BIMcollab is aligned with the ISO 19650 standard for document management, making it easier for project teams to structure, manage, and collaborate on project information. ISO 19650 is a widely adopted international standard that, among other, provides a structured approach to information management during project delivery.
Document states refer to the process of reviewing project documentation before receiving final approval. The documents going through the review will appear in different document state categories as they move through the process. In BIMcollab, document states streamline permissions management by ensuring that users only see the relevant versions of documents they need, without working with unapproved versions.
ISO 19650 file states
According to ISO 19650, there are four main states a document can be in:
Work in Progress: Documents and information that are continually being developed and overwritten by each task team in their local environment and are only accessible to them.
In BIMcollab: Files in this state are only shared within the local teams and are not usually uploaded to BIMcollab as they are not intended for cross-team collaboration.
Shared: Files that have passed internal checks, and are ready for coordination with other disciplines and stakeholders. These files are usually accessible, but not editable.
In BIMcollab: All files uploaded to BIMcollab are automatically placed in the Shared folder, and they are ready to be sent out for review and approval.
Published: Documents that have been reviewed and approved and meet the requirements to be authorised for use in construction or operations.
In BIMcollab: Once the documents have been through the approval process and accepted as contractually deliverable, they are moved to the Published folder in the Documents tab.
Archived: Files that have been finalised and stored to provide an audit trail for long-term use and reference.
In BIMcollab: Once archived, these files are stored in the Archived folder in the Documents tab.
Figure 1: Tabs diagram, a file states concept as demonstrated in ISO 19650-1, Figure 10
Approval workflow in BIMcollab
The different state categories can be found in the Documents tab. There are three different state categories that documents can alternate between as they move through the review process: Shared, Published, Archived.
You can click on each to filter the documents in the relevant state.
Work in progress
As mentioned above, these documents are usually shared internally within the task team, and not uploaded to BIMcollab. If the preferred workflow is to upload them to BIMcollab, as a workaround you can use the Status field to indicate that the document is in the conceptual phase.
Read more about creating statuses in this article. Once the status has been assigned, you can filter the files in the Shared folder according to their status.
Shared
By default, all files uploaded to BIMcollab are assigned a Shared state and placed in the Shared folder. Read more about uploading documents or document lists.
As files in the Shared folder are not approved and finalised, users need special permissions to view this folder, described later in this article.
The shared folder provides a list of all documents (that are not confidential or archived), including published documents. Documents are assigned icons for ease of identification:
1. The check icon indicates files that have been published.
2. Arrow icon indicates files where an older version has been published but a new, unpublished version has been uploaded.
3. Files with no icon indicate files that have not been published and are in a shared state.
Approve files to publish them
In order for files to move from shared to published state, they must be reviewed and approved.
There are two ways to approve files in BIMcollab. Documents can be manually approved (by users with appropriate permissions) from the documents details page, or if a document is part of a Workflow, they can be approved by completing a Review Tasks.
Approving documents in both ways is explained in this article.
Publish
Once approved, files are automatically displayed in the Publish folder. By default, users have permission to view publish files (and need special permissions to view the Shared folder), that have been reviewed and approved as final versions.
Archive
Archived documents are kept on file but not shown in the active document lists. To archive a document (for users with appropriate permissions), after selecting a document from the overview list, click on the Archive icon.
Manage user permissions
Project level
By default, users at the project level have access to published documents. When adding a new user (or editing a user), users can also be given access to shared (non-published) documents.
Project Phase level
At the phase level, access is managed by user role permissions. By default, project phase users have access to published documents. For each user role, a toggle "Has access to unpublished documents" can be enabled under Permissions.