When uploading your documents to BIMcollab, you can choose to use a Placeholder for a document instead of immediately uploading at that point in time. Placeholders contain all the relevant information about the document, but allow you to perform the actual upload of the file at a later stage.
Create a placeholder
Placeholders can be created in one of two ways: either by adding individual placeholders manually or using an Upload List to generate multiple placeholders.
Manually add a placeholder
To add a document placeholder, first navigate to the project phase you want to add it to.
From the Documents module, click on the "Add to project phase" button in the top right corner.
Select the "Placeholder" button. You do not need to add a file at this stage.
Your personal queue will then be updated to include the placeholder you've just created.
Select the placeholder(s) you would like to add information to and then click on the "Add information to uploaded files" button.
Fill in the metadata information just like you would for a normal document upload. All required fields will be marked with an asterisk "*".
You can also choose to add a notification to send to a team member.
Click on the "Save" button at the bottom of the page once you are done.
You will then receive a summary of all the document placeholders that have been created. Click "continue" to return to the main documents page.
The placeholder is added with an exclamation icon "!" next to the document name. Any information regarding the Document Date, Version Date, Version number, Version description, or Status will remain unfilled until a document is actually uploaded.
Add multiple placeholders from the upload list
To add placeholders without adding the metadata for each file at upload, you can make use of an Upload list, which will bulk add placeholders based on the document information that is specified in the Excel file.
To create an Upload list, you first need to download the Excel template file, which is available here. Then, fill this in with all the document information for the placeholders you wish to create.
📝 Note: To learn more about how to use the Upload list Excel template, you can consult this article: Upload list
⚠️ Attention: When creating the upload list, the metadata fields related to the latest version should be left blank for placeholders, since this information cannot be predicted in advance. All of the light blue columns in the Excel list, including the File Data, Document Date and all Version Details fields should be left blank. These will be added when the actual models are uploaded.
Navigate to the required level of your project (location, project or phase) and from the Documents module, click on the "Add" button in the top right corner.
Drag and drop or choose the upload list file you have created to upload to the Add Documents field.
Click on the "Upload" button
Review any potential notifications or information of the new placeholders that have been uploaded.
On the same page, click on the "Go to the personal queue" button.
Click on "Add information to uploaded files" to review all the metadata that was imported from the upload list.
Click "Save" after adding or adjusting the information for the documents in your queue.
Click on "Continue" in the next page.
Now you can get back to the document overview where you can find the newly added document placeholders.
💡 Tip: Personal Queue
You can view your pending document placeholders at any time by selecting the 'Personal Queue' button within the document module. This section will display any placeholders requiring additional information before they can be uploaded and added to the document list.
When viewing your Personal queue, you can remove any placeholder by checking them and selecting the button.
It is possible to bulk edit placeholders by multi-selecting them in your personal queue, then when you choose to "Add information to uploaded files", each placeholder's information can be filled in on the same page.
📝 Note:
It is possible to add To do items such as notes, questions or tasks to placeholders before any document version is uploaded. This way, the document contents can be discussed before it is even created.
To learn more about to use To do's to communicate on your documents, refer to this article: To do's module
Upload Document to Placeholder
Once you are ready to share your documents to BIMcollab, you can upload them to the placeholders you have already made. Just like creating the placeholders themselves, you can also add documents to them either manually or by using an upload list.
Manually add document to placeholder
Click on the document name of the placeholder you would like to upload a document to.
Go to the versions (1) tab and click on the "Add version" (2) button.
The document name field will be automatically filled in since you have specified this before.
Complete the required information marked with an asterisk "*":Upload the file (1)
Specify a version number (2)
Add version date (3)
Specify a status (4)
Once all the required information is complete, click on the "Upload" (5) button.
The "documents created" page will appear which summarises all the documents that have been created. This includes their version numbers as well as if they are associated with any workflows.
Click "Continue" to return to the documents page.
A document version has now been added, and the placeholder is now considered as a regular document in your document list.
Add multiple documents to placeholders from upload list
If you wish to bulk upload documents using an Upload List, you can also use this to add documents to more than one placeholder at a time.
First, edit your Upload List excel spreadsheet and add the missing information for the blue cells: File Name, Document Date and Version Details
❗ Warning:
For file name, this should exactly match the file name of the document and include the file type extension (Eg .pdf).
2. Save the Excel file.
3. In BIMcollab, navigate to the location, project, or phase where your placeholders are located and click on the "Add to" button.
4. Drag and drop, or choose the file(s) together with the upload list to be uploaded.
5. Click the "Upload" button.
6. Review the information and notifications if any. Click on the "Go to personal queue" button.
7. Check the documents you would like to add information to and then select the "Add information to uploaded files" button.
8. Confirm the additional metadata information added to the Upload List for File Name, Document Date and Version Details. All required fields will be marked with an asterisk "*".
9. You can also choose to add a notification to send to a team member.
10. Click on the "Save" button at the bottom of the page once you are done.
11. The "documents created" page will appear which summarises all the documents that have been created. This includes their version numbers (as specified in the Upload List) as well as if they are associated with any workflows.
Click "Continue" to return to the documents page.
12. The placeholders are now considered as a regular documents in your document list.