B&I Contractors Customer Story | ProjectSight to Autodesk Construction Cloud Migration
Learn how B&I Contractors migrated three years of ProjectSight data to Autodesk Construction Cloud using Graitec File Sync—meeting a tight go-live timeline while keeping project teams fully operational.
Company: B&I Contractors
Location: United States
Software used: File Sync, Autodesk Construction Cloud
For over 60 years, B&I Contractors, an employee owned business, has been a provider for
commercial installation and service of specialty mechanical, electrical and plumbing systems in Florida. Having grown from a small team to 1300+ skilled professionals, B&I offers progressive, innovative solutions combined with state-of-the-art fabrication capabilities.
The Challenge
IT Manager Bill Lamon was at the center of activity after the decision to transition B&I Trimble ProjectSight projects from onsite servers to Autodesk Docs on Autodesk Construction Cloud (ACC). The challenge the company faced was getting three years’ worth of data moved efficiently from ProjectSight on a shared internal network to ACC while continuing to work on projects.
Reliable file synchronization was absolutely critical for a successful transition. The B&I workflow required data created locally during implementation to be mirrored to Docs.
The Solutions
B&I had an established relationship with Graitec as its channel partner for Autodesk products. So, when it came time to proceed with the file migration project, Bill chose to partner with Graitec, explaining, “It made logical sense.” Graitec staff had a working understanding of B&I processes and workflows. “It was a natural extension bringing Graitec into our team to help us through this,” Bill said. “It was very seamless.”
B&I chose Graitec File Sync to automate the synchronization between the on-premises file servers and ACC Docs.
“We decided to implement Graitec File Sync, which provided a reliable and manageable solution.”
After Bill’s department got the data positioned, File Sync automated the transfer and sync into ACC Docs. Particularly useful were the Batch Tools as seen in this video, including Batch Project Creation and Batch Sync Creation Windows to ACC.
Bill said, “This approach offered a strong balance between efficiency, reliability, and cost control, allowing us to achieve our core objective of maintaining consistent, up-to-date project files across systems without the overhead of a custom-built integration.”
Bill described working with the Graitec experts and File Sync: “I thought it was great because we were given a template to work off of. We could put in our job, the job names, all the pertinent information.” He added, “The support team even offered to work with us over the weekend to help meet our tight timeline for implementing ACC by the go-live date.” The template interfaced with ACC and automatically created all the B&I jobs for them based upon that template. Bill said, “That was beneficial, because we had to create 500 different jobs. And it was also nice because we could manipulate the data on the template.” Bill and his staff saved considerable time because the template created all the jobs on ACC for them.
The second step in the process was the actual synchronization of the data. Bill explained,
That was, again, based upon using that template for the jobs that we were going to sync. It was a simple set up, where we ended up using one of our local servers to run the actual file sync.
Results
The dedicated server managed sync tasks, and File Sync was configured to mirror established project folder structures. File Sync automated the transfer and sync process, eliminating the need for manual uploads and ensuring that all data stored locally was being pushed to ACC Docs. Bill said, “We were able to run over 100 incremental syncs every evening.” In terms of efficiency, the automated sync eliminated repetitive manual tasks such as downloading files from ProjectSight and manually uploading them to ACC Docs. As to the amount of time the company saved on this process, Bill said, “I couldn’t even imagine . . . hundreds of hours at least.”
We were getting prepared to go live with ACC, but the team was still working in ProjectSight and on the internal server side. We allowed them to continue to work, and any changes that were being made, we knew that Graitec File Sync was bringing them up into ACC.
The critical B&I project data on ACC was always protected and stayed current during ACC implementation.
The use of File Sync had a direct, positive impact on B&I project timelines. By automating the sync of files between the internal servers and ACC Docs, B&I was able to meet the extremely strict timeline for implementing ACC. From contracting to go-live, the timeline was just over four months, and File Sync played a key role in helping achieve that.
Implementing File Sync significantly improved decision-making across B&I projects. By ensuring that all team members — from BIM coordinators to field staff — have real-time access to the most current files, stakeholders can make informed decisions quickly without waiting for manual updates or worrying about outdated data.
Lessons Learned
The impact of File Sync is maximized when you have a clear process for where files originate, how they are stored and
how different teams access them. Bill elaborated, “In our case, it was primarily used during the migration from ProjectSight to ACC to ensure a smooth transition from local storage to cloud-based project management. As a result, our users, especially the BIM and project management teams, now have project information readily available on the jobsite, improving efficiency and accessibility.”
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