collaborate

Learning to Share with AutoCAD WS

One of the things we were most proud of when we launched AutoCAD WS was that the functionality we had included in the app might herald a new era of collaboration and sharing among CAD users. Until the arrival of AutoCAD WS, if you wanted to show your work to others, you had a number of options:

  • You could send the original file to people and then try to manage the different versions you got back with different markups.
  • You could save your drawing to another format, like PDF, and email that.
  • You could print out your drawing and deliver it via bicycle messenger.
  • Or, for a truly read-only experience, you could invite people to come and look at your computer screen!

AutoCAD WS is a great leap forward enabling you to share your work with anyone with an email address and a web browser.

But for many people, sharing is as much a matter of temperament as it is functionality. One customer of ours who works in construction told me that he loves the share functionality, but that no architect has ever let him see a soft copy of the plans. Not everyone wants to share.

For those of you having difficulty letting go, here is a recap of the permission types that are available in both the web and the mobile versions of AutoCAD WS.

Permissions

There are two types of permissions:

  • Edit
  • Download

This means there are four different combinations of permissions:

  • Edit and Download – Users can edit the drawing using AutoCAD WS and download it to work on it offline.
  • Edit but not Download – Users can edit the drawing online using AutoCAD WS but they cannot download the file from within the app.
  • Download but not Edit – Users cannot edit existing objects with AutoCAD WS. They can only add to and mark up the drawing. In addition, the drawing may be downloaded (including additions and markups) and edited offline.
  • Not Edit and not Download – Users cannot edit existing objects with AutoCAD WS. They can only add to and mark up the drawing. Users cannot download the drawing

Sharing

I hope this will give you the confidence you need to start sharing your work with others. It’s a great way to mark design milestones with clients and colleagues and it will help you collect feedback and achieve consensus.

Tell us about the last project you shared with AutoCAD WS either in the comments or on our Facebook page.

5 Ways AutoCAD WS Helps Improve Your Productivity

Let us never forget that AutoCAD WS is more than just a web and mobile app version of your favorite CAD software package. AutoCAD WS is also a key weapon in the battle for optimum personal productivity. So just to remind you here are five great ways that AutoCAD WS can save you time as you go about your every day work.

1. No more transporting files via disk on key

Once you upload your files to AutoCAD WS you can access them from any web browser anywhere in the world. If you have synched them on your smartphone or tablet, you can even view them in places where there is no internet connection.

2. No more transporting bulky printouts when you’re in the field

We have already heard from many users how AutoCAD WS has revolutionized their business trips. They are happier visiting a site with an iPad or Android tablet rather than trying to weigh down a set of paper plans with a couple of rocks.

3. No more version management headaches

With The AutoCAD WS Timeline you can revisit previous versions of your design and keep track of when comments were made and suggestions were implemented.

4. Reduce conference call nightmares

Next time you’re having a meeting with a remote office, share the designs in question with them first. Then during the call, you can see each other’s cursors as you navigate through the drawing and highlight the discussion points. You can also make AutoCAD WS the center of your presentation and we wrote about setting that up here.

5. Prevent work duplication when you come back from a site visit

Before AutoCAD WS, any notes that you took when you were out in the field would have to be painstakingly added to your design back in the office. Now when you make notes using AutoCAD WS, they are automatically synched with the original file so that you only have to do the work once.

I’m sure there are a whole set of additional advantages that you can come with to explain why AutoCAD WS works for you. Tell us about them in the comments here or on the Facebook page.

5 Tips for the AutoCAD WS Mobile App

We hope you enjoy these five tips for getting the most out of the AutoCAD WS mobile app. If you have a tip you would like to share with other users let us know and we’ll include it in a future blog post.

1. Share as Read Only

When you share a file, you can set the permissions so that the file can’t be edited or downloaded. This read-only version of the file is a working alternative to saving your work as a PDF and sending it as an attachment in an email.

2. Sync Changes to AutoCAD

After you have been working on a drawing in the field you can sync it back to your desktop by downloading it through the web app or the online tab in AutoCAD. You can even share the file from your mobile app and then download the DWG from the email you receive.

3. Offline indication

Every file in your online account that has been saved locally on your mobile device carries a time stamp indicating the last time it was synced. This time stamp will let you know that your file is available offline.

4. Introduce a Friend to AutoCAD WS

If you want your friends and colleagues to enjoy the benefits of the AutoCAD WS mobile app, simply share a file with them. They will receive an email notification that the file is shared with them and an invitation to download the mobile app. Once they download and install the app the shared file will already be in their online account.

5. Editing Text

To edit text in your drawing, simply select an object and select the Edit Text icon from the toolbar. You may need to scroll the toolbar to find the icon.

Please note that only text objects are currently supported, not Mtext objects.

Collaboration in AutoCAD WS

When I first came across this post, I could tell that the author, Alex Lyapin, had put a great deal of effort into it. It was only after I had it translated from the original Russian that I realized just how useful it could be to other AutoCAD WS users. So I wrote to Alex and asked for his permission to translate and reprint his article for this blog.

Alex is a structural engineer from Kharkov in Ukraine. He works for a company that designs high-rise buildings and he specializes in reinforced concrete. Alex told me, “I have always been interested in any kind of innovations in the sphere of structural design. That is why I decided to use Autocad WS to simplify communications between client and engineer.”

Thanks Alex!

This is the translation of Alex’s post.

Collaboration in AutoCAD WS

I have started using a very handy tool for collaborative viewing and editing of drawings from the developers of AutoCAD. In this post I will write about real-time interaction between the designer and the customer, and how the customer can leave  comments for the engineer without installing any special software his computer. I wrote previously about Project Butterfly. Now that Project Butterfly has been released as AutoCAD WS (www.autocadws.com), there have been a lot of interesting tweaks and features that will be of interest to professional users of AutoCAD.

I’ll talk about how to consult with the “designer-client”  in real time. All you need is for the engineer and the customer to be connected to the internet which shouldn’t be too difficult :-)

Upload and Open

The engineer needs to go to his profile on the website, upload the file and open it for editing

View and edit DWG files online

Share Drawing

Select the Share tab and click on the Share button. It opens a dialog box where you enter the email addresses of your colleagues or clients to share the file with them.

Enter an email address to share the file

Setting Permissions

Don’t be in a rush to press the green Share button on the bottom right of the dialog box. First you want to set the permissions for the drawing you are sharing. There are two types of permission to consider:

  • EDIT – This allows the people you share the file with to make changes – adjust the size, remove lines, etc. I usually allow the people I share files with to edit them.
  • DOWNLOAD – This allows the people you’re sharing with to download and save this file onto their own computers and work on it offline.

Set permissions

Once you have selected the appropriate permissions click the Apply and Close button. Now, when you click Share, the service automatically sends an invitation to the addresses you chose, to view (and edit) the drawing.

Working Together

Your colleague or client will receive an email invitation with a link to the drawing inside:

Email invitation

Clicking the link will open the AutoCAD WS app in his browser, where he will sees the open file. He will also see two cursors, one for him and one for you, displayed in different colors with a name identifying each one. Now the engineer and the customer can make and see changes simultaneously in real time.

Collaborating with colored cursors

Now, you can use phone, Skype or chat to discuss the project at the same time that you are both looking at it in your browser, creating the effect of discussion in the office or in person.

Meeting Summary

Now the fun part! After you have finished working together on the drawing and closed the browser you will receive an email with a link to a Meeting Summary. Clicking that link at any time will take you back to the application and show you each step and every change that you performed. This is great if you forget one of the points you discussed (of even if you weren’t paying attention!).

Meeting summary

On the bottom right you can see two notes: the number of changes in green and a description of each change in red.

Thanks again, Alex. Great post. If you want to write something, in any language, and be featured as a guest poster on this blog, drop us a line at feedback@autocadws.com.

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