Collaboration

Using Slack Inside a BIM Flow with Revit

Communication tools for workgroups are becoming increasingly important in companies. It’s becoming more common to find new types of collaborative workers in companies: freelancers, external consultants, temporary collaborators… These new profiles make collaboration increasingly important. The use of Dropbox, Google apps, and similar tools is almost standard within companies. However, the use of “different” tools and the fact that each person has their own preferences makes it necessary to use “one ring to rule them all.”

  • Slack

What is Slack? A business communication tool that’s easy to use, scalable, and fully customizable. Slack is a type of private corporate chat where we can create different work teams (teams) in which we can collaborate with different professionals.

The most interesting thing is that these teams can be connected to other tools. For example, in a channel we’ve created for a specific project, we can add integration with other tools: with Google Calendar, where we’ll have appointment reminders within that same channel; another integration with Dropbox for file sharing; with Drive, with Hangout, with Trello if you’re a follower of the Kanban method; with Wunderlist if you’re a GTD user. Imagine if we already use a file-sharing tool like Dropbox? What better companion than a communication app that notifies us when, who, and why something has been added to Dropbox? Great!

  • Slack + BIM

If one of the most important premises of the BIM methodology is interoperability, the advantages of having a communication tool like Slack are incredibly interesting. Having shared files, calendars, task lists, cards… It’s very BIM-like. Throughout a project, we can always know which agent is doing what.

  • Revit + Cloud

What if we set up a Revit server in the cloud? Then we can collaborate with different specialists in different locations… This is also very BIM-like. We can use Revit from different locations and simultaneously share information and communicate through Slack.

  • Slack + Bim + Revit + Cloud + Slackit = BIM in the Spirit 😉

I’m sure many of you can already guess where we’re going… How great would it be to have Slack integrated into Revit? Well, it’s possible, thanks to “Slackit,” an open-source plugin developed by Ben Muller ( @pix3lot ) .

By installing the plugin (it’s available for the 2015 version; if you want it for the 2016 version, just compile it), two icons will appear: one for the plugin configuration and a second to share Revit screenshots to our channel…

With Slackit, we’re going to solve one of the most delicate processes in collaborative work with Revit: synchronization with the central model. Every time a collaborator starts synchronizing, we’ll receive a notification in Slack (on our mobile phone, in the desktop app, etc.) telling us who’s synchronizing. When it’s finished, we’ll receive another notification telling us if the synchronization was successful and how long it took.

Did you enjoy this glimpse into the collaborative workflow with Revit? Well, the most interesting thing is seeing it in action.

Source: http://bit.ly/25ilCt8