Document management workflows make use of Project Phases.
To participate in a phase, users must first be added to its Phase Team. Administrators then assign User roles based on the user's responsibilities within that phase and set access permissions.
Because teams are linked to specific phases, the information shown on each user's 'My Projects' and 'Dashboard' pages may vary significantly. Roles allow administrators to manage visibility for different parts of the project.
📝 Note: There are three types of User Roles that can exist in a BIMcollab space.
Space role
Space role
The Space role defines whether a user is a Space Administrator or a regular user. This role is assigned when the user is first added to the space and can later be changed from the Users page in the Space Administration portal.
Project-level role
Project-level role
At the project level, each team member can be assigned a specific role with certain permissions. After creating or editing a team member, Project leaders can also grant them additional rights from the project's Settings page.
Phase Team role
Phase Team role
The Phase Team role refers to what permissions a regular user will have within a phase that is discussed in this article.
💡 Tip: Get a complete overview of all BIMcollab's user roles in our article Roles within the BIMcollab environment
Add a new Phase Team role
⚠️ Attention: To access the 'Documents Administration' portal and manage Team roles, Administrators require access to a Document management license.
Space Administrators can create new PhaseTeam roles by following the steps outlined below:
Click the gear icon in the top-right corner and select Twin Administration.
In the settings menu, go to the User roles page. You’ll see a list of all existing team roles in your BIMcollab space.
Press the 'Add' button
Enter a required name for the Team role as well as optionally a description.
Click the 'Save' to finish.
📝 Note: There are a number of default roles available to assist you with getting started quickly. All of these roles can be deleted and edited as needed by the administrator.
Once a new Phase Team role has been created, you can see an overview of which users have been assigned this role on the Information page, including the relevant team. You can also edit or delete the user role here.
Edit permissions for Phase Team roles
To edit these permissions, first navigate to the User roles module in the Documents Administration portal settings menu:
Click on the desired Phase Team Role [1] you would like to edit. To quickly find it, you can make use of the search bar.
Select the 'Permissions' [2] page to view the permissions the role currently has.
Click on the 'Edit permissions' [3]and make the modifications required.
Once you are done, click on 'Save' at the bottom section to keep the changes.
Permissions
For each feature, there are a number of different actions that can be set. These include the following:
View
Add
Edit
Delete
Execute (general term for various actions unique to certain features)
For each action, you can define specific permissions using one of the following options: always, never, by property, or my company.
⚠️ Attention: 'My company' option allows a user to have access only to the documents where their company is the author.
⚠️ Attention: 'By property permission controls user role access to specific documents based on their properties. At present, only the Work Package Code property is supported.
📝 Note: To use the 'By property' permission setting, the user's company must be linked to a Work Package. Each Work Package includes one or more Work Package Codes.
When uploading a document, you can fill in the Work Package Code field to specify which Work Package the document belongs to. If the code matches a Work Package assigned to the user’s company, the user will be allowed to perform the action associated with that permission.
Access to non-published documents
Access to non-published documents
By default, users have only access to the published documents, which have been reviewed and approved. However, in the permissions section, it is possible to allow the user to also see and modify the documents that are not published. These documents reside in the Shared state.
💡 Tip: Access our article BIMcollab document states workflow for information about the 'Shared' state.
Additionally, permissions for Phase Teams are divided into three main categories. Below is an overview of each category and how its permissions affect user roles.
Regular Documents
Regular Documents
Refers to all actions applicable to documents that are not classified as 'confidential'. The permissions in this category control a user’s ability to perform the following actions:
Archive: Allows users to access the Archived files section from the Documents page. This also enables/restricts the ability to archive active documents.
Enabled
Disabled
Edit links: Grants the ability to create or remove links between regular documents. Linked files will be visible under the document's Links menu.
Enabled
Disabled
Freeze: Allows/prevents users from freezing regular documents, locking them from further changes.
Enabled
Disabled
Use Legacy table: Determines how regular documents are displayed in the Documents page. Users can switch between the standard document list and the legacy table view.
Enabled (Legacy table)
Disabled (Document list)
Manually publish document: Enables or disables the option to manually approve regular document versions using the [Approve] button in the document details page. Only documents that are not part of a workflow can be manually approved. Once approved, the document appears in the Published folder.
Enabled
Disabled
Confidential Documents
Confidential Documents
Because you may want to keep certain documents or models visible to only selected users, these can also be added under the Confidential Documents category in the Documents page.The permissions in this category control a user’s ability to perform the following actions:
Archive: Allows users to access the Archived files section from the Documents page. This also enables/restricts the ability to archive confidential documents.
Enabled
Disabled
Freeze: Allows/prevents users from freezing confidential documents, locking them from further changes.
Enabled
Disabled
Manually publish document: Enables or disables the option to manually approve confidential document versions using the [Approve] button in the document details page. Only documents that are not part of a workflow can be manually approved. Once approved, the document appears in the Published folder.
Enabled
Disabled
Other permissions
Other permissions
Workflow: Only space administrators can create Workflows for documents; however, the ability of any other user role to View these in the Settings page can be controlled using permissions. If the View permission is restricted, the Workflow module will not be available or greyed out for that user if they have multiple user roles.
Enabled
Bulk edit:
Document Set: When bundling Documents into a Document Set, a project lead may wish for particular people to be responsible for this. As such, permissions for each user role can be controlled, which includes the ability to View, Add, Edit, or Delete Document Sets.
View enabled
Add enabled
Edit and Delete enabled
Attach documents to objects: Refers to the ability to attach documents to 3D components from files in the Model tab. If this permission is restricted, the Attach Documents button will not be available in the document panel when a user selects an element in the 3D view from the Model environment.
Enabled
📝 Note: When attaching a document, only the documents that a user has the relevant rights to will be available for selection. The other permissions that will affect what is seen in this list include.
The ability to View documents
The ability to View confidential documents
Similarly, when selecting objects with attached documents, only the documents that fall under your permissions will be displayed.
💡 Tip: To learn more about how to attach documents to model elements, you can refer to this article: Attach documents to 3D model elements
Model: This permission refers to the Model Tab, and the ability of a user role to View and Upload a model to the WebViewer. If the View permission is restricted, the user will still be able to access the Model tab but will receive a message saying "You don't have the necessary rights to view models".
Disabled
Upload: Controls whether users are allowed to upload files in the Model WebViewer. If this permission is restricted, users can still view models in the WebViewer, but will see the message "Insufficient rights to upload models" when hovering over the Upload button in the navigation tab.
Disabled
Revisions: Controls the ability to add revisions to a document, as well as to view or edit existing revisions in the Revisions section of the To Do page. These actions can be managed through user permissions.
View enabled
Add enabled
Edit enabled
Work packages: The Work packages feature allows for the bundling of documents, including additional control over the visibility of these, along with their related communication and events. As such, a project leader may wish to control which user roles can View, Add or Delete work packages using permissions.
View enabled
Add enabled
Edit and Delete enabled
Work package codes: Documents are linked to Work Packages by assigning them Work Package Codes. These codes are created in the Settings module. Permissions can be used to allow or restrict the ability to view, add, edit, or delete Work Package Codes for each user role.
View enabled
Add enabled
Edit and Delete enabled
Document naming conventions: A space administrator can determine whether Document Naming Conventions should be used whenever someone uploads a document to a project. Certain user roles can be granted permission to link a document naming convention to a project phase. This action is performed in the Settings page.
Enabled
Company
Teams
Users
Settings
Users with multiple user roles
Users can be assigned to multiple teams, and teams can be assigned to multiple project phases. If the User Roles they are assigned to have varying permissions, this can affect how menus and features appear for the user in a number of different conditions.
Example 1: User added to one team
A user is part of only Team A, which has only been added to one project phase.
As an external consultant in Team A, their User Role permits them to only view documents and the communication module.
This means all other available modules will be invisible to them.
Example 2: User is part of different teams for different project phases
A user is part of both Team A and Team B for different project phases in different locations and has different Team Phase user roles for each team.
As a project leader in Team A, they have access to all modules. In Team B, their role as a viewer restricts them to only viewing communication and the documents model.
If they were to navigate to a project phase where their Team Phase user role permissions are more restricted, the modules that they do have permissions for in the other User Role will be greyed out.
Example 3: User has multiple roles within the same project phase
A user is part of both Team A and Team B within the same project phase, but has different Team Phase user roles for each team.
As a project leader in Team A, they can perform any action. In Team B, their role as a viewer restricts them to only viewing documents and not performing any other actions.
Since the project leader's role in Team A grants more permissions, it overrides the restrictions from Team B. Therefore, the permissions are effectively combined, giving the user the broader permissions associated with the project leader role.
Editing Rights to file formats for Team Phase user roles
Each user role can also have pre-determined permissions that either allow or restrict their ability to download certain file formats that are uploaded to documents.
This can be individually controlled per file type, including:
Abbreviation | Full Name | Description |
DNG | Digital Negative | An open raw image format developed by Adobe for digital photography, designed to store image data with minimal loss. |
DOCX | Microsoft Word Document | A word processing file format used by Microsoft Word, supporting text, images, tables, and formatting features. |
DWG | Drawing | A proprietary file format used for 2D and 3D CAD drawings, commonly used with AutoCAD. |
IFC | Industry Foundation Classes | An open, neutral file format used in Building Information Modeling (BIM) to enable interoperability between software platforms. |
IFCZIP | Compressed IFC File | A ZIP-compressed version of an IFC file, used to reduce file size for easier sharing and storage. |
Portable Document Format | A widely used format developed by Adobe to present documents consistently across devices and platforms. |
PLN | Archicad Project File | A proprietary file format used by Graphisoft’s Archicad software to save full BIM project data. |
RVT | Revit Project File | A proprietary file format used by Autodesk Revit to store BIM models including architecture, structure, and MEP data. |
SKP | SketchUp Model File | A proprietary format used by SketchUp to store 3D models. |
XLSX | Microsoft Excel Spreadsheet | A spreadsheet format used by Microsoft Excel to organize, analyze, and visualize data using tables, formulas, and charts. |
ZIP | Compressed Archive File | A file format used to compress one or multiple files into a single archive, reducing size for easier storage and transfer. |
To edit these permissions, first navigate to the Team Phase user roles module in the space settings:
1. Select the "Rights to file formats" (1) page.
2. Here you can view which file formats are permitted to be downloaded, to change these select the "Edit permissions" (2) button.
3. The download permission can be toggled between "always" and "never".
4. Click save.