BIM 360 Design – Consumed Folder

I have come across some confusion regarding the Consumed folder with BIM360 Design. The Consumed folder within BIM360 Design is a temporary holding area for linking in 3rd party models. For example, an Architect will have a Consumed folder and the Structural Engineer will have their own separate Consumed folder. If the Architect is linking in the Engineers model through BIM360 design, they should first copy the latest Engineers model into the Architects Consumed folder. Within Revit, using the Insert Tab > Link Revit > External Reference/BIM360 > Architects > Consumed, and the model should be linked in from there.

The purpose of this workflow is to avoid linking into the live shared model of other consultants, as this will cause any changes in their model to go unidentified or automatically accepted. This allows you to manage the version of another consultant’s model that you are using for reference.