How do you collaborate with multiple people in Solibri?

Ricardo

Hi all,

I made this topic because I am curious how other people work with Solibri if they need to collaborate with multiple people.

Example;
if we have a big BIM project, we could have 2 people at the office working on it every day. (work preparation).
When the construction starts, it is quite normal that at least 2 more people also use the BIM model. So that makes a total of 4 people using the model at the same time at a certain point.

Our experience is that Solibri doesn’t like it when multiple people are working in the same model at the same time. (Corrupted .smc files as a result) So that is why we now have a .smc model for every person…

When new IFC models are available, PDF’s are added to the .SMC etc, usually one person makes new copies of the .SMC file for the people at the construction site. This then has to be coordinated in some way.

To me, this is not efficient. I see that it can take a lot of time for colleagues, which could be better spent on something different.

Personally I wish to see that Solibri could collaborate with multiple people in a single .SMC.
(A single source of truth was one of the reasons for the BCF live connector to be made if I am correctly, so this could be in line with that statement.)

What is your opinion on this? How do you collaborate with multiple people?

I like to hear from you!

Thanks,

GTS

Hello, Ricardo,

First of all I think Solibri isn’t for construction - it’s more for design checking and control. After this step IFC goes to other software which is oriented to Construction site.
If you want to work with few people on the same project at the same project, I would suggest to make few SMC models for the different parts of project: divide your project by departments, sections or floors. For the visualization purpose would create one SMC with all IFC.

scorney

Hi Ricardo,

We used Autorun to federate our models and publish to a shared location (projectwise), we run this on a schedule so everyone has the latest information in the CDE.

Another option could be to use a cloud storage CDE such as Trimble Connect which cache’s the latest information to the project teams local. You could have the Solibri SMC and related IFC’s held in this area. Trimble connect gives you the option to download only or upload/down, or just upload. One user could control the settings in the SMC and upload, while all the other uses just open the SMC for checking.

Added to this you could use BIM collab to link the issues to and from all the local SMCs to manage the issues, as Solibri has a dynamic link.

And the same IFC’s could be linked to Trimble Connect Desktop / Web, so you can access the same IFC’s on site, plus TC has a dynamic link to BIM collab so the issues can be upload / downloaded from the same source.

Not sure about the comment re Solibri isn’t for construction…has lots of potential https://www.solibri.com/news/laing-orourke-making-digital-manufacturing-process-concrete

JeroenKoomen

@gts

That makes no sense at all. Why do you think there is something called Solibri Site.

@Juan What does Solibri think?

We use Solibri for construction and would love to see an option to work in a cloud like solution where you can collaborate in one smc!
(presented that In Barcelona long time ago…)

Ricardo

@GTS , I do think Solibri is also meant for construction. Just visualising models has already turned out to be very valuable for people who work at the construction sites. The next step is the information takeoffs and communication (bimcollab for internally or internally). (Even if it is simplified, it’s valuable for us).

@scorney thanks for your detailed information. That autorun option is definitely something I want to test. Trimble connect also sounds interesting, but we would need to take a look if that would be interesting for us to start using a second DMS.

Sander E

What is the future about this function? @Solibrians

david.welts

Hi all,

We are actively working on a solution that would allow multiple users to access the same file at the same time (without being “blocked”). This has been part of what our team has been focusing on for Solibri 10 version, however - since the version’s release has now been postponed, we will be looking into including some form of that feature in 2023.

Once we have more information to share about it, we will. But just to let you know that it is in our plans.