Cheat Sheet: Plant 3D Project Permissions in Autodesk Docs

The Applied Software, Graitec Group Plant 3D team – David Wolfe, Kaleb Flowers and Owen Whitehouse – recently hunkered down to develop a procedure for setting up permissions for Plant 3D Projects in Autodesk Docs. The process requires Autodesk BIM Collaborate Pro, part of Autodesk Construction Cloud, and AutoCAD Plant 3D.

Following is your cheat sheet to set Plant 3D project permissions in Autodesk Docs:

1.     In an Autodesk Construction Cloud project on the Unified Platform, use Roles to set up Plant Administrator, Plant Designer, Plant Reviewer, and Project Administrator roles.

Project Administrator gets full permissions to everything.

Plant Administrator gets all permissions except for project admin in all the modules.

Team members should be invited and assigned the proper roles. Make sure the access level is set to Project Member.

At the root level (Project Files), the team’s example only set up the Everyone group and gave them View permission. As the team pointed out, your Project Administrator will be listed by name and get all the permissions. (The team noted they had no luck controlling that with a Role assignment.) View permissions can be revoked at a folder or file level as necessary.

2.     Set up permissions on the Plant 3D Project (called Plant 3D Administration). At this level, the Plant Administrator Role gets “Manage,” and the Plant Designer and Plant Reviewer get “Create,” which is basically View + Download + Markups. You could also choose View + Download if you are not utilizing Markups. This configuration prevents designers from being able to check out the ProjSymbolStyle.dwg, locking the configurations.

It is doubly important to have the permissions set correctly. The permissions set here will spill over into the portal and desktop connector environments and limit any damages to your project that can be caused by users.

3.     Set the CAD file directories that the designers need more access to. As you are assigning permissions, assign the lowest necessary permission as high up in the directory structure as you can. Then progressively add permissions as necessary. The team’s example gave them “Create” permissions to:

• PID DWG
• Plant 3D Models and all subdirectories
• Project Recycle Bin
• Related Files
• Report Templates
• Orthos\DWGs
• ISO Style
  • PCFs
  • ProdIsos\Drawings
  • QuickIsos\Drawings

Watch this video clip by the Plant 3D team to see the user experience. 

Check out the Graitec Group Guide to Plant 3D for indepth information on the application, answers to challenges, system performance, worksharing, and more.