A Cohesive Front: The Power and Potential of Autodesk’s Unified Platform

In an effort to create a true project lifecycle platform for more collaborative delivery, Autodesk introduced its Unified Platform, a solution that offers significant improvements in user experience, features, integrations, and data management capabilities than individual solutions. It’s a true common data environment built to connect large quantities of data collected from a variety of sources and to handle collaboration across different stages of a project.  

Don’t mistake the Unified Platform for a simple upgrade. It’s a comprehensive solution on the Autodesk Construction Cloud (ACC) that merges the best of BIM 360, PlanGrid, and more into a unified architecture. This powerful platform offers advanced features, a clear roadmap for future innovation, and the ability to connect and streamline your account data.

Inside Integrations

The Unified Platform effectively combines the speed and user interface of PlanGrid with the workflows of BIM 360, providing an overall better experience with faster load times and an improved interface.

The solutions in the Unified Platform are all too familiar, including Autodesk Docs, Autodesk BIM Collaborate, and Autodesk BIM Collaborate Pro. Each of these products sits on a toolset foundation that includes Document Management, Insight, and Administration.

Here are a few capabilities in the Unified Platform. The reference network feature facilitates better tracking and management of project data, with the ability to link issues, RFIs, change orders, and schedule activities. While BIM 360 allows users to refer to plans and files, they cannot refer to RFI, Forms, or another workflow in that project. The Unified Platform allows references to most workflows.

In addition, the Issues tool in the Unified Platform is more extensive than BIM 360. Beyond just creating and managing issues, the platform lets users take snapshots, make markups, sketch, and redline.

The new platform has more comprehensive data analysis and reporting capabilities through the Insight Builder tool. This tool, currently in Beta, allows ‘authors’ to create customized dashboards and reports directly in ACC and easily share them with specified ‘readers’. It’s going to be a great tool for pulling insights from large quantities of data from a lot of sources.

The Issues tool in the Unified Platform is more extensive than BIM 360. Beyond just creating and managing issues, the platform lets users take snapshots, make markups, sketch, and redline.

The Transition

Since the Unified Platform builds on solutions such as PlanGrid and BIM 360, most end users, like Revit modelers, will not notice any change. The admin interface is a bit different, with a few more levels of permissions in the Unified Platform. For most, 30 minutes is plenty of time to make the transition. For those who haven’t used BIM 360 much, you might need a little longer to get up to speed.

It’s important to know that Autodesk does not have any near-term plans to sunset BIM 360, so the need to shift over is not urgent. That said, the value of this new platform is clear.  As your company is looking to migrate from BIM 360 to the Unified Platform to take advantage of the advanced capabilities, have a plan.

For instance, starting all new projects in the Unified Platform would be a good short-term transition step. Next, might be projects that are in the early stages. The long-term plan would be transferring closed projects.  If you would like help making data transitions, there is a tool purpose-built to ensure all data is moved. U.S. CAD, An ARKANCE Company experts are also available to support project data transfers.

With all successful technology transitions, training is essential. While most workflows will be very similar, there are changes to how to manage the hub and user interface that is worth reviewing and seeking guidance on. Highlighting the availability of tools, scripts, and migration assistance can make the transition as smooth as possible and offer guidance to end-users and administrators to get up to speed on the new platform.

For more information and to learn about training opportunities, please contact us.