Now you have a new title a BIM/VDC manager, and your role changes from hands-on production to supervisor and or manager, and an assignment lands on your lap to write a business plan for the next three to five years for your firm's BIM/VDC department. Join a round table discussion on how to approach this task, tips, and resources tools to help you in the next step in your career and shift your mindset from "doer" to "thinker."

Are you a glutton for the perfect CAD/BIM standard? Do you lust after other CAD/BIM managers who have the authority to get things done? Do project teams become greedy about their own standards, wrathfully rejecting the standardized and more efficient ways you proudly implement? You need not despair. This class will focus on ways to put yourself into the enviable position of having users who listen to you. Combining more than two decades of CAD, BIM, and IT support and management experience, plus years of working with numerous companies to help support their technical managers and staff, we will discuss the things nobody likes to talk about—the sins CAD and BIM managers commit while doing their jobs. What sins might you be guilty of, and what’s the path to righteousness? Join this session to learn some of the common pitfalls, missteps, and misconceptions that come with the job, and uncover why they happen, and learn how to avoid them.

Are you a glutton for the perfect CAD/BIM standard? Do you lust after other CAD/BIM managers who have the authority to get things done? Do project teams become greedy about their own standards, wrathfully rejecting the standardized and more efficient ways you proudly implement? You need not despair. This class will focus on ways to put yourself into the enviable position of having users who listen to you. Combining more than two decades of CAD, BIM, and IT support and management experience, plus years of working with numerous companies to help support their technical managers and staff, we will discuss the things nobody likes to talk about—the sins CAD and BIM managers commit while doing their jobs. What sins might you be guilty of, and what’s the path to righteousness? Join this session to learn some of the common pitfalls, missteps, and misconceptions that come with the job, and uncover why they happen, and learn how to avoid them.

BIM (Building Information Modeling) and virtual design and construction (VDC) managers often lead organizations through digital transformation, investigating the latest technology and exploring new ways to streamline and improve both business and project outcomes. Join us for a panel discussion with BIM/VDC managers from leading construction companies. We'll discuss strategies and best practices for getting the most out of collaborative, 2D and 3D quantification workflows.

Have you ever had a project that loads painfully slow? Have you ever received over-designed models from vendors that had an LOD greater than the agreed upon contract? Everything adds up, and though the sky is the limit, there are limits on time, money, and capacity of the Cloud. This discussion is centered around how we can make BIM 360 work for large-scale construction projects. It explores best practices and tools to work efficiently. It is a place for Project & BIM/VDC Managers to share ideas on managing vendors, subs, and all contributors to the project. We will review many solutions, from adjusting contract language all the way to custom API solutions. This class includes both classic BIM 360 and Next-Gen best practices. Though intended for management-level AEC professionals, all BIM contributors are welcome, provided they are experienced in basic workflows and processes.

A BIM/VDC kickoff meeting is a crucial (but often neglected) component on any multidiscipline/multifirm project. This session will give attendees a chance to build their own BIM/VDC coordination kickoff meetings. We’ll discuss and put together a one-size-fits-all type of agenda (to be used as a starting point for your organization) for a typical BIM/VDC coordination kickoff meeting. As part of this session, we’ll discuss who needs to attend, what topics need to be covered, how to track the information that is discussed, and how to best document the meeting itself. A final result of our discussion will be a group-sourced, distributable, BIM/VDC coordination document that works for any project type. This session is intended for BIM/VDC managers, BIM/VDC coordinators, BIM/VDC job captains, project managers, and anyone else typically involved in the initial project BIM/VDC kickoff meeting.

In today's ultra-competitive market, executing a good strategic plan makes the difference between being out in front or just keeping pace with the competition. All too often those great, well thought out plans stumble during execution because they were poorly understood or poorly communicated downstream. Who takes the blame for that? You do. Here's how to save time, save money, and save frustration: If you understand where your company is headed and how they want to get there (i.e., their strategic plan) then identifying how to support it is much easier. This class gives technology managers, like you, a basic set of tools for developing strategic plans for their teams that align with and support the overall goals of the firm. And, hopefully along with that, you can show the folks up the ladder that you understand the bigger picture and your role in it.

Flying a drone around an airport comes with a unique set of challenges. In this class, Atkins and 3DR will walk you through how we were able to obtain the first FAA waiver to fly inside protected airspace, and what kinds of hoops we had to jump through to convince the busiest airport in the world that this was an innovative technology worth pursuing. We'll walk through the process of obtaining the waiver and capturing the data, and review what we've done with the captured images and the models we've built for design.

This class will provide a walkthrough of application development using the Autodesk Forge and Amazon Web Services. We will discuss developer tools and the steps required to go from the inception of an idea to an application running in production. We will discuss scaling, DevOps, security, and user management. (Joint AU/Forge DevCon class).

Are you a casual LISP programmer? Do you get what you want done but feel like you have to bludgeon your way through it? Do you have trouble getting what's under the hood into overdrive? Then, this class is for you. You'll learn many of the things that real power AutoLISP programmers know.

If you are a BIM manager supporting project teams, you have likely spent time setting up Revit models before the team can begin their work. Even with mature templates and standards, the process of configuring a model for a project team’s needs can be time consuming and inconsistent - especially in multi-disciplinary practices operating across multiple markets. This session will showcase a custom ‘Project Create’ platform implemented by HED in partnership with Proving Ground. Teams use this platform to submit project criteria - including project size, scope, disciplines, and market sectors. Using these inputs, an automated Revit process will use standard resources to create a pre-configured starter project with required levels, views, sheets, and content. The resultant models are then automatically published for the project team on BIM360. The Project Create platform has greatly reduced BIM startup time while increasing standards compliance across a wide-ranging portfolio of projects.

Looking for some powerful Revit tips that don't take an hour to understand? Then you've come to the right place! Join us on a whirlwind tour of Revit tools, features, and shortcuts that will boost your productivity, expand your skill set, and impress your colleagues. From navigating views to manipulating model elements, this tip-a-minute session will cover the essentials of Revit software for users at all levels.

Over the last few years, I've had the honor and privilege of facilitating this roundtable discussion at multiple venues, collecting a lot of collaborative, informative, and intelligent concepts with some amazing people along the way, and would appreciate the opportunity to continue these discussions and share the knowledge! The term BIM Manager can mean many different things and include many different responsibilities depending on your organization, their understanding of BIM, and their level of expectations. In this roundtable discussion, we'll continue to explore what that has meant in our collective experience and how that has been defined/implemented within our respective organizations, especially during the last couple of years of Covid. Not only will there be intriguing discussions, but you'll get the opportunity to "meet" and connect with similar colleagues to widen your network!

Have you ever submitted a support question to Autodesk and received the response: “Can you please send us your journal files?” Then you may already be aware of the hidden power of journal files. If not, have no fear; this session isn’t going to dive into the troubleshooting aspect of journal files. Instead, we will discuss how to use journal files to help perform repetitive tasks. We’ll uncover the location of journal files, discuss how to read portions of them that are pertinent to you, and then look into how to extract the task needed to perform repetitive tasks. These tasks could be any number of items, including upgrading families at each release, purging families, changing object styles in a family, adding line styles, and so on. The use of journal files can apply to anyone, in any discipline, and this session will provide several ideas regarding how.

As technology, applications, and solutions continue to expand into the realm of BIM (Building Information Modeling), the BIM Manager is more critical than ever and has taken on new roles and responsibilities. At first glance, a BIM Manager is in charge of various tasks related to BIM efforts in their respective organization. More so than ever, we see the role of BIM Manager to also be a thought-leader and solutions expert. In this session, we will take a look at the role of BIM Manager, how it fits in today's fast-paced environment, and how to transition to such a role within an organization. During the session, we will share common processes, applications, add-ons, and other tools to help transition to the role of BIM manager and customize the role to fit to your organizations unique requirements and projects.

Calling all architects! Want to add more than basic railings for your monumental stair in Revit software? This class is for you. Custom railing paneling can be fun to design but challenging to model, even with a good fundamental knowledge of Revit software's railing systems. In this session, you will learn to create the custom parts you need and put them together in an accurately modeled railing that will look great in 3D and still be easy to document in your drawings. We'll also cover some shortcuts and ways to avoid common issues throughout the process. At the end of the class, you'll be able to take home all sample files and family templates for your own use. Prerequisites for this course include a working knowledge of railing systems in Revit, as well as some experience with the family editor. It is highly recommended that attendees watch AR18637 "Handrail Hacks" using Autodesk University online prior to the class to ensure maximum benefit.

Discover case studies of superintendents and foremen who used virtual reality to better understand their means and methods during preconstruction and early construction.

Take a look under the hood and see how Fabrication ESTmep software can save you time and money by using one common database throughout the Autodesk Fabrication portfolio. Learn best practices from industry experts on how to implement Fabrication ESTmep. In this class, we'll go through a recommended implementation strategy, along with best practices for a smooth implementation. We'll examine the Product Information Editor, ID Codes, and how pricing information is linked to items within Fabrication ESTmep. We'll look at the Harrison Pricing Service, and show you how to update an existing price list using a CSV file.

Dynamo software is great for inputting information, linking parameters together, and performing calculations. However, Dynamo can also be a great tool for tracking the information and components in intelligent models. For example, with large projects, there can be hundreds of spaces with thousands of components. Revit software can track this information in schedules, but only to a certain extent. With Dynamo, you can track the information and ensure that it is correct. You can extract data from equipment and compare it to other parameters, such as the minimum requirements for the space or zone. And you can extract data from circuits and equipment and compare it to other parameters, such as code requirements or design requirements. Then, you can export the data to Microsoft Excel and format it accordingly.

When the role of a CAD Manager, and more so BIM Manager, became a regular part of design firms, several questions arose. Should this Manager work on projects too? Should this person have a billable expectation? Should this role be a practitioner or someone completely unique? Should the Manager be part of an Architectural Studio or an Engineering Group, or should they sit outside the design teams? Many of these questions were debated early on, and as the industry evolved, so did the CAD and BIM Manager roles. What was once an isolated role became several people in a group, and responsibilities expanded from a focused software-type management to a larger umbrella of technology. With this evolution, should we again consider these questions? The one that is particularly interesting is where does this team/group sit, and who do they report to? Is it the design and project side; is it IT; or is it somewhere else? Please join this roundtable to share your experiences and opinions.