autodesk BIM 360 is a suite of cloud-based products that can be used during design, pre-construction, construction, commissioning, and handover. BIM 360 is Autodesk’s response to the problem of collaboration among project stakeholders from multiple companies or sites. It is not a single product but an Autodesk registered brand and the collective term used for all BIM 360 products. They cover a lot of different topics and different ranges of the project time frame. They cover topics like design authoring, collaboration, clash detection, coordination, quality/safety, progress tracking, maintenance.
Nowadays, more and more firms utilizes cloud and mobile tools in their workflows. Collaboration has become a buzz-word in the AEC industry. Collaboration means: a better end product, a project completed on time and within budget, less effort and money spent on avoiding risk, clashes and conflicts resolved before construction begins, reduced RFIs. The basic requirement of a good collaboration is to have a single source of truth.
© Autodesk University
Traditional models are no more suitable. Today, project stakeholders usually aren’t working in the same building on the same server but they are located in different places and around the globe. Traditional approach is file centric, which means you’re working in a desktop application, then you send a file to somebody (using email or file-sharing service) and then you go back and forth with different updates. Often people works in different software and software versions. The new approach is project centric, which means that everybody has almost anytime, anywhere access to a single source of project truth. Using cloud-based tools everybody is always working on the same version and on the current project files. You can share content and track what’s happening. There is more visibility and accountability in terms of who is doing what and who made what change.
BIM 360 is Autodesk’s response to the problem of collaboration among project stakeholders from multiple companies or sites. It connects project teams and data in real-time, from design through construction, supporting informed decision-making and leading to more predictable and profitable outcomes. At the beginning, BIM 360 included only two tools: BIM 360 Field and BIM 360 Glue, and both were used as construction tools. Autodesk replaced them with BIM 360 Coordinate and BIM 360 Build, but BIM 360 Field and BIM 360 Glue are still used as classic versions.
In January of 2015, Autodesk released A360 Collaboration for Revit (C4R), a product that enables project teams to share Revit models in the cloud. It can be used in conjunction with BIM 360 Team as the collaboration platform for the project; and in conjunction with BIM 360 Glue for coordination and design review during the construction document phase. On April 9, 2018, Autodesk discontinued BIM 360 Team and A360 Collaboration for Revit, replacing them with BIM 360 Design, which includes Revit Cloud Collaboration. You can still use BIM 360 Team and A360 Collaboration for Revit in Revit 2018.1 and prior. In Revit 2018.2 you can choose to use either BIM 360 Team and A360 Collaboration for Revit or BIM 360 Design. In Revit 2018.3 or later, you can only use BIM 360 Design. So after installing Revit 2019 and up, there is no going back to Collaboration for Revit.
On January 31, 2019, Autodesk discontinued Buzzsaw service and replaced it by BIM 360 Docs, a project document management tool.
Currently, there are four major products included in BIM 360 platform:
- BIM 360 Docs
- BIM 360 Design
- BIM 360 Coordinate (formerly BIM 360 Glue)
- BIM 360 Build (formerly BIM 360 Field)
There are also:
- BIM 360 Team (renewal only)
- BIM 360 Layout
- BIM 360 Plan
- BIM 360 Ops (formerly BIM 360 Building Ops)
BIM 360 includes the following apps:
- BIM 360 app (for iPhone/iPad and Android)
- BIM 360 Field app (for iPhone/iPad)
- BIM 360 Glue app (for iPad)
- BIM 360 Plan app (for iPad)
- BIM 360 Layout app (for iPad and Android)
- BIM 360 Team app (for iPhone/iPad and Android)
- BIM 360 Ops app (for iPhone/iPad)
- Desktop Connector for BIM 360
© Excitech
In 2018, Autodesk acquired PlanGrid. PlanGrid enables architects and contractors to collaborate from their desktop or mobile devices and share blueprints, specs, photos, RFIs, field reports, punchlists and other information.
