Introduction to Teamwork in ArchiCAD

Teamwork represents a breakthrough approach to collaborative project work. Teamwork is based on a client-server architecture and is designed to ensure maximum flexibility, speed and data safety to enable teams - even those spread out around the world - to collaborate on large projects.

The ability for several individuals and teams to collaborate effectively on a single project is a basic necessity of architectural work. From the beginning, ArchiCAD has met these needs of architects with such features as Hotlinked Modules and Teamwork.

Today, effective collaboration among project teams is more important than ever. Projects are growing in size, and teams are often geographically far-flung and separated by time zones. And the team of users itself will change over time as the project proceeds through different phases.

Teamwork for ArchiCAD is optimized to meet these changing needs, and specifically designed to meet the demands of a modern, multinational team. Breakthroughs in performance, data safety, and workflow enable your team to make the most of the efficiencies and coordination capabilities of the BIM model.

Teamwork Functions at a Glance

Table 1:

Function

Teamwork in ArchiCAD

Reserving Elements

Reserve any existing elements individually, by selection or criteria

Occurs any time, as needed

No reservation needed to create new element/data

Assign elements to any user

Reserving Other Project Data

Reserve as needed, at any time, by any authorized user

Releasing Elements

Released by the user at any time, as needed

Feedback on Reservation Status

Always up to date (if user is online)

Color-coding for at-a-glance feedback

Ownership Conflicts

Use “Request” function to signal need for data

Send & Receive

Download/upload involves only data that have been modified since last Send or Receive.

Team Communications

Use simple built-in messaging system in addition to Mark-Up

Project Management

See the BIMcloud/BIM Server User Guide.

Central registry of users defined for all projects on BIMcloud/BIM Server

Each user’s role can vary by project

Working Via Internet

Users access the BIMcloud/BIM Server from any remote computer via Internet

Working Offline

Local copy created automatically.

Local copy can be saved as “Travel pack” for transfer among several computers.