Getting Started

Follow these steps after you have installed Drawing Sync.

In AutoCAD, the Drawing Sync ribbon is in the Add-ins or the Collaborate tab.

Drawing Sync requires occasional sign-in to receive workshare invitations.

To join a workshare

1. In the Drawing Sync pane, click Sync Central.
2. If you have previously joined a workshare, click Add Project.
3. In the Manage Projects dialog, if you see You have workshare invitations do the following:
   • Under Central Workshare, click the […] button.
     
   • Select a workshare invitation and click OK.
     
4. Specify a Project Folder. Workshare invitations provide a default that you can change.
5. If you did not accept an invitation, specify the Central Workshare location. The location can be a network path, or a URL. For example:
   

   W:\drawings\centrals\surveys\, \\designs\centrals\25RES_036\, or https://github.com/ds-centrals/25RES_036.git.

6. After you have specified the Project Folder location and Central Workshare location, click Sync.
7. Cloud worksharing may require admin-provided credentials.
   

You can now edit, add, and delete drawings in your project folder. When you are ready to share your changes, click Sync Central again.

To create a workshare

As an admin, you create the central workshare. Workshares can be created on your network or a git server in the cloud.

Prepare the central location. Do one of the following:

• Network - Create an empty folder at a shared location. For example: \\designs\centrals\25RES_036\
• Cloud - Create a private, empty, repository on GitHub. You will also need a Fine-grained token with Contents (Read and write) permissions.
  

Next, prepare the initial project. The initial project should contain at least one drawing file.

After the central location and initial project are available, create the workshare:

1. In AutoCAD, in the Drawing Sync pane, click Sync Central.
2. If you have previously joined a workshare, click Add Project.
3. Specify your Project Folder, which should contain at least one drawing.
4. Specify the Central Workshare location. This can be a path to an empty folder or a URL. For example: https://github.com/ds-centrals/25RES_036.git.
   
5. Click Sync.
6. If you are asked for credentials, enter the username and password.
   From https://github.com/ds-centrals/25RES_036.git, the username (resource owner) is ds-centrals. The password is the Fine-grained token.

Invite workshare members

As an admin, after you create a workshare, you can invite team members to the workshare.

Creating invitations is optional. Users can join if they have access to the central location, and the credentials. But creating invitations has advantages:

• Once an invitation is accepted, the password is encrypted and saved in the Local User registry. Workshare members do not see the Fine-grained token in clear text.
• Tokens can be updated. If a token expires and is re-issued, members can accept the invitation again.
• You can specify a Publish location. When the team is ready to share their work, drawings can be copied to a folder specified by the admin.

To create invitations, do the following on the drawingsync.com site:

1. After sign-in, click the Manage Workshares button.
2. Enter the Workshare location. This is the network folder or URL.
3. Enter the Team Access Token. This is the Fine-grained token.
4. Optional. Enter a Publish folder such as /ACCDocs/My Company/25RES_036/Project Files/drawings or a full path to a shared folder.
5. Optional. Enter a workspace folder such as ds-centrals/25RES_036. This is a subfolder of the Workspace Root, which can be specified in settings.
6. Enter team member emails, separate by a comma. If your organization uses SSO (Single Sign On) you are allowed to enter a wildcard such as *@autodesk.com.
7. Click Save

After you save, workshare members can accept the invitation.

Saving does not trigger email notifications. Workshare members see invitations from the Manage Projects dialog.
Emails that do not match an account are held until the team member signs in.

After creating the invitation, you can notify team members to Sync Central and Add a Project to accept the invitation.

If you are looking to work with DX commands or DWP files, See Getting Started (DX and DWP).

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