With the current public health crisis at hand (COVID-19) and the necessity to work from home, Autodesk is offering a free 60 day (extended) trial of the BIM 360 Design/Docs cloud based service. If a company would like to take advantage of the BIM 360 Design trial there are some best practices that need to be established PRIOR to requesting access to it and establishing a trial hub. We have learned some lessons in the past with clients that have not communicated with their teammates when establishing these trials and some of the consequences have been loss of work or access to projects. The following are two scenarios addressing the best practices in activating and using a trial subscription to BIM 360 Design/Docs. Once your team has completed these steps they will have 60 days of free access to projects on the BIM 360 cloud. Each user will need to log into their Autodesk software with their Autodesk login credentials in order to a upload and sync to models hosted on the cloud. Click here, to request a free trial of the BIM 360 Design/Docs cloud service.
* Please note, at this time 3/24/20, if a user has activated a BIM 360 Trial previously and it is expired, the user will not be able to re-establish a trial with the same Autodesk user ID (email). They will need to create a new Autodesk account ID to gain access to this extended trial offer of BIM 360 Design/Docs. Setting up a new Autodesk account will cause an access issue to the Autodesk software that is assigned to their current Autodesk ID (email).
Step A: Establishing a Company BIM 360 Hub, Account Admin and Projects
> If a company does not currently have an active BIM 360 Design subscription/hub and would like to establish one, they will need to have an internal discussion to determine who will set up and manage (Account Admin) their primary, trial company hub.
> The person determined to set up and manage the primary, trial company hub will need to remain as the Account Admin of this hub and understand the company’s protocol for establishing the projects, folder structure and team roles/permissions for members invited to the projects.
> This BIM 360 Account Admin would be the first person to request and activate a trial hub to represent their company’s official trial hub with an accurate company hub name (hint: don’t use special characters) and where ALL company projects will be located. See images below for website references.
FIGURE 1
FIGURE 2
> The Account Admin will receive an email from Autodesk with a link to activate their own BIM 360 Design/Docs trial hub. They MUST activate this hub to start the company’s primary, trial subscription to BIM 360. Note that the e-mail is sent from BIM360.ent.no-reply@autodesk.com and this email may go into a spam or junk mail folder depending on how their company emails are screened.
FIGURE 3
> Once this Account Admin establishes the primary, trial company BIM 360 hub they will need to set up at least a test project with the correct project folder structure within the Document Management folder. LINK
**3/24/20 – Autodesk has stated that once the above process has taken place the below steps (B & C), Inviting Project Admins and Project Team Members to a new BIM 360 hub started during the extended trial period, will not require these individuals to sign up for their own BIM 360 Trial. If you experience difficulty adding members to the newly established BIM 360 Design/Docs hub then please follow the steps B and C that follow.
“If my company is new to BIM 360 Design, does everyone need to sign up separately for this program?”
“No, have one person sign up for the program which will create your account site. Once the site is created, that person can create a project and enable the Design Collaboration module (Project Admin > Services > Overview) and invite others to the project. When the account owner invites others to a project (within BIM 360), their User IDs will be automatically be added to the program trial.”
Step B: Inviting Project Admins to a BIM 360 Project
> With at least one test project set up in this primary, trial hub the Account Admin will invite additional Project Admin members to this hub and a project along with their assigned roles/permissions. LINK
> The Project Admin members participating in the primary, trial company BIM 360 hub/project will EACH need to request a trial of BIM 360 Design using their current Autodesk ID (typically a company email). When they fill out the trial request form they will be required to insert a company name, they should use their own name as a company name and not the company that employs them. See Figure 1 & 2
> Each Project Admin will receive an email from Autodesk with a link to activate their own BIM 360 Design/Docs trial hub. They MUST activate their own hub to start their trial subscription to BIM 360. Note that the e-mail is sent from BIM360.ent.no-reply@autodesk.com and this email may go into a spam or junk mail folder depending on how their company emails are screened. See Figure 3
> Once each Project Admin has an activated their BIM 360 hub they should NOT use their own hub for any of the company projects.
> Each Project Admin that was invited to the company’s primary, trial hub/project will also need to accept the email invite they received via Autodesk for the project. Note that the email is sent from BIM360.ent.no-reply@autodesk.com and this email may go into a spam or junk mail folder depending on how their company emails are screened.
Step C: Inviting Project Team Members to a BIM 360 Project
> Either the Account Admin or a Project Admin will invite additional Project Team Members to a BIM 360 Design project (test or otherwise) on the company’s primary, trial hub along with their assigned roles/permissions.
> The Project Team Members participating in the primary, trial company BIM 360 hub/project will EACH need to request a trial of BIM 360 Design using their current Autodesk ID (typically a company email). When they fill out the trial request form they will be required to insert a company name, they should use their own name as a company name and not the company that employs them. See Figure 1 & 2
> Each Project Team Member will receive an email from Autodesk with a link to activate their own BIM 360 Design/Docs trial hub. They MUST activate their own hub to start their trial subscription to BIM 360. Note that the e-mail is sent from BIM360.ent.no-reply@autodesk.com and this email may go into a spam or junk mail folder depending on how their company emails are screened. See Figure 3
> Once each Project Team Member has an activated their BIM 360 hub they should NOT use their own hub for any of the company projects.
> Each Project Team Member that was invited to the company’s primary, trial hub/project will also need to accept the email invite they received via Autodesk for the project. Note that the e-mail is sent from BIM360.ent.no-reply@autodesk.com and this email may go into a spam or junk mail folder depending on how their company emails are screened.
Step A: Inviting Project Admins to a BIM 360 Project
> With at least one test project set up in a company BIM hub the Account Admin will invite additional Project Admin members to this hub and a project along with their assigned roles/permissions.
> If a Project Admin member does not have a BIM 360 Design/Docs paid subscription they will EACH need to request a trial of BIM 360 Design using their current Autodesk ID (typically a company email). When they fill out the trial request form they will be required to insert a company name, they should use their own name as a company name and not the company that employs them. See Figure 1 & 2
> Each Project Admin will receive an email from Autodesk with a link to activate their own BIM 360 Design/Docs trial hub. They MUST activate their own hub to start their trial subscription to BIM 360. Note that the e-mail is sent from BIM360.ent.no-reply@autodesk.com and this email may go into a spam or junk mail folder depending on how their company emails are screened. See Figure 3
> Once each Project Admin has an activated their BIM 360 hub they should NOT use their own hub for any of the company projects.
> Each Project Admin that was invited to the company’s primary, trial hub/project will also need to accept the email invite they received via Autodesk for the project. Note that the e-mail is sent from BIM360.ent.no-reply@autodesk.com and this email may go into a spam or junk mail folder depending on how their company emails are screened.
Step B: Inviting Project Team Members to a BIM 360 Project
> Either the Account Admin or a Project Admin will invite additional Project Team Members to a BIM 360 Design project (test or otherwise) on the company’s primary, trial hub along with their assigned roles/permissions.
> If a Project Team Member does not have a BIM 360 Design/Docs paid subscription they will EACH need to request a trial of BIM 360 Design using their current Autodesk ID (typically a company email). When they fill out the trial request form they will be required to insert a company name, they should use their own name as a company name and not the company that employs them. See Figure 1 & 2
> Each Project Team Member will receive an email from Autodesk with a link to activate their own BIM 360 Design/Docs trial hub. They MUST activate their own hub to start their trial subscription to BIM 360. Note that the e-mail is sent from BIM360.ent.no-reply@autodesk.com and this email may go into a spam or junk mail folder depending on how their company emails are screened. See Figure 3
> Once each Project Team Member has an activated their BIM 360 hub they should NOT use their own hub for any of the company projects.
> Each Project Team Member that was invited to the company’s primary, trial hub/project will also need to accept the email invite they received via Autodesk for the project. Note that the e-mail is sent from BIM360.ent.no-reply@autodesk.com and this email may go into a spam or junk mail folder depending on how their company emails are screened.
Autodesk Extended Access Program (BIM 360 Design): Questions and Answers
Autodesk Community – Tips & Tricks for working remotely
Autodesk Account Management – Request a license to use software at home (multi-user license)
MG AEC Technology Partners – BIM 360-YouTube Playlist
Getting Started with BIM 360 Design