Backing Up A360 Collaboration for Revit Models

Backup is always a critical step in protecting your data.  Since A360 Collaboration for Revit is a cloud service, you may need to adjust your backup procedures appropriately.

Please note that at the time of writing, Autodesk does not have an automated process for generating local copies of the models.  If you want to make offline backups or record copies on a regular basis, you’ll need to schedule a manual offsite backup.

Model Versioning

Each time any user does a Sync to Central, A360 Collaboration for Revit will take a snapshot.  This is accessible using the “Manage A360 Models” button in the Collaborate tab:

This shows you a list of all the projects to which you have access.

Select your project, and you will get a list of cloud-enabled models.  Please note you will not see other data, such as Word documents or non-cloud enabled models.  

When you click on the icon that resembles a floppy drive, you will have an option to View Versions.

Each of these Versions refers to an instance of Sync to Central.

On the far right column, we see Actions.  If you click on the clock icon, you can roll back to a previous STC.  You should exercise caution whenever rolling back to an earlier version.  ALL NEWER VERSIONS WILL BE DELETED WHEN YOU ROLL BACK.  In addition, anyone currently working on that model will lose their work, and any changes will be orphaned.

To reiterate, all these versions are stored on the same cloud services as your model.

Publishing Models

A second step here is to Publish the model, which makes it available to the Web and Mobile versions of A360.  If a model is already uploaded, in the Manage list you’ll see a green checkmark next to the Actions icon:

If it is not yet published, the icon will be blue with an arrow pointing up.

In addition to making the latest changes visible to the Web and Mobile users, it also means that you can download the latest published versions from the Web.  If you download more than one file at once, it will create a ZIP file containing the models.

You may notice that under “Type,” it will say “Cloud Revit Model.”  These are the versions that are enabled for use with Collaboration for Revit.

When you open the model, it should act like any other local Revit model.  You should also have the option to re-enable it for collaboration, by clicking the “Collaborate on A360” button in the Collaborate tab.

If you are still having trouble, contact Microsol Resources via email at support@microsolresources.com or by phone at 888-768-7568.