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Friday, March 6, 2020

Remote Assistance and Update Tracking

Back in 2011, at the first-ever Revit Technology Conference (RTC) North America in California (now called BILT, DBEI, and Digital Build Week,) I presented two sessions; one on Design Technology support in a larger firm, and the other on revisions in Revit. In today's post I want to share few tips from that presentation that are still relevant today.


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Using an asset management system is super helpful. LHB has a tool called Kace. Using this tool I can see the specs of a user's computer I may be helping remotely (we have four offices). In the image below I pulled up my computer's specs. Notice the little Play icon next to my IP address? This allows me to use a tool called Bomgar to initiate a screen share, with full cursor and keyboard control, with no action required by the user - of course, I ask permission first (but that is not required).


In the software inventory section I can search for an application, e.g. "Revit 2019" and see which users have not upgraded their  build. This includes odd devices, such as shared computers and check-out laptops that might otherwise get missed. Some of these say "0" in the Devices column, meaning it was found in the past but not anymore. Notice, I can compare the version listed here with the current version within Revit, via the Help --> About dialog.


Here are a few snippets from my 2011 handout (click to enlarge)...




Share your tips and comments below!



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