Tuesday, November 02, 2010

Workflow Using Revit Server with Project Bluestreak Desktop App and the Revit Activity Stream App

So much of this technology is so new I've been left trying to figure out how it all works together. Well, I think I finally have a clearer picture. Here is how I see the whole scenario playing out between the latest releases from Autodesk consisting of Revit Server, Project Bluestreak Desktop App and the Revit Activity Stream App. Plenty of people have blogged about how to setup Revit Server and connect to Revit Server, etc. but what I've been wanting to see is a workflow showing these 3 tools work together. Here goes the following where a designer goes to work on a model that has been setup by his BIM Administrator:
Assumptions
After opening Revit, go to the Collaborate tab and expand the Synchronize panel, then click "Connect to Revit Server".
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Enter your Revit Server Name or the IP address of your Revit Server.
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Now that you are connected to a server, Go to the purple R (Revit application menu) and choose open, then click the shortcut on the left hand side called Revit Server. Browse to where your project lives in the Revit Server environment and open it with the option selected to create a new local file.
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As the designer works, they might get a request to STC and relinquish all borrowed elements. They will go to Sync w/ Central box as before, only now the directory path and browse button will be grayed out (a result of opening a model from Revit Server). The only thing to do now is click OK.
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If this is the first time the designer has worked on the file, they will get the following box to appear. They have several options here. If the BIM Administrator has already created a group, the designer can select it from the list. If no group has been created the designer has the option to create one. Or they can choose not now or specify they do not have access to the group. If you choose one of the first 2 options the model will become associated with the group for future saves and this box will not appear. AUTO-MAGIC!
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Once you choose an option and click OK on the above shown box, you will get a pop-up in the bottom right corner of your screen like this.
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Followed by a confirmation showing the process is done and what happened.
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Provided others are part of this group, they will see the same notifications. Also, now you will start to see where the add-in "Manage Sharing" comes into play.
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Clicking the button shown in the prior image will take you to your bluestreak account page and now you will see a new tab appear for managing what Revit projects you are receiving notifications for.
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Hopefully this will give you a better idea of what to expect when getting this process started.

2 comments:

Unknown said...

This is good information. You should post this information to the Revit Server Wiki site as well.

Jeff Hanson
SME
Autodesk

Steve Bennett said...

Thanks for the suggestion Jeff! My blog post has been authored and posted live to the Wiki!

http://wikihelp.autodesk.com/Revit/enu/2011/Help/Revit_Server/Large_Team_Workflow/Worksharing_workflow_with_Revit_Server