Welcome to the second in a 4-part series extolling the virtues of Autodesk Sheets.
In this episode, you’ll learn what preparation needs to be done before using the Sheets tool.
Autodesk Build
Subscribe to Autodesk Build and assign it to the appropriate user(s). This was covered in the previous episode, but it bears repeating. An Autodesk Docs subscription is included with a Build subscription.
Assign Permissions
Not all users invited to a project have the required permissions.
Public Sharing
If sheets will be shared with external providers, enable public sharing.
Collections
A collection is a named container that holds sheets, typically within a submission milestone such as Tender or Construction. Collections must be enabled for a project. They cannot be disabled once enabled. Collections can be created immediately before sheets are created; some managers prefer to define them at project conception. I recommend enabling Collections for my Civil Engineering customers.
Version Sets
A Version Set holds sheets, like a Collection, except that the sheets’ versions can be updated in the case of an addendum. Version Sets can be created when sheets are created; some managers prefer to pre-define them.
Disciplines
Disciplines can be used to identify different design groups contributing to the construction set. If a Civil consultant works with an architect and a structural engineer, sheets from these three disciplines can be managed and identified with the Sheets tool.
AutoCAD
Ensure that all paper space layouts are identical and that title blocks are printed such that they occupy the exact same space in paper space. Optical character recognition tools will be used to read title block information, and if the location of that information is shifted between sheets, you may get incorrect data.
Figure 1: Shifted title blocks
Print the Set
Print the set of drawings to a PDF and save that PDF to disk. It can be saved to the Autodesk Docs project (recommended) or even on your local disk. It will be selected during the sheet creation process later.
That’s it for today. In the next episode, you’ll learn how to define your first set of sheets.
Until next time.