Archibus SaaS
Archibus Smart Client Extension for AutoCAD
Archibus Smart Client Extension for Revit

CAD and BIM in Archibus SaaS Deployments

In Archibus SaaS, the Smart Client Extensions for AutoCAD and Revit are installed locally and users work with data that is stored on the Cloud. Drawings and models are stored on your local network or hard drive; when you publish drawings as enterprise graphics, the resulting SVG files are published to the Cloud.

As part of setting up Archibus SaaS deployments, administrators at your site will have configured an SFTP account for users who need to push and pull files to and from the Cloud.

Editing CAD Drawings and BIM Models

At this time, Archibus SaaS deployments do not support the Document Management for Drawings feature. Therefore, each time you want to edit drawings and BIM models, you must make the drawings available on your local hard drive or network.

Follow this general procedure:

  1. Pull all drawings from the SFTP folder into the local folder using an SFTP client program, such as Filezilla.
    • The local folder is the folder specified with drawingsFolderForSmartClient in \webapps\archibus\WEB-INF\config\afm-projects.xml. This folder can be on your hard drive or on your local network.
  2. Use the Smart Client Extension for AutoCAD or Revit to edit the drawings and models on your local machine.
    • Changes you make to asset symbols are written to the database using Web Services, as per usual.
  3. Save your changes to the drawing or BIM model.
  4. Publish the CAD drawing or BIM model as enterprise graphics.
    • The enterprise graphics are written to the Web Central instance on the Cloud, where they are saved into the server-side project folder, such as \projects\hq\enterprise-graphics.
  5. Push all drawings you changed back to the SFTP folder on the Cloud, using Filezilla or other SFTP client program.

Note: As you work with the online help covering the Smart Client Extensions, note that the topics assume that you have already executed the above procedure and that the drawing or BIM model exists on your local network or hard drive.

Note: If you need to check the drawings folder, you can run the AFM_INFO command from the command line.