Introduction to C4R - Revit Tutorial

- [Instructor] In this video, I want to give you a high-level overview of just exactly what is collaboration for Revit? Now we often refer to it as C4R, so the two terms can be used interchangeably. So just what exactly is C4R? Well the simplest way to describe it is, it's worksharing in the cloud. So if you've ever worked together on a project in your office where more than one Revit user was accessing the same model at the same time, then you were using worksharing. So worksharing, quite simply, allows this simultaneous user access. C4R doesn't change anything about worksharing. All it really does is enable the ability to put the central model in the cloud. Now if you're not really familiar where the central model is, or you don't really have too much experience with worksharing, or any of the terminology that goes along with that, then I welcome you to explore the Revit worksharing users course here in the library. This course approaches it from the perspective of a member of the project team, so what would a member of the project team need to know about worksharing in order to be successful? We have another course called Revit Worksharing Management. That course concerns itself more with the management aspect of a worksharing project. So what are the tools and the features that managers of a workshare-enabled project would need to concern themselves with? So you're welcome to explore both of those courses in the library, to learn a little bit more about worksharing, but to summarize, C4R simply makes worksharing use a cloud-based hub as a location to store the central model, and this means that it makes it easier for users to be distributed geographically. So one of the most powerful benefits of using C4R is you can collaborate successfully in a C4R project, regardless of where you're located. So you could have folks in different offices spread around the country, or even around the world, logging in and accessing a model that's stored in a C4R-based project. Now to install C4R, and I mean on your personal copy of Revit, it's already included with 2017, so if you have the Revit 2017 version, then the C4R functionality is already built into your copy of Revit. I want to be clear, that what's stored in the cloud is the central model, but the work that you will be doing in C4R in Revit still happens on your local workstation. So you still need a copy of Revit on your local workstation and all the work you do, your local file, that will still be stored locally on the hard drive on your machine and when you synchronize, the only difference is the synchronization will actually update the cloud model. Okay, but your local copy still remains local, you're still using Revit just as normal, as you always have. If you have Revit 2016 or Revit 2015 then you must install the C4R plugin if you want to think of it like that. Okay, so that functionality has to be installed separately, and it's part of one of the updates that would be available if you just run the Autodesk application manager, so you can usually find that down in your taskbar, over in the corner of your Windows interface. So that's probably the easiest way to get that installed, or just check with your IT support person for help in doing that. Now, licensing is important, as well. So, it's one thing to have the functionality actually stored in your application, but you also need a license to use it. So this is separate from your Revit license, so you still need a Revit license to run Revit in general, but to use the C4R functionality, there is a monthly license that goes along with that, a monthly entitlement. And it goes beyond what your normal subscription allows. Again, if you're a sole proprietor, then just check with your reseller or Autodesk directly in terms of how to purchase a license of C4R. If you're working in a larger organization, then just talked to the port personnel there and tell them your intention to use C4R and you can work out how to get licensing for that. But each user on the project team will need a C4R entitlement. We're going to talk about this a little bit more in some of the later videos in this course, but generally speaking, just keep that in the back your mind, that each person that needs to access this cloud-based model will need an entitlement to C4R. It's tied to the user and to that user's Autodesk account, not tied to the project. So it doesn't matter how many projects you have in C4R, you don't need a license for every one. It matters how many users will be accessing cloud-based models, so each user needs a license but that user can access as many cloud-based models as they want.