Configuring Fabrication Configurations

When you manually add a Fabrication Configuration to your system yourself, it only works for the currently logged in user. In fact, you may have noticed this with your own configurations compared to the default ones Autodesk adds during installation. You can see the difference by the presence of a little Yellow Lock icon in the lower left of the Configuration’s image.

So when you use the Add Link option to add a configuration, it’ll only exist for you. If someone else logs into the computer, the configuration won’t be displayed for the new user. Autodesk’s on the other hand…will still be there.

The difference between these two ways Configurations work is based on how the configurations are “configured” in the Windows Registry. So let’s take a look by starting the Registry Editor.

The first thing to know, is that there’s two ways to start the Registry. Just running the REGEDIT command opens the editor and displays everything. The other way is to Run as Administrator. When just run, you’ll have read/write access to the HKEY_CURRENT_USER branch (‘Hive’ is the proper term) often abbreviated as HKCU. This is the branch where the User configurations are stored.

The Computer based Configurations (like Autodesk’s) are stored in the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE branch often abbreviated as HKLM. When you run REGEDIT normally, you’ll see the HKLM branch but it’s Read-Only. To write to the HKLM branch, you’ll need to launch REGEDIT with the Run as Administrator option. Your IT Department may restrict this from you so you may need to involve them if you want to implement Computer based Fabrication Configurations.

The other thing to note, is that when you Run as Administrator, the HKCU branch is there but the settings may be missing or different. This is because, the Registry Editor is technically running as another user and that branch is User specific. You can see the two branches I’ve referenced in the following image.


Converting Configurations to ‘Computer’ Based

While you can edit the Registry manually, the easiest way to convert your Fabrication Configurations to be Computer based (not User) is to run the Registry Editor normally (not as Administrator) and export the HKEY_CURRENT_USER settings. The settings are in the key…

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Autodesk\Fabrication <year>\Configuration

The <year> represents the version year of Autodesk Fabrication (CADmep, ESTmep, CAMduct, Remote Entry, etc.) or Revit. You can see that in the following image. If the Configuration key isn’t there, that means there’s no configurations “configured” for that version year. If a specific “year” isn’t listed, it means that version wasn’t installed.

Once you get to the Configuration Key, you can export it using the File -> Export option as shown here…

While you can Export a single configuration, I like to pick the Configuration Key and do them all. We can get rid of what we don’t want later. The main point to note when exporting is to change the Save as type: to the Win9x/NT4 Registration Files (*.reg) option. This will save the export in ASCII text which you can edit in Notepad.

Once you export to a file, you can right click on the file and select Edit to open in Notepad. The following image shows how it looks and is marked up what I’ve removed vs added/edited. Note I also edited the Registry Hive from HKEY_CURRENT_USER to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE.

Once you’ve edited the file and saved it, you’re almost ready to import it. It’s generally not advisable to have the same configuration with the same name and same path in both the HKCU and HKLM branches.

So first, you can run REGEDIT normally and rename the Configuration folder…or just delete it (if you’re comfortable doing so). Then close the Registry Editor and run it again but Run as Administrator. You can now Import the file you just edited to import those new Registry settings. The following image shows what both branches might look like…

Now, when you launch Fabrication (CADmep, CAMduct, ESTmep, etc.) you’ll see the little Yellow Lock icon on your configurations. Revit won’t show that little icon but it does honor the ‘User’ vs ‘Computer’ configurations.


A Word About Fabrication ‘Profiles’

One side effect of ‘Computer’ or machine based Fabrication Configurations shows up if you use Profiles in your Fabrication Configuration. It doesn’t apply to Revit but does CADmep, CAMduct and ESTmep. When you use Profiles with ‘User’ based Configurations, the last active profile will be the default when you launch the program again. With ‘Computer’ or machine based profiles, you’ll always default back to the Global profile.

However this is easily fixed. To start, let’s look at the ‘User’ based configurations under HKCU when a profile was used…

You’ll see there’s now an ActiveProfile value in the configuration that wasn’t there before. That’s how Fabrication knows which profile to load by default. But also remember, the HKLM branch of the registry is normally Read-Only. So this means those programs can’t create this value when you change profiles.

The solution to this, is making those registry keys Read-Write in the HKLM registry branch. You can do that by running REGEDIT as an administrator like before and navigating to the proper registry keys. From here, you can Right-Click on the Key’s name and select Permissions….

You can do this on a specific configuration or at the root Configuration key and the permissions will be inherited by the downstream keys. Once the Permissions dialog shows up, select the User permission group and select the Allow toggle for Full Control. Again, you may need your IT’s help if you don’t have permissions to do this.

This will now allow CADmep, CAMduct and ESTmep to save the last Fabrication Profile to the Registry in the HKLM branch so when you start the software the next time, it’ll be able to use the last Profile used.

One good side effect of changing these permissions…you’ll now also be able to import or create more Fabrication Configurations in HKLM in the future WITHOUT having to Run as Administrator as you’ll now have Read-Write permissions to those keys by default.

Make sure if you do these steps, to do them for all versions of Fabrication. You can even make entries for versions you don’t have installed so they work later if you install that version. So if you want to prepare for 2025 versions, you can copy/paste/edit those registry settings in the file you exported and rename them as 2025 (or older versions) all in the same file, Being proactive in this way will minimize future support downtime.

Autodesk Fabrication: Connector Matching – The Feature Nobody Knows About & Why You Should Use It.

Do you know what ‘Connector Matching’ is as it relates to Autodesk Fabrication? It’s been in the product since the 2020 release. Yet most people I run into have no clue what it is.

There’s a good reason for that. It’s hidden from view. That is to say, there’s a good reason you don’ know about it. There’s no good reason it’s hidden from you besides Autodesk is pretty slopping (lazy?) when it comes to product design in recent years.


What is Connector Matching?

Connector Matching only works in Revit w/Fabrication Parts. If you’re not using Revit, you need not worry about it but setting it up won’t cause any issues either. It’s designed to place a matching connector on pipe after you cut in a fitting when modeling in Revit. CADmep, ESTmep and CAMduct will simply ignore the settings.

As an example, if you’re drawing a welded piping system and want to break it with a Grooved coupling, Connector Matching places the proper grooved connector on the end of the pipe when the Coupling is placed. This helps us build a system with Welded Pipe Spools that’s assembled in the field with Grooved Couplings…a very common activity in mechanical construction.

When Connector Matching isn’t configured, you’ll have issues cutting in things like a Grooved Coupling into a Pipe that’s part of a welded system.


Configuring Connector Matching

The reason many don’t know about connector matching is because it’s hidden. None of the 3 views (Manufacturing, Costing & Drawing) display this option.

To set Connector Matching, you Right-Click on a connector that’s configured for the Item you need to match. In this case, it’s a Victaulic 77 Coupling.

You can see the Matching Connector is set to “Same” by default. That’s certainly not what we need so select that menu option.

You can see now the Matching Connector is set to a Grooved Connector. So every time an Item with the “VIC_Coupling 77” connector is cut into a piece of pipe, the pipe will get a “VIC_Groove” connector.


Added Configuration to Make it Work

Above, you set the matching connector. Unfortunately, that’s not enough. There’s some added configuration to verify to ensure that it works.

One of the requirements of Connector Matching is to make sure the Pipe’s Connectors are NOT locked and defaulted to the connectors they should use. In other words, ‘Set’ but not ‘Locked’.

Here’s what your Pipe ITM most likely looks like…

What I recommend here is, Unlocking only 1 of the Connectors and Clicking OK. After you do that, go back and edit the ITM again and take a look at the Connectors.

You can see here that after Unlocking one of the Connectors and Clicking OK, going back to edit the ITM the Connector changed to “None”. This is a tell tale sign that there’s yet another thing you have to change to make it work.

In some Configurations, people have the Specification set to drive the Connectors. This is most commonly done for Sheetmetal but you see it in Piping as well. In the following image, the Piping Specification is configured to set the Connector to “None”.

What we need to do here is set the Connectors in the Breakpoints to “Not Used”. Note, if the Connector you unlocked earlier didn’t change to something other that what it was, you most likely don’t have this issue but still could…it could just be configured to use the Connector the ITM was set to.

You might have to hunt around for which settings apply. It could be on the ‘Any’ material or a specific material the ITM is using. The ‘Valid For’ could have it in ‘All Types’ or ‘Straights Only’. It’s possible too that you don’t have any breakpoints in the Specification at all. If that’s the case, then your Specification is likely already good. But if it’s not, simply ensure the Connectors are all set to “Not Used”.

Once your Specification is setup correctly (if it was a problem in the first place) you can go back to your ITM for the pipe and unlock both connectors but leave them set to the Connector it typically uses.

Once everything is set properly, Revit will then let your Grooved Coupling be placed in the run of pipe.

If you Double-Click on one of the pieces of pipe, you can see the Connectors are now set to a Groove for the end where the Coupling is.


A Final Word

Note that these settings were added in 2020. If you’ve had your Database configuration a long time, they’re likely not set. Even Autodesk’s ‘Out of the Box’ configurations that shipped with 2024 don’t have these set. So you’re pretty much on your own to make it work.

If you do ANY Administration of your Database Configuration in 2019 or earlier, these settings will be lost. As I’ve advised many times earlier, pick a version for Administration and stick to it. If you have Admin permissions and use 2019 or earlier, all those settings get lost and because they’re not displayed, you won’t really know.

You can use these settings for all kinds of things. They don’t have to be limited to Grooved Couplings. Changing the end of Steel pipe to Threaded when Cutting in a Threaded Coupling, Threaded Adaptor, Threated Tee, Threaded Valve, etc. All of these things should have their connectors looked at and Matching setup. Just about any of those types of fittings in all materials should have Matching set.

Hope this helps improve your Revit workflow.

Fabrication Parts – Riser Clamps in Revit (Problems & Solutions)

I run into a number of people who have had problems with Riser Clamps and Revit Fabrication Parts. I have as well. Here’s how you can work around them…fairly easily.

Problem #1 – Clamp Will Not Attach to Vertical Riser

The first problem I see is with Riser Clamps not attaching to vertical pipe. I’ve seen some creative workarounds. From just placing a clamp in space and moving it to near where it should be to using a modified form of a Grooved Coupling pattern. The following video shows what that would look like if you have this issue.

The fix for this issue is fairly simple. First, make sure you’re using Pattern Number (CID) 838. This is the original Hanger pattern that will allow you to make just about any hanger. Secondly, ensure that you select the ‘Slide‘ option on the pattern.

This is the ONLY Hanger option that will work for vertically oriented pipe.

Once you use the proper option, you can observe that a Riser Clamp will attach to the vertical pipe. This can be seen in the following video.

The second Riser Clamp’s configuration uses the ‘Slide’ option. This allows us to attach it to vertical pipe. This sets us up well for the next issue….oversizing.

Issue #2 – Oversized Riser Clamps

The second issue is that if you set your Insulation Specification’s material to Oversize Hangers, the Riser Clamp will also oversize. This isn’t something you do with a Riser Clamp. Many of us have brought this issue to Autodesk on several occasions, yet they seem to struggle with understanding of our need for an option in this pattern to “ignore” oversize.

Luckily, with a little added work and user intervention, we can work around this. To resolve the issue, create a secondary Riser Insulation Specification with a material that does not oversize hangers.

To do this, you’ll need a duplicate of your Insulation Material. In the image below, we configure the insulation on the right not to oversize for systems where we do not require thermal pipe inserts.

Once you have a secondary Insulation material, you can create the Insulation Specification for the Riser.

Now, all you need to do is override the Insulation Specification on the Riser (vertical pipe) before placing the Riser Clamp. You can see this in the following video.

You can see how the vertical pipe get’s a pipe sized Clamp, where as the horizontal pipe will still oversize because we didn’t change it’s insulation specification.

I’d like to thank Kevin Allen and William Tucker of Comfort Systems USA for pointing out this embarrassingly simple workaround for Insulation Specification that seemed to escaped me.

Retaining Customization During Upgrades

One of the more annoying things users find with upgrading Autodesk Fabrication is losing their customizations. Things like column configurations in the old version do not magically appear in the new version.

But this problem is actually fairly solvable. You just need to know where to look. And those settings are located in a local folder on your system. They’re USER specific….VERSION specific and PRODUCT specific. Here’s where you’re going to look…

C:\Users\<UserName>dyoung\AppData\Local\Autodesk\Fabrication <Version>\<Product>

Each user will have a folder for the version and product they’re using. If the Version/Product isn’t there, that means the product is not installed or that combination of Version and Product was not run yet.

So as an example, if you’re using ESTmep 2021 and have your columns all configured, you’ll find that folder. But if you just installed 2024 and not run it yet, ESTmep 2024’s folder may not be there. If it is, the settings will not be the same.

In our theoretical example of upgrading from ESTmep 2021 to ESTmep 2024, you’ll copy the folder/contents from 2021 into 2024. If the ESTmep folder doesn’t exist in 2024, just copy the entire folder.

You can even copy the contents of ESTmep to the CAMduct folder. This would make the column configurations the same for those two product to be the same. You can also copy a product version from one user to another user. Either on the same computer or a complete different computer.

The folders may have different numbers of file between them. They control different things. The lack of a particular file within the Product folder means a particular feature wasn’t customized.

You could play around using trial and error and see exactly which file controls which settings. But I’ve personally not found that to be worth the effort. I just copy them all so I know that my new install is the same as the prior.

Another thing I usually recommend to people upgrading, is find the person who’s settings you want to use. Save those folders somewhere on the network for easy access. When you install/upgrade other users, copy them from the network local to the person you’re setting up.

Using this technique, you can easily keep your Fabrication product customizations consistent…version to version, product to product, user to user and computer to computer.

Fabrication References – 2024 Update

Fabrication 2024 is out. I’ve updated all the reference information to include 2024 formats. As has been the trend the last few years, little has changed. Summary below…

Takeoff One of Every Size in Product List

I’m occasionally asked how one would add one of every size in a product list to their job. This very easy using ESTmep or CAMduct. CADmep however does not have this capability.

Here are the steps….


Step 1:
Start ESTmep / CAMduct with a blank job.


Step 2:
Go to Item Folders and navigate to the folder with the ITM(s) you wish to takeoff all sizes for. Select all the ITM’s and press CTRL+SHIFT+Right-Click and select Takeoff All Product Sizes.


Step 3:
Go back to the Items tab and review all the sizes of each item you selected.


Why Would You Do This?

There’s several reasons this may be helpful to you.

  • Any Size with dimensional errors is quickly found
  • A simple report shows you where you may have holes in your data (Price, Labor, Product Info, etc.)
  • Produce a quick MAJ that can be opened in CADmep (OpenJob) to measure each size to ensure dimensional accuracy.

If the option is grayed out/disabled, you’re one or more of the ITM’s in your selection is NOT Product Listed. For this to work, all items you’ve selected must be Product Listed.

Options for BIM/VDC in your MEP Shop

Updated: 2023.02.20 – (Updates in RED)

I have a lot of people contact me and ask about software tools. They usually only know of some of them but not all of their options. Often they don’t fully understand what all they do or don’t do and how they may compare to each other.

So I figured I’d throw together a little summary of the better options that I’m aware of. There’s others out there but they’re really not penetrating the market or working toward integrating with other solutions near as I can tell. OR perhaps I’m just clueless and haven’t run across them yet.

I’ve listed the tools below in Alphabetical order to minimize suggestions of bias hopefully. But I tend to be pretty opinionated so take that for what it’s worth.

I’m sure everyone I’ve listed below will have issues with my descriptions to some degree and that’s ok. While I personally know many of people involved with these companies, I’m not an expert on their solutions. I highly recommend you talk to all of them and ask them your specific questions.

Note: I have not listed machine tool specific software like TigerStop‘s TigerTouch or Watt‘s new 3dPP Software. If you have tools like those, you likely already have those software options available to you and are familiar with them.

Other tools specific for Duct fabrication like Autodesk Fabrication CAMduct or Trimble ToolShop (Vulcan) are not covered because the Sheetmetal trades have been using them for years and are quite familiar with them.

The last thing to note is that just because a few solutions have an ‘X’ in the same column does NOT mean they even come close to addressing that category the same way or equally as well. Just that the tool helps with those major/broad categories I’ve listed. These tools do much more than I outline, I’m just covering some of my major observations. Review software demo’s and workflows closely.

ToolContentModel
Authoring
Spool
Automation
Hanger
Automation
Production
Management
Machine Tool
Integration
Allied BIM
– Fabrication Center
– Fabrication Desktop
– Fabrication Tools






X



X



X

X



X
BIMrx (Microdesk)
– BIMrx Core
– BIMrx Fabrication
– BIMrx Fabrication DBS
– BIMrx MEP



X

X
X

X


X



X









BuildCentrix (Webduct) X X X
ENGworks Global
– Fab360


X










eVolve
– eVolve Electrical
– eVolve Materials
– eVolve Mechanical
– eVolve Origin




X

X

X

X

X

X

X


X


X

X
GTP
– FieldOrderZ
– GTP Connect
– Stratus
– Syclone
– Wireworks






X


X
X



X







X
X
X




X

HangerWorks Pro (Dewalt) X X
Manufacton (ViZZ Technologies) X
MEP Track X X
MSuite
– BIMPRO
– FABPRO
– FIELDPRO




X


X


X



X
X


X
X
PypeServer
– PypeServer Connect
– PypeServer Enterprise
– PypeServer Lyte














X

X
X
X
SiteTrace
(Acquired by BuildCentrix)
X
Trimble
– BuildingData
– Connect2Fab
– EC-CAD
– MEP Content
– SysQue

X


X



X

X



?

X



?

X


X







X
Victaulic Tools X X X
Virtual Building Supply (VBS) X

Allied BIM (https://www.alliedbim.com)

Allied BIM is a great group of guys. They’re a little smaller than some of their competitors but don’t let that fool you. They integrate with more variety of machine tools than their larger competitors. So what do they do?

  • Fabrication Center – This is your production management system. Helps you keep track of what you’ve fabricated, what’s in process and what’s in the pipeline.
  • Fabrication Desktop – This is a machine control application that integrates with their other tools. It’s a huge upgrade to what you’d get out of the box from TigerStop or Razor Gauge.
  • Fabrication Tools – Help automate model and drawing production, spooling, etc. all in Revit. (you know, all those things Autodesk should have done but didn’t).

Allied BIM also sells machines last I knew. I’ve seen one of their setups and I tell you…if you want “White Glove” treatment and support….these are your guys. I don’t know anyone else installing a camera so they can remotely watch and assist your team on the shop floor. As they started out as a set of in house tools as a fabricator, they’re also the only company I know who’s run by guys who actually worked production. They’ve also recently partnered with ATG USA (Autodesk Reseller) to help support their sales efforts.


BIMrx (https://www.microdesk.com/)

While a well known Autodesk reseller, they’re the new kid on the block competing against eVolve MEP. It’s hard to describe but while they’re competing against eVolve Mechanical, they’re approach to tools they’re building seems quite different. I’m pretty impressed with what they’re doing and where they’re going. General feel is instead of big complicated commands that you use once in a while and do a lot, theirs are more a suite of simpler more elegant tools that you’re going to use again and again putting money back in your pocket.

Here’s a few offerings under the “BIMrx” branding…

  • BIMrx Core – A lot of general Revit management tools.
  • BIMrx Fabrication – Modeling automation and efficiency. Focus here is on Fabrication ITM workflows.
  • BIMrx Fabrication DBS – Don’t have a Fabrication ITM database? Here’s one you can just buy vs build yourself.
  • BIMrx MEP – Modeling automation and efficiency. Focus here is on RFA/Family workflows.

Microdesk has other offerings too but they’re not focused exclusively on MEP so I’m not going to cover them. I do however encourage you to take a look.


BuildCentrix (https://buildcentrix.com/)

Formerly known as WebDuct, they started out as a field ordering tool for Ductwork and other materials. Their Ductwork workflows have various integrations to CAMduct, ToolShop(Vulcan), PractiCAM, etc. But don’t let their Sheetmetal origins fool you. They’re a material logistics tool (pipe, consumables, tools, etc.) that integrates into a number of ERP systems used by MEP contractors like Viewpoint, Coins and others.

One of their more recent additions is an online duct builder which might be a good competitor to GTP’s FieldOrderZ. But because of their field logistics focus, they’re not really competing against Msuite, Stratus Connect2Fab or Allied BIM….yet. There are customers of those products that also using BuildCentrix.


ENGworks Global (https://engworksglobal.com/)

One of the new players in the Fabrication Content space is ENGworks Global. They build a lot of content directly for manufacturers. If you download content from a manufacturer, there’s a good chance it may be theirs. In early 2023, they’ve announced their product Fab360. This is their offering of a full blown database for Autodesk Fabrication. I’ve not personally reviewed their offering due to an NDA with another firm operating in this space (not on this list). None the less, don’t dismiss this casually. There’s a couple very well respected Fabrication experts associated with this company in recent years so I would expect this to be a quality offering.


eVolve (https://www.evolvemep.com/)

eVolve MEP is a company and suite of tools spun out of Applied Software. Applied Software ended up picking up Fabrication support after TSI’s demise when they acquired Enceptia (formerly DC CADD).

Their bread and butter (among other things) are tools to help model authoring, spooling, hanger placement, etc. Once again, this is a company that really shouldn’t exist except for Autodesk’s inability to listen to customers. They’ve built all the things you’d need and more to model with ITM content in Revit in contrast to Trimble’s RFA/Family based SysQue. On the ITM side, Microdesk is really the only major competitor with MSuite’s FabPro and Victaulic Tools taking a good sized bite of the apple too.

  • eVolve Electrical – Electrical based model authoring and automation. Not sure but I think this is RFA based.
  • eVolve Materials – This is a materials management and procurement system.
  • eVolve Mechanical – ITM based model authoring and automation for duct, pipe and plumbing.
  • eVolve Origin – This is eVolve’s custom prebuilt ITM Fabrication database.

GTP (https://gogtp.com/)

GTP’s Stratus product is another one of the big competitors in the production managements space. Their differentiator IMO started as a focus on machine tool integration but as other’s have caught up, it’s become their ability to highly customize the system. This makes it a bit unwieldly to manage but if you master it, you can make it do a lot of things nobody ever envisioned and things their competitors can’t do. This flexibility also makes it a little easier to incrementally implement IMO as opposed to a larger more encompassing rollout common with other software implementations.

Here’s some of the products GTP offers…

  • FieldOrderZ – This is a newer offering designed to facilitate ordering materials and even field based sketching of fabrication. It does intigrate w/Stratus but can also be used standalone.
  • GTP Connect – This tool is designed to facilitate procurement from models.
  • Stratus – This is GTP’s production management system. Works with CADmep or Revit as well as both RFA and ITM content. While GTP doesn’t have Spooling solution inside Revit, you can Spool completely within Stratus.
  • Syclone – This is a tool used to import PCF file into Revit to generate a model. PCF is a format that can be exported from a number of applications to exchange piping component data.
  • Wireworks – This is GTP’s model authoring tool but it’s specific to Electrical only. content in Stratus. There is no equivalent for mechanical that I’m aware of.

HangerWorks Pro (https://anchors.dewalt.com/anchors/)

HangerWorks Pro is a Revit Add-In to help with Hanger placement and modeling. It was originally written by GTP for Dewalt. It then disappeared for a while and it’s just recently resurfaced again but completely rewritten by the developers at MSuite from my understanding. I’ve not seen what the new rewrite looks like but do have a demo scheduled.


MEP Track (https://meptrack.com/)

MEP Track is another new production management system on the market. But it’s not like any other. Developed with a smaller contractor in mind, its production management without breaking the bank. It uses exports from CAMduct and ESTmep and leverages the data to enhance your production management capabilities. But don’t let their smaller budget conscious focus fool you. MEP Track integrates with CAMduct and your duct fabrication process way more than any of the other 1″big players” in this space.


Manufacton (https://www.vizztechnologies.com/)

Manufacton was really one of the first ‘Production Management’ solutions available in the industry. I’ve been told their original founder was from Autodesk and a lot of their funding came from some Autodesk insiders. However, unlike their 2 primary competitors at the time (MSuite and Stratus) they really seemed to struggle to gain market share in MEP. When I had my demo, they weren’t even able to tell me who any of their MEP customers were…I ended up telling them who they were.

Ultimately they looked for a buyer and were acquired by Vizz Technologies. I’m not familiar with Vizz Technologies or where they’ve taken the product since. However, it still appears to me to focus more as a high level, generic (not MEP focused) production management tool. Executive management may really like it but it doesn’t appear focused as much on the end users in Detailing or the Shop like you see with Allied BIM, MSuite, Stratus. Still, it’s worth a look of you’re looking for a solution to help manage your shop.


MSuite (https://www.msuite.com/)

MSuite is one of the big players when it comes to production management. If you’re looking for a solution and don’t look at them, you’re not doing your due diligence. They have a number of things they do but the big differentiator of MSuite in my opinion is their incredible focus on productivity. If managing the labor (productivity/scheduling) for your fabrication and install is your focus, there’s nobody that does it better IMO.

I hear a number of Union contractors dismiss Msuite claiming they’re not allowed to “track labor” but I find this a bullshit argument and excuse personally. There’s a number of union contractors using MSuite including some of my friends working at one of my competitors locally. I’m more than happy to put you in touch with a number of users if you think production tracking and scheduling is an issue.

Here’s a high level list of some of their tools…

  • BIMPRO – This is MSuite’s set of tools for Model authoring. Spooling automation, Hanger Layout and more.
  • FABPRO – This is MSuite’s production management system. Track everything your shop fabricates and have complete visibility to the labor effort it takes. Works with both RFA and ITM workflows.
  • FIELDPRO – This is MSuite’s tool for tracking in the field. What’s been received…what’s been installed.

While MSuite has it’s roots in MEP, you’ll also see they’re making more headway in the industrial space than their competitors (IMO) near as I can tell. If you also do industrial work….take a serious look.

In a further boot to their credibility and playform, on May 13, 2022 MSuite announced they were acquired by Stanley Black and Decker. I’m expecting to see development excelerate even more with Stanley backing this suite of tools.


PypeServer (https://pypeserver.com/)

PypeServer is a little more difficult to explain. Most are familiar with it is from it’s early days as the programming and control system for Watts pipe profiling machines. But it’s changed in recent years and you’re likely not as familiar with who they are today.

Watts has since moved to using their own software 3dPP for their new machines. 3dPP looks to me like an almost identical clone (a very strong nod to PypeServer IMO). But PypeServer now supports a lot more machines…

  • Pre-2020 Watts
  • HGG
  • Machitech
  • Vernon
  • TigerStop
  • RazorGauge

At it’s core, PypeServer is most similar to a CAM program but yet it’s still quite different. So lets try to explain…

How PypeServer is different than other CAM programs from my perspective is their approach to a variety of things. For starters, most CAM programs output a CNC file for programming a part. PypeServer uses a database which can be used to recall production run parts or even queried to run reports on past production.

They also are starting to heavily leverage the cloud to facilitate data transfers eliminating the need to manage lots of files to program parts. One added benefit to this is it makes this a LOT easier to install a machine safely in your corporate network without having to add it to your domain and deal with antivirus or firewall issues that can affect machine performance. Instead, give it a connection to the web and that’s all your IT needs to do.

Another key distinction is that most CAM programs at best import exports from other CAD systems. PypeServer goes out of their way to integrate with others. Their list of importers is impressive. Each custom tailored to the CAD system they’re designed for. The Stratus import as an example, works automatically without the need for any operator actions. This minimizes the work within PypeServer to program the parts.

Another example of this is the ever growing list of Addin’s for other CAD systems to export more streamline the workflow. For our industry, their Add-ins for AutoCAD and Revit will push data to the cloud where it’s easily imported into their products without the need for file management. Here’s a rundown of their core products…

  • PypeServer Connect – This is their Addin that exports parts from Revit, CADmep, Plant3d to PypeServer Lyte or PypeServer Enterprise.
  • PypeServer Enterprise – This is their original program that’s used for Pipe Profilers.
  • PypeServer Lyte – This is their newest addition used to drive linear cutting equipment like TigerStop and RazorGauge.

In the interest of disclosure, I am on PypeServer’s Board of Advisors. That means that for whatever reason, the listen to my ramblings about the industry. They’ve not in any way compensated me to write this and I’ve not submitted anything written here for their review. These are just my thoughts…consider them bias or not as you see fit.


SiteTrace.io (https://www.sitetrace.io/)

This company’s focus is field ordering of Duct and other accessories, hardware & material from the Field to Shop. Their application elminates the need for paper orders, spreadsheets, emails, faxes and phone calls for a more error free experiance eliminating the wasted time of traditional procurement methods.


SysQue (https://mep.trimble.com/)

I’ve been a big critic of Trimble for a long time. They’re history of buying multiple solutions, allowing them to get obsolete and then buying new ones always bothered me. However….I’m seeing signs of a new Trimble. A Trimble that’s interesting in bridging their solutions together and providing more open access via API’s an integrations.

So imagine my surprise to see their new Connect2Fab product in Tampa this January at the MEP Innovation conference. This looks like it’s going to go head to head against GTP’s Stratus, Msuite and Allied BIM.

So it’s new and that likely means it’s not as mature as some of their competitors. But it looks good and is impressive for just getting out of the gate. Considering all the other things Trimble offers in the market, this should be considered a real threat to competitors and a viable option for contractors.

Trimble’s other main tool is SysQue, their Model Authoring offering. Unlike eVolve Mechanical that’s focused in ITM/Fabrication Part workflow, SysQue is based on Revit’s RFA content. SysQue comes with it’s own content making it an attractive offering to many who don’t have the time, skills or money to invest in making their own.

Once again, this is a tool that shouldn’t need to exist except for Autodesk’s gross neglecte of the MEP contractor industry. But if you want to do fabrication modeling in Revit efficiently, you’ll need something so it’s worth a serious look.

Let’s face it…Trimble’s had everything they’ve needed and more to compete directly against Autodesk for some time. But their offerings didn’t integrate well and that wasn’t ever really a big strategy within Trimble. But that seems to be changing….from Detailing w/SysQue, Content (RFA & ITM), Submittal Management, Estimating, Collaboration and even ERP….imagine if (when) all that’s connected.

If Trimble manages to pull this off well and repair some of trust they’ve lost with some customers in the past, they’ll be well positioned to knock Autodesk flat on their ass IMO. Autodesk rarely shows up with a booth to any event with actual trades people in attendance. On the other hand you always see Trimble with a well staffed booth. I suspect you’ll see where this is going and how much traction it’s getting within 2-5 years.

  • BuildingData – This is Trimble’s Fabrication ITM content library. Hands down, the largest collection of ITM on the planet.
  • Connect2Fab – Trimble’s new Production Management solution for managing your shop from models.
  • EC-CAD – This is Trimble’s AutoCAD MEP based modeling tool (Formerly East Coast CAD)
  • MEPContent – This is Trimble’s AutoCAD Block, IFC and RFA content library.
  • SysQue – Trimble’s Revit Addin for Model Authoring

Note: In the interest of disclosure, I’m not a user of SysQue and RFA content for MEP fabrication modeling. I use ITM content. That said, a lot of folks think I’m anti-SysQue. That’s not the case. I actually was involved in it’s early beta testing/development at a past employer. It’s a perfectly valid tool and is the right tool for many companies. The only thing I was ever against were some of the early marketing tactics like “Native Revit” and other bullshit sales tactics which for the most part have ceased now that Trimble acquired it.


Victaulic Tools (https://www.victaulicsoftware.com/)

Victaulic Tools is another interesting software offering. They’re not really a software company trying to capture the fabrication modeling market. Rather they built the tools in large part for their own BIM Services group and they sell them for a very modest cost to customers. Regardless of which tools people buy, they often also buy Victaulic tools due to it’s low cost and very helpful utilities.


Virtual Building Supply (https://itembuilders.com/)

Virtual Building Supply (VBS) provides ITM content for Autodesk Fabrication users. Whether you work in CADmep, ESTmep, CAMduct or Revit with Fabrication Parts, if you need ITM’s added to your database, VBS is a good source of high quality content. If they don’t have what you need, reach out and they’ll quote you to build it. Unlike many other content providers who provide “subscription” content services, VBS content is a “buy it once” model.

VBS also will provide a full database if you are in need as well. They’ll even manage your database. So if you need a full database or just a few ITMs, they’re well worth looking at.


Summary

So that’s my list of many of the major software tools available. There is no perfect solution. Many can be used alone or in conjunction with the others on the list. Some are even both competitors and partners with each other.

I really encourage everyone to look at all these tools if they address the issues they’re trying to solve. Just don’t get caught up on buzzwords. There’s a lot of users in the industry that will give you the pros and cons of each of these tools.

Reducing Autodesk Licensing Costs By 30%

Autodesk has undergone numerous modifications to its licensing models over the years, leading to increased costs for customers. However, there are now three new developments that make it easier to reduce licensing costs, especially for those who previously used Network licenses. These developments are:

  1. The elimination of FlexLM Network Licensing
  2. The introduction of a new, consumption-based Flex Licensing
  3. The integration of analytics into the Account Management Portal

By leveraging these changes, it is now possible to reduce licensing costs in a more cost-effective manner. Let’s take a closer look at each of these developments and understand the opportunities they provide. Numerous customers have reported savings of up to 30% on their renewals by implementing these concepts.

1) FlexLM Elimination

Autodesk made changes to its licensing model with the elimination of FlexLM Network licensing, offering a 2-for-1 trade-in of existing network seats to named user licenses. This resulted in reduced visibility on individual software usage and, in some cases, caused customers to become over-licensed. The absence of clear usage information prompted customers to purchase additional seats at full cost as they expanded their staff, leading to the likelihood of customers with large pools of network licenses having more licenses than necessary.

2) Rollout of ‘Flex’ Token Consumption Licenses

Autodesk introduced Flex licensing as a replacement for FlexLM. With this model, you buy a volume of tokens. Each product has a set token cost. Usage consumes tokens per day per user per product. The same person can use different versions of the same product or a different computer without consuming additional tokens. Only using a different product or on a different day will result in additional token consumption. No cost is incurred if the product is not used. This licensing model is more cost-effective than full-cost assigned licenses for part-time users, although less flexible than previous network licensing.

3) Usage Analytics

Autodesk recently made license usage analytics available to all customers, not just those with Premium Support. These analytics let you monitor how your Autodesk licenses are being used among your users. Although they may not have the same level of data accuracy as FlexLM, they still provide valuable information to help you determine if the Flex Licensing model is more cost-effective for a user compared to a dedicated named user license.


Analyzing Your Usage To Achieve Savings

Autodesk offers tools to calculate the number of Flex Token needed and understand token consumption rates. Check out the resource pages at https://www.autodesk.com/benefits/flex/estimator-tool and https://www.autodesk.com/benefits/flex/flex-rate-sheet.

However, to effectively compare costs with named license products, you need to consider the usage mix of products in a Collection. The Autodesk Management Portal’s Usage Reporting displays product usage but can be difficult to understand with a mix of products used by the same user. Some resellers offer PowerBI reports but still face the same challenge.

A better approach is to examine past usage and assign a theoretical cost under Flex licensing. You can easily compare this number to a named user license to determine what’s best for a given user.

I’ll share a simplified process. Those with basic Excel knowledge should be able to perform the analysis. For more detailed instructions and an opportunity to learn something new, I’ll also provide a step-by-step guide using Excel’s Power Query feature. There are various methods to gather the data, but many Excel users are unfamiliar with Power Query. I suggest giving it a try, as it quickly streamlines data collection with a short learning curve. Plus, using Power Query, you can easily update source data for instant updates.


Analysis Steps – High Level

To perform an analysis, here are the high-level steps to follow:

  1. Get a Usage report from Autodesk’s Management portal, selecting the option that reports daily usage for users over the entire last year.
  2. Open the report in Excel, remove unwanted columns and keep only the user’s name/email, product, date of usage.
  3. In another tab, create a Rate Sheet using the data from Autodesk’s website, including the product, number of tokens and daily cost.
  4. In the Rate Sheet tab, search and replace extra data in the daily cost column to leave only the dollar amount.
  5. In the Usage tab, add two columns for the number of tokens and cost.
  6. Use VLOOKUP to find the product in the Rate Sheet and import the related data into these columns.
  7. Create a Pivot table and adjust the data fields to display total cost for each user.
  8. Compare the “theoretical” Flex cost with the cost of a full license for easy evaluation.

That’s it. You can ow see which users are “Cheaper” under Flex than the cost of a dedicated named license.


Analysis Step – Detailed w/Excel Power Query

If you want to learn Excel’s PowerQuery or have a more detailed explanation, this section is for you…


Step 1

Go to your Autodesk Account Management portal. https://manage.autodesk.com Here you’ll see Usage Reporting (A) if you’re an Account Admin. You’ll want to change the duration for the full year (C) and make sure you’re looking at the correct Team (B). This then displays high level stats and more detailed drill down information further below. Click the Export button (D) to export usage data.


Step 2

When you get to the Export page, you’ll see there’s a report being generated automatically. This is the with “Usage Report” in the category. You do NOT want this report. This is a summary report. Instead, you’ll want to use the options at the top of the page and generate a ‘Usage’ report. If you select all options, you’re report will say “All” although for this purpose, those other data points aren’t needed.

Download this report when it’s finished generating.

Note, you can get to this Export page from the “By Product” section too.


Step 3

Start Excel and create a new Spreadsheet in the same place you downloaded your usage report. In the new spreadsheet, create a Token Rate sheet consisting of the product name, number of tokens and daily cost. You can copy and paste this from Autodesk’s site linked earlier. Clean up the data and rename the spreadsheet tab something meaningful. When you’re done, it should look something like this.


Step 4

Now we’re going to use Excel’s Power Query functionality to merge in our exported data. The benefit of doing it this way is that you can replace your export later with new data and not have to do all these steps. It’s merely referenced into the Spreadsheet you’re working in. Select Data (1), Get Data (2), From File (3) then From Excel Workbook (4).


Step 5

Select your usage report that you downloaded from Autodesk (1) then click Import.


Step 6

Next, Excel will examine your spreadsheet for data sources. Select the “Usage” Tab (not Users) and click “Transform Data“.


Step 7

This brings up the Power Query Editor. Here’s where Power Query makes it very easy to clean and scrub your data step by step so you don’t have to alter the source data. This means you an update your source data anytime, and Power Query will perform the same cleaning steps.


Step 8

Next, we’ll start removing columns we don’t want. Right-Click on the header of the first column and select Remove to remove that column. You’ll notice on the list of steps on the right, there’s another entry added.


Step 9

When your done, you should have only the following columns remaining…“first_name”, “last_name”, “email”, “product_name” and “day_used”. We could go further, but for now, let’s see what this looks like. Click Close & Load to import this cleaned up data into your Excel Spreadsheet.


Step 10

Excel closes the Power Query editor and loads your cleaned up data into your spreadsheet. It’s not actually “in” your spreadsheet, it’s referenced from the usage report you downloaded from Autodesk and Power Query cleaned and filtered it before displaying it. You could replace the usage report 2 months later with newer data and this spreadsheet can then be refreshed to show you the latest information.

Next, we’ll add a few more columns. To get back to the Power Query Editor, Right-Click on the Connection in the palette on the right and select Edit.


Step 11

The first column we’re going to add is one that concatenates the “first_name”, “last_name” and “email” fields together. This isn’t really needed, but I like to see both the name and email. This will help combine them in the Pivot table we create later. The name is helpful to know who the user is, but Autodesk accounts done times it’s easier to use the email. That’s why I use both. Especially if your company’s email format only includes the first letter of a name.

To start this process, select Add Column, Column From Examples then From Selection.


Step 12

In this step, select the columns you want to combine. Here it’s “first_name” (1), “last_name” (2) and “email” (3). This tells Power Query which columns you’re going to pull from. Next, Double-Click on the header of the new column on the right (4) and edit the column’s name to “user_data”. Next, Double-Click the first open cell below that header (5) and start typing an example of how you want the data to look. Here, I type “Emma Thompson / Emma.N.Thompson@pretendinc.com”. Power Query is looking at the columns I selected earlier and the example text I typed to determine which fields to combine along with any extra data like the space or slash I’m using for formatting. Next, press Control-Enter to fill the examples in the rest of the cells. Once complete, click Ok (6) to insert the new column.


Step 13

You’ll see the column added to the Power Query Editor. Next, let’s load that back into Excel. Click Home then Close and Load to load this query into Excel.


Step 14

Now that you’re back in Excel, you can see the data column that was added. Your source data however is not altered. Next, we’ll need to create another query for our Rate Sheet tab. This is just raw data. It’s not intelligent so we’ll make a query of it to give us more power.

To do this, we’ll make it a Table so Power Query can more intelligently pull data from it. Select the Rate Sheet tab (1) in your spreadsheet. Next, Click Insert (2) then Table (3). Excel should find all the data in the sheet and automatically enter the range into the popup dialog when you can click OK,


Step 15

Excel turns your data into a Table which is a more intelligent object. From here, we’ll rename the table to something more intuitive. Click Table Design (1) then in the Table Name edit box, type “RateSheet”.


Step 16

Next, let’s make a new query of this table. Select Data (1), Get Data (2), From Other Sources (3) then From Table/Range.


Step 17

You’ll see Power Query brings in this table into the editor. Notice on the left in the Query palette the name RateSheet. This was a result of renaming the Table earlier otherwise you would have had a generic name that wasn’t as intuitive. You can rename Tables later but Power Query doesn’t see those renames and it’ll break your query.

We really don’t need to do anything with this query on the RateSheet. It’s there really for the next step where we merge those two queries together. Right-Click (1) on an open area of the Query palette. Select New Query (2), Combine (3) then Merge Queries as New (4).


Step 18

From the merge dialog, select Usage (1) in the first dropdown list. Next, select the product_name (2) column. This is the data we’re going to use to lookup in the RateSheet. Next, select RateSheet (3) in the dropdown list and then the Product (4) column. Finally, we’ll tell it how to merge the tables by selecting Left Outer (all from first, matching from second) in the Join Kind dropdown list. Once everything is configured, Click OK (6).


Step 19

If you scroll to the right (1) you’ll see the new column we added from the merge. On the left, Right-Click on the Merge# query and rename it to PivotData (2) so it’s more meaningful. Next, select the newly added column RateSheet (3). You’ll see that the data in the cells says “Table”. This merged in the entire row into a single table in that column. We want access to that data so it’s expend it by selecting Transform (4) and then Expand (5).


Step 20

You’ll get a dialog asking which columns you want to expand out of that table. We’ll unselect Product (1) because we already have that in the usage data. We’ll leave Tokens (1) and Price (1). Clear the RateSheet text from the Defsult column name prefix (2) edit box than click OK.


Step 21

You can now see the Tokens and Price columns added to this query. This really just looked up the value in the product_name column in the Usage query, found the corresponding value on the Product column of the RateSheet query and pulled in it’s Token and Price data.


Step 22

Next, we no longer need some of the columns. Scroll to the left (1) and right click on the first_name (2) column and select Remove. Repeat for the last_name and email columns to remove them. This will clean up the data out Pivot table will use.


Step 23

We’re finally done cleaning, filtering and augmenting our data. Let’s click the Home tab (1) and then Close & Load.


Step 24

We’re now back in Excel and our last two queries were added as separate tabs. You’ll see that we have a tab named RateSheet (no space) and Rate Sheet (with space). The one with the space was our original data we turned into a table. The one without the space is our query of that original. In hind sight, we perhaps could have named it RateQuery to make it more intuitive. You could try to rename it now and see if it breaks your queries. If it does, you could try fixing or deleting and doing them over. Or you could leave it which is what I’ll do.

We’ll hide the unneeded tabs by using Right-Click and selecting Hide for the table Rate Sheet (1), RateSheet (2) and Usage (3). Next, we’ll make out Pivot Table be selecting Insert (4) then Recommended Pivot Tables (5).


Step 25

In the Recommended Pivot Tables dialog, you can scroll through and pick one that looks close. I rarely do that. Instead I just pick one and worry about modifying it later. Here I pick the first one (1) and then click OK.


Step 26

Here, you can see out beginning Pivot Table. It’s not too far off but we can improve it. For now, we’ll just rename that Sheet1 tab to something more meaningful like Analysis Pivot by right-clicking on the tab and selecting Rename (1).


Step 27

To update the Pivot, just drag fields from the PivotTable Fields section (1) to the Filters (2), Rows (3) and Values (4) sections. If you add to the Filters section, it shows up on the Pivot Table. I tend to leave it blank as I can more easily filter multiple values elsewhere (I’ll show later). I’ve also formatted the entire Price column to display as currency.

The fields I have in Rows are user_data, product_name, days_used (Year) and days_used (Month). Note that in our Pivot data we only had a date field. Excel automatically adds multiple fields to help you group dates. If this doesn’t happen, remove ALL the date fields from the Rows section and re-add the days_used, You should get multiple fields added. I typically remove the Quarter and Day.

For the Values column, I’ve added Tokens and Price. Once I get all the fields I want, I then do a little work on formatting. For starters, I make Column C/Price (5) formatted as Currency.


Step 28

Next, lets Right-Click on the product name data (1) in the Pivot Table and select Expand/Collapse (2) then Collapse Entire Field. This collapses everything down to the Product level.


Step 29

Remember when I said I prefer to filter a different way? Here, I can filter the products I want in my Pivot. Products that don’t use Tokens and aren’t in the Rate Sheet don’t appear (in case you were wondering). We’re not concerned with that. If they aren’t available with Flex licensing, there’s no need for analysis.

But if you look at the following image, you can when you hover over the product_name field there’s a little down facing triangle. Click on that to get to our filtering.


Step 30

In the filter dialog, I’m going to shut off all products (1) that are not in the AEC Collection as well as any product that uses zero tokens (see your token rate sheet). The remaining product I have (yours will be different) are AutoCAD, AutoCAD MEP, AutoCAD Plant 3D, Fabrication CADmep, Navisworks Manage, Recap Pro and Revit. You could leave on the zero token products if you like, I just didn’t want to type them all here! Once done, click OK (2).


Step 31

Next, I collapse all the data in the Pivot Table down to the user level (1). This was shown earlier in Step 28. At this point, you see the yearly total for all users in terms of both Tokens Used and the Price you would have paid if those users were theoretically on the Flex licensing model over the last year.

As you can see, Flex is a much more expensive licensing model for users who would be full time. The cost in the US for a full AEC Collection license is about $3000 annually. So anybody under that price would have been cheaper on Flex…maybe. Remember that “2 for 1” Network trade in Autodesk did? Those license are discounted significantly. Those discounted prices nee to be taken into consideration too. You may have users cheaper on Flex if they had a full dost license, but not if they were using a discounted license.

To help me run these scenarios, I add a Threshold price at the top (2) that I can plug a target number I’m looking to compare against. A new AEC Collection is $3000 so I build in a safety margin and use $2500 as my number. Anyone under $2500 I move to Flex. But I can also put in $1200 and see how somebody would compare to a discounted license.


Step 32

The last little “nice” thing I do that’s not required uses the threshold number I entered earlier. I then use Conditional formatting to color the values to more easily see what should and should not got to Flex.

Select Home (1), Conditional Formatting (2) then Manage Rules…(3)


Step 33

In the Conditional Formatting Rule Manager dialog, make sure This PivotTable (1) is selected from the dropdown and then click New Rule (2).


Step 34

In the New Formatting Rule dialog, select All cells showing ‘Sum of Price’ values (1), then Format only cells that contain (2), next set Cell Value (3) to Less than (4) for the cell =$C$1 (5) which is where you place the Threshold value you want to use. You can then change the Format (6) to Green and click OK (7). This will highlight all cells below your Threshold value indicating they’re likely Safe to move to a Flex license.

Repeat Step 33 and 34 to make another rule but change it to Greater than or Equal to (4) and the Format(6) to Red then click OK.


Step 35

When you’re done, your rules should look like this. Click OK.


Step 36

You’re done! Your data should look like this. You can now play with Filters, the Threshold dollar amount you want to use as your reference. You can even expand in and drill into each users data. Play with the Pivot Table values and experiment to get the data how you want.


Summary

Hopefully this was helpful. I was able to save over 30% on my Autodesk renewal this year by analyzing license usage by performing the following…

  • Check which users can switch to Flex.
  • Count dedicated license users who can’t move to Flex.
  • Buy 75% of the tokens needed for the Flex users.
  • Drop unneeded full cost product licenses.
  • Retained unneeded discounted licenses
  • Eliminated products completely if Flex covered all user needs

I kept extra discounted licenses from the 2-for-1 trade-in, which offer deep discounts till 2028. It’s hard to find discounts, let alone multi-year ones, so I believe these will cover future full-time user growth.

Some other companies I spoke with have also reduced their desktop software licenses by almost 1/3, using Flex for part-time users.

To run analysis using new data, just overwrite the report with the new data in the same format. Then, open your analysis spreadsheet and refresh all queries and pivots. I hope this helped you save and learn some Excel Power Query! Good luck!

Autodesk University 2022 – The Good, The Bad and The Ugly

Autodesk University 2022 is a wrap. First live event since 2019. This year, it moved from Las Vegas to New Orleans. Folks had a lot of mixed feelings about this event. Including victimization of some attendees. I won’t rehash what someone else has done so for a good review of how the “Event” went, give this 20 minute recap a watch. Neil Cross does a bang up job recapping this poorly organized event. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=StEtDbUxHV0


New Orleans – The City

I’ve been to New Orleans before. Stayed at the same hotel in fact. New Orleans Hilton Riverside. It was about a decade ago. Really enjoyed the city so I was looking forward to going back.

Honestly, I really like the city….much more so than Las Vegas. The Architecture is amazing. Neighborhoods rich with character and culture. Great music and most of all, some of the most amazing food I’ve ever had. I find the people in general are warm and kind. I think my ride from the airport was the the best Lyft ride I’ve had of any city. Linsey was a pleasure to converse with during the trip.

While my Monday arrival was warm, the weather the remainder of the week was pleasant. A result of Hurricane Ian pulling cooler air from the north. I think we lucked out that it wasn’t hotter and more humid.

Now while I personally like the city, it is well known as a corrupt and violent city. If you listened to the video link above, you’ll know this crime affected several attendees. People drugged and mugged. Robbed at gunpoint and knifepoint. One attendee was stabbed. Even the legendary God Father of Autodesk Fabrication CADmep had someone try to pick pocket him. You can see his post here.

Knowing all this, I would go back to New Orleans…the city. Perhaps I’d view it differently if it happened to me. But while I grew up very rural, I did grow up with a lot of violent crime. By the time I graduated high-school I’d had over a dozen connections with people being killed. While I don’t make excuses, I do have an understanding of the effects of poverty. Perhaps that’s why I still felt comfortable in New Orleans. I grew up around people like this. The good and the bad. Frankly, I felt WAY more safe walking around in New Orleans than I do in Seattle. For me, New Orleans is an upgrade. Your mileage may vary.


New Orleans – The Convention Center

The New Orleans Convention is the 6th largest in the US. Despite that, I don’t think it was built to host a single large event…rather multiple smaller events at the same time. Halls were narrow leading to over crowding. 20 minute line to get up the escalator the first day. Remaining days people seemed to self adjust.

But the convention center is LONG and narrow. Not stacked like in Las Vegas. Took forever to get anywhere. With room attendants not letting people in early, it led to even more crowded halls.

Even the rooms themselves were typically smaller. Much harder to “Sneak” in or out if the class wasn’t what you wanted. A more frequent even this year than most.

While convention center food is never top notch, even in Las Vegas, it was particularly low quality here. A surprise considering the quality of feed elsewhere in the city. One morning, the breakfast burritos were so starchy it made a McDonalds seem like a Michelin 5-Star Restaurant.

Bottom line, if they continue to have AU at this convention center as it’s rumored to be, it’ll have limited success. This just is NOT the venue to host Autodesk University IMO. The facility and services are just not up to par.


Expo Hall

Expo hall was what you’d expect. I’d venture to say half the space was utilized by Autodesk. Mostly wasted IMO. There’s only a couple places where I’d typically go to meet the product teams. The rest is of no value to me. Taking meaningless surveys or other low value activities Autodesk marketing thinks are worth while. Letting users think they’re impacting direction while nothing meaningful changes. Nothing that’s going to improve your professional life IMO.

Expo hall ran out of food within the first 30 minutes of lunch on the first day. No refills of the buffet tables like you see in Vegas. As lunch started 1/2 hour before the General Keynote ended, everyone came out to an empty food line. This means the remaining days people left the Keynotes early to ensure they were fed.

One disappointing thing was finding the UA’s Trade Exhibit was micro managed. They wouldn’t let them operate much of it. GTP’s Stratus booth was right down the row. Both with people walking by not quite getting the connection unless you were from the MEP Trades yourself. Not sure if this was the Convention Center Legal or Autodesk Legal but it was a missed opportunity in my estimation. Especially considering a few years back Titan’s of CNC were throwing chips from their CNC equipment. Had they showed the Tigerstop running from Stratus and hearing the buzz of copper or PVC cutting….it would have drawn people to the back where they were stuffed and really connected the dots IMO.

For the most part, any booth worth seeing was hard to see as they were very busy. I tried going to DiRoot’s both multiple times only to find them overwhelmed with interest. Other booths seemed pretty slow. I stopped by one booth from a vendor from Finland. After 15 minutes of a demo and them talking, I still didn’t know what they hell they did or what he was saying. Ironic considering I grew up in a part of the Michigan listening to Suomi Kutsuu (Finland Calling) on Sunday morning television as a kid. The US’s only Finnish language programming.


Classes / Sessions

Sessions this year were absolutely abysmal IMO. That said, the speakers were generally high quality and presented well. It was just the topic selections were utter rubbish. To the point I almost didn’t bother attending AU at all. Ultimately, I remembered that its the networking and face time w/Autodesk product managers not the classes that have me coming back.

Still, every AU there’s some good classes. This year, anything worth taking was full. As one long time Autodesk University speaker told me, they’ve never had their sessions repeated before. Their take was there was nothing worth taking so everyone signed up for theirs.

Another former coworker texted me…

“I felt Tuesday sessions were sub-par so went on a walking food tour of the city instead”

I ended up either skipping or walking out of all but 4 of the sessions I had scheduled not counting the panel I was on.

In years past, a group of industry insiders would help select sessions. This year, I’m told it was Autodesk Marketing. This meant that most sessions were beginner or sales focus. As Neil Cross put it…”Thought grandstanding”. Even the descriptions were misleading on many. This is the type of tone many set…

“As a company, it’s our mission to help solve the global climate crisis…..” followed by a lot of nonsense and the last sentence being something like “Learn how we use Autodesk Docs”.

Part of the problem is also the session “voting” after the original RFP’s. Those self promoting their sessions with a large LinkedIn network get voted up vs. voting merely based on merit. I was added to an Autodesk Panel at the last minute this year. None of my proposals were selected. I’m ok with that. I actually don’t like “teaching” the sessions. I do it as I feel it’s important to give back to an industry who’s helped me. If others don’t feel my content is worth while, I’m ok not teaching. But the way some instructors self-promote…they’re clearly in it for their ego in teaching at AU and less for the attendees. I think this contributes to a decline in session quality. You really want someone’s session selected because their Grandma voted it up?

If you look at many of the sessions, clearly the San Francisco Bay area “Woke” crowd and Autodesk Sales Idealism was who and what Autodesk Marketing was targeting. Here’s some of the key phrases you saw littered about the titles and descriptions….

Evolution of Roles” – “Remote Collaboration” – “Sustainable Mfg” – “Saving the Planet” – “ESG” – “Multiverse” – “Carbon Impacts” – “Digital Transformation” – “Society First/Social Value” – “Happiness” – “Leadership” – “Women in BIM” – “Gender, Diversity” – “Inclusion” – “Belonging” – “Global Environmental Challenge” – “Net Zero” – “Strategic Workforce” – “Decarbonization” – “Omniverse” – “Business Models” – “Convergence Customers” – “Talent Trends” – “Productivity Crisis” – “Digital Future of Work” – “Onboarding” – “Upskilling” – “Climate Footprint” – “Reconfiguring for the Future” – “Hybrid Workforce” – “No Planet B” – “Growth” – “Metaverse” – “Enabling Nations” – “Satisfying Places” – “Greenwashing” – …etc…

Not that these aren’t good topics….but this is a Tech conference is it not? It’s now primarily a “Beginner” and “Sales” conference. Very little on how to actually do things. A session of how the software/services can fall short and what to do about it is clearly not on the table any longer.

And lets get real…after 2-1/2 years…we’ve all figured out how to remote work or we’re likely out of business. We don’t need another class on Remote F’ing Work.

All I can say is that if you attended half of this crap, you were are guaranteed to be well prepared to solve everything from World Peace to Feline Leukemia this next year.

Oh, and not to mention, there were no computer labs. Given they handed all registrants a Covid tests to self-report, I can only assume the lawyers shut down the hands on labs.


Reviewing My 4 Good Classes….

As I said, there were 4 sessions I didn’t walk out of. I’ll review them here….

FAB502677 | Design, Develop, Deploy: Create Revit Content from Inventor Designs

This session was presented by Mark Flayler of IMAGINiT. Mark did a fantastic job explaining the options for Revit and Inventor interoperability and how it’s changed over the releases. If you’re working on toward industrialized construction or manufacturing for construction, this session is a must.

While Inventor and Fusion 360 don’t have the user base programs like Solidworks have, you’re just not going to be able to touch the functionality Inventor has with Revit interoperability. You need to reference Revit inside Inventor to design something going into a building? It’s there. Want to export what you designed in Inventor to use in Revit? It’s there.

If you’re doing fabrication or manufacturing drawings and models outside of Revit for construction, you need to review this material. That said, Fabrication Parts in Revit don’t import worth a shit inside Inventor. That wasn’t discussed in this session rather that’s my contribution. But for everything else, it should work great.

AS502502 | Autodesk Forge Data APIs: Standardized Granular Data Extraction to Reduce Code Base

This session was presented by Robert Manna of dRofus and James Mazza of Stantec. If you read up on any of Autodesk’s big announcements regarding their rebranding Forge to Autodesk Platform Services, this session was a good preview of the direction Autodesk is headed regarding your design data. Robert and James gave a great overview of how you’d go about using the Data API’s.

Not a coder? No worries. This session wasn’t full of syntax and code snippets. It was higher level discussion how you would use the API’s not demonstrating actually coding them. If you’re not a coder, there was still a lot of value here IMO.

IM502087 | Model-Based Definition: A Key Value Driver for Future Product Development

This session was presented by Eugen Taranov and Melanie Thilo both of Autodesk. It covered the topic of Model Based Definition. As Manufacturing typically leads a lot of trends you see in AEC by 2-3 decades, I’m always game for a good Manufacturing session.

If you’re new to MBD (Model Based Definition), it’s about embedding the manufacturing data within a model so that it can be fabricated without a human needing to read a drawing.

What interested me about this session is that I’ve long stated that I thick AEC is headed the wrong direction be jamming every piece of data within a 3d model. Revit is not SQL server after all. You can read one of my prior posts here about this. MBD seems to contradict my view of where AEC is headed. As such, it created a dilemma in thinking that I wanted to sort out.

Having sat through the session, I now have a more firm view of MBD and I don’t see any conflict with my thinking. MDB isn’t about embedding ALL data within a model, rather manufacturing specific information that needs to be communicated. My view that AEC is placing TOO much data within models is not in conflict with MBD in my eyes.

One realization I came to is that MEP is already doing “Lite” versions of MBD with tools like Stratus, M-Suite, Allied BIM and Connect2Fab. I say “Lite” because MEP doesn’t need high-precision tolerancing descriptions like GDT or finish information communicated the same way manufacturing does. None the less, it’s important to realize it is a form of MBD which is a validation on the direction we’re headed. The only real disappointing part is Autodesk themselves is not enabling Digital Fabrication for MEP. They’ve done their best to fragment the workflows and it’s 3rd parties providing these services. Most of the fabrication data Autodesk creates for MEP is not even accessible in Revit and is completely ignored in the Construction Cloud let alone their Industrialized Construction initiatives.

BES502491 | Beyond Fabrication: Using Revit Fabrication Parts for Spec-Driven Design

This session was presented by Claudia Calderon Quintero and Josh Churchill both of SSOE. This was literally the ONLY session at AU that covered anything related to Autodesk Fabrication. I wasn’t expecting much. Autodesk Fabrication has a pretty tight knit community of experts who’ve known each other for decades. Anyone speaking on Autodesk Fabrication that isn’t a known name is highly suspect.

That said, I was very surprised at this session. From an A&E perspective, they covered the topic very well. I’ve listened to Autodesk Fabrication presentations over the years with a lot of partial or incorrect information. But Claudia and Josh had a really rock solid presentation. Everything I heard was detailed, accurate and presented very well. I’m really impressed as well in their ability to get up to speed with Fabrication Parts as it’s not an easy thing to learn on your own when there’s not a lot of resources.

The essence of their presentation was using Fabrication Parts to create a “Specification” for industrial or process piping. As they said, anyone can make a “fabrication” level model with Revit Families…but anyone can also mess with those families. By using Fabrication Parts in Services, it get’s Revit a lot closer to a “Spec” driven design like you’d typically see in industrial piping with Plant3d with the content a little more protected from incorrect manipulation.

The key learning point here for me was the value of Fabrication Parts for a firm who’s NOT actually fabricating. I’ve struggled to see the value of Fabrication Parts for an Engineering only firm. Claudia and Josh easily explained this value to me. Something that having my head stuck in the actual “fabrication” and “construction” prevented me from seeing. Great job and great class.


Things We Can’t Do

Despite all Autodesk’s self proclamations of greatness and the legions of fans, there’s more holes in Autodesk’s strategy than a block of swiss cheese if your an MEP contractor. Here’s a few highlights of my observations from an MEP Contractor’s perspective….some will apply more broadly to other trades/domains.

Industrialized Construction, Inventor and Revit

One of my highlights of Autodesk University is to see the “Manufacturing Informed Design” team at Autodesk in the Expo Hall. I’ve spent 30 years straddling Construction and Manufacturing asking for this. It’s finally coming. Everything Autodesk has done to date seems to have been “Design” focused….pushing unbuildable design to Fabrication, Construction and Manufacturing. The Manufacturing Informed Design group flips that around…putting the PRODUCT front and center. This allows the Manufacturer or Fabricator to control how their product is used in Design….the way it always should have been.

Sure you can make a Revit family that represents a product. But anyone and everyone can mess with the RFA. You’ve can’t receive this model back and have any sense of reliability that’s it’s something you can manufacture from. What the Manufacturing Informed Design team does, is to make sure nobody in Revit can mess with your product. If your product is configurable, the consumer (Designer) is directed back to Autodesk’s web portal where they can control ONLY the aspects of the product the Manufacturer allows.

While the initial release will focus on Products produced in Inventor, there are plans to expand the “authoring” to other platforms like Fusion 360, Revit…perhaps even Solidworks and others. They want to make the logic authoring agnostic using code blocks similar to Inventor’s iLogic for configuration. In my opinion, this is the single most important step they could make toward “Productization” in construction.

So what’s the catch? Beta is estimated to be next year. That likely means 2024 Revit will be the first version (if not later…or even at all) that will have this capability. Except that means we’ll realistically be able to use this about 2027/2028. This industry loves to stay on old Revit versions and Autodesk now allows use up to 5 versions back. This means it’ll be 2028 by the time you find defects or functional limitations of 2024 versions. Except they won’t fix 2024 four years later…those fixes will come in 2029/2030 versions which you’ll start using about 2033/2034. That’s a 10 year development/feedback cycle. It’s just not sustainable. Keep this in mind when they tell you the industry is going to completely transform to products within a few short years. The tools just aren’t there to facilitate this in a wide scale manner.

Industrialized Construction and Fabrication Parts

As you can tell from the Inventor/Revit interoperability class I reported on earlier and the Manufacturing Informed Design group’s initiatives…Inventor is a key part of Autodesk’s Industrialized Construction Strategy.

Except that the vast majority of large MEP Fabricators are using Fabrication Parts. Fabrication Parts can be exported and brought into Inventor….except they look like shit and are unusable for manufacturing in the Inventor environment. Inventor and Fusion 360 are Solid Modelers. Fabrication Parts are NOT Solids…they’re surfaces. Poor quality surfaces at that. That was intentional…to keep AutoCAD/CADmep performant. Because Fabrication Parts know what they are (Pipe, Elbow, Tee, Valve, etc.) they have the proper data to fabricate from and don’t need heavy detailed graphics. You can place 10x more Fabrication Parts in Revit than RFA’s before seeing the same performance impact.

Until Autodesk bolts Fabrication Parts into Inventor (and I have no knowledge they’re even considering this) you’ll have to wait for the Manufacturing Informed Design team to allow Revit Authoring of Product. Who knows when that will be and when it does happen…what are the chances they even know how to manipulate a Fabrication Part? Most of Autodesk’s own Revit experts don’t even know what a Fabrication Part is let alone comprehend their value. Of the hundreds of data points Fabrication Parts hold…even their own Construction Cloud knows virtually nothing of the data. In short, the firms who have digitally fabricated from 3d models for nearly 30 years (MEP Contractors) are largely shut out of all Autodesk’s Industrialized Construction technology strategy.

Speaking of Fabrication Parts…

I asked about the MEP Fabrication Data Manager Sync. The Technical Preview of Autodesk’s Cloud based Fabrication configuration manager. A 7+ year initiative that’s still not usable in any practical capacity. I asked when it would be “Done”.

“Who’s to say it’ll ever be done. Perhaps it keeps evolving.”

Fair enough. So I followed up…When will it evolve enough that MEP contractors will willing use it?

“Who’s to say it’s even going to be for that type of customer?”

That speaks volumes. Add to that the ONLY session at Autodesk University on Fabrication Parts in Revit was from an A/E firm that doesn’t build or fabricate, it’s another data point suggesting Autodesk doesn’t have a plan for MEP Contractors. Or they simply think they’ll all cease to exist in a “Productized / Industrialized” construction economy. Certainly MEP Contractor’s will need to evolve…but we’re not going away. Great opportunity for someone else to enter the market IMO.

Data Exchanges

Another focus of Autodesk is Cloud Enabled Data Exchanges. You don’t download or export a spreadsheet to order from Amazon.Com or to book a flight. This makes a lot of sense in many if not most ways. It’s the first step of breaking down those old obsolete concepts and barriers like “files” which have long outlived their usefulness. With so much work to do in this area, it’s unlikely Autodesk will make Fabrication Parts part of these data exchanges anytime soon….if ever. Products like GTP’s Stratus jump through huge hoops to mine the data they do. These exchanges aren’t anywhere close to possible in Autodesk’s Platform Solutions today. It’s my hope that these Cloud based data exchanges evolve enough to start breaking down those “version incompatibility” walls between Revit versions which will shorten that 10-year development cycle. At least that’s my hope….if I were to have any.

A Bridge to Nowhere

One of the Autodesk Construction Cloud (ACC) highlights is it’s “Bridge” functionality. It allows you to link/sync multiple ACC Accounts between customers. Except that it only works on “published” models in Docs. It doesn’t work on “Live” models with BIM360 Collaborate Pro like it needs to. It also doesn’t work on the “Data”, just the “files”. This limits the effectiveness of ACC which is why most BIM360/ACC projects I see are complete train wrecks in terms of their use of existing functionality and configuration. People using Desktop Connector to access non-collaborated models or host Central Workshared models that aren’t in Collaboration.

Rumor has it Autodesk is reworking Desktop Connector. I’m sure that’ll inject just as many problems as it solves. Autodesk simply doesn’t have robust feature sets in their products any longer. Merely enough features to keep you on the hook as they have guaranteed annual revenue now.


Future Speculation

Given everything I’ve seen and heard….and 30 years of observing the industry and correctly predicting much of what has really transpired, I have a few predications…

  1. Autodesk’s Cloud enabled Exchanges will eventually be monetized. You’ll pay for everything eventually. Pay to author…pay to report…pay to export.
  2. Autodesk will become the “Facebook” (Meta) of Design/Construction/Manufacturing data. That means everything you think of when you think Facebook….the good and bad.
  3. An API first strategy is NOT in the cards. Data Exchanges will always be limited compared to what Autodesk can do with them. This will allow them to control and maintain their market position limiting what others can do or and controlling how much they must pay.
  4. Old school data exchanges will eventually go away and everything will be required to use the Cloud to facilitate data exchanges. I don’t like it on principal but it makes sense and needs to happen.
  5. 3rd party developers traditionally thought of as Autodesk competitors will some day be customers to facilitate their interoperability with Autodesk.
  6. Industrialized Construction will not be as wide spread or come as quickly as Autodesk says. Autodesk will be the biggest limiting factor in this due to products suffering a drought of features and depth.

No need to cover the positive predictions….I touched on them earlier and Autodesk does a good job promoting them all on their own. They don’t need my help. My value is providing a more realistic perspective and timeline….IMO. Let’s hope I’m wrong on many of my predications.

ESTmep Underlays – Auto vs Individual Placement

Do use use PDF Underlays in your ESTmep takeoff? Do the Pages come in all at once on separate tabs and layers? Or do you have to place them individually and make the tabs/layers yourself?

Maybe it worked one way for you and all of the sudden it seems to change to the other way for no reason. And despite looking, you can’t find a setting that changes this behavior.

What controls Auto Sheet Placement vs Individual is very easy to control, but it is hidden. Let’s take a look.

Individual vs. Automatic PDF Sheet Placement

This images shows a 7 page PDF with each page imported as an Underlay separately. Notice they are not on separate tabs and they’re all on one layer.

This next images shows what Automatic PDF placement looks like. Notice all sheets evenly placed in a row, each on a separate tab and layer.

So what’s the difference? What’s the magic setting? It all depends on how you select the “of type” dropdown when you select the PDF. This next image should explain it…

Let’s Look at Each Process

Place Sheets Individually One at a Time (of type = *.*)

Place Sheets Automatically All at Once (of type = *.pdf)