When you create a new BIMcollab project, the default document upload setting is already enabled. This means you can upload documents without filling in metadata first, so you can get started quickly.
💡 Tip: Use the advanced upload setting to make metadata required, giving you more control over your document information. Read more about it: Upload documents in the Advanced upload setting
Before you start
User permissions
To upload documents, you need a:
A BIMcollab license.
To have a correct user team role for uploading the project level.
To have a correct Workgroup role permissions for uploading the project phase level.
If you do not have the right permissions, the 'Add button' won't be visible.
Select the correct Location, Project or Phase
New documents are always added to the currently selected project or project phase (2), as shown in the navigation menu. Make sure you are adding documents to the correct project (phase).
Upload documents
In the default upload setting, you can upload documents in two ways:
1. Drag and drop
Drag your documents directly into the documents table.
2. Using the 'Add to project (phase)' button
Click Add to project (phase) to select files from your computer.
In both upload options, the documents are uploaded immediately, and an upload progress bar appears. From this window, you can cancel the upload for all files (1) or for individual files (2). Additionally, a document details page (3) can be opened from this menu.
Review the metadata
Metadata is extra information about your document (such as author, date, or version). Some metadata is automatically filled in during the upload process, while the other metadata can be added later.
Automatically filled metadata:
Document name - In the format of file-name.extension
Document date - First version date
Author - Is added as the company of the user uploading
Version number - The version number will be "1" for the first upload of the document; for any subsequent versions, the application will attempt to assign the next version number.
Version date - Upload date is used
⚠️ Attention: When a new version of an existing document with the same file name is uploaded, BIMcollab will automatically upload it as a new version of the original file.
However, if the original document is archived or frozen, the upload will be blocked and the following message will appear:
💡 Tip: Learn about all metadata fields in this article: Document metadata types and usage.
💡 Tip: In addition to uploading files directly, documents can also be added using integrations such as Autodesk Forma through BIMcollab Document Sync. After connecting Autodesk Forma to your BIMcollab project, you can select and upload files from your Autodesk environment into the Documents tab. Learn more about it here: Connecting Autodesk Forma with Document Management.