Using A360 for team members in long distance locations

[tzframpton]

Hello AutoCAD and CAD manager world. I need some assistance and hopefully some real-world experience guys can help.

 

As an avid Revit user, the recent cloud-based subscription known as "Collaboration 4 Revit" (C4R hereafter) has been a great experience in allowing anybody from any location to access a project. It works surprisingly well and is a no-brainer for a small company like mine.

 

I need the same thing for AutoCAD as C4R does for Revit. I know there's A360 Drive, which I believe is good for single-user scenarios (unless I'm missing something). I do see there's A360 Project but I think that's more of an online-based, or app-based document repository (same as Box.com for instance). A360 Drive, I think, is what's connected to the File > Open dialog in AutoCAD. A360 in Revit is in fact the C4R portal which is fantastic since it has the feel of a local folder but actually is connected to the cloud-based service. Granted, there's always "local files" cached but you can't do anything unless C4R is logged in via an Autodesk account with the paid service.

 

And speaking of Box.com - I've tried this with some of my contractors and using identical drive mapping, etc, and it simply doesn't work. Even for the minimal "collaboration" we do, it still monkeys files up when Box Sync fails to synchronize, or someone's computer is offline, or other quirks.

 

I would like to know if anybody has - successfully I might add - used any type of A360 services for AutoCAD within a small team over long distances and found it working the way one would expect. I remember a short time at a previous company using ProjectWise and as much of a pain it was, it had some great benefits - like "checking in/out" files where you would never have conflicting file versions.

 

I have a small team of sub-contractors that I manage constantly and I need a better solution. Autodesk, in my opinion, has convoluted the A360 label so much I can't decipher what's what. My needs are not required to have any type of permission control as I personally know and trust my subs. I just need Box Sync / Dropbox type of services to be forfeited, like, right now, because it just doesn't work.

 

Thanks in advance for all suggestions or comments.

 

-TZ

[tzframpton]

Let me also add that what I'm not looking for is collaboration in a sense of insta-email, review, markup, etc. What I'm looking for is basically a cloud-based location of files where they are accessed locally between team members as if we all were in the same office local area network, where if you open a file already accessed it shows "Read Only", and if I jump office to office, meeting to meeting I can open/access all files as if I were still in the same network domain back at the office. This is essentially how C4R works.

 

Thanks.

[tzframpton]

Bump - anybody got anything at all? If not I will be calling my reseller and seeing what kind of information they have on it. Thanks again for any suggestions anybody has.

[RobDraw]

Let us know what you find out.

[tzframpton]

Will do Rob. My contract manager is tied up but will be calling me soon. I should know something today. A C4R-like service for AutoCAD would be most excellent.

[tzframpton]

CONFIRMED: A360 Drive is the only "A360 product" that's connected with AutoCAD. So all permissions for outside sources are limited to browser based A360 hub. So no, you cannot collaborate live within the A360 folder integrated in AutoCAD.

 

I'm sure this will change in time but until then it puts a damper on my needs.

 

-TZ

[zaphod]

is the "Autodesk vault" not an option?

 

 

http://www.autodesk.com/products/vault-family/features/all/gallery-view

 

 

we looked into it here, but the people here fear the word "change"

[tzframpton]

If I can use it as a live collaborative workflow from long distance offices, then yes - it may be "the" option. I'll forward onto my reseller and see what he thinks.

 

Thanks zaphod.