When you have File Locking for Autodesk® BIM 360® installed, you can use the CloudCollabModifiedOption system variable to control when documents (DWG files and DWT files) are unlocked in BIM 360 after they are closed in AutoCAD.

You can use the following settings for the CloudCollabModifiedOption system variable:

Value

Description

0

(Default)

Documents are not immediately unlocked after you close them. When a document has been edited, saved, and closed, it is unlocked after the changes have finished uploading to BIM 360. This prevents another user from opening the document before the latest changes have finished uploading.

An "Unlocking file" action appears in the Autodesk Desktop Connector Pending Actions window after you close a document, even if no changes have been made to the document.

1

In most scenarios, documents are immediately unlocked after you close them (the exception is when a document has unsaved changes), which can provide better performance. When a document is unlocked immediately after it is closed, an "Unlocking file" action does not appear in the Autodesk Desktop Connector Pending Actions window.

Important: When the CloudCollabModifiedOption system variable is set to 1, documents that have been edited and saved are unlocked immediately after they are closed. Depending on when you close a document after saving it, it is possible that it may be unlocked in BIM 360 before the changes have finished uploading to BIM 360. To ensure that documents remain locked in BIM 360 until your changes have finished uploading, you can change the value of the CloudCollabModifiedOption system variable to 0.

Note: Restart AutoCAD after changing the value of the CloudCollabModifiedOption system variable.

It is not supported to lock files when running Civil 3D as AutoCAD. To lock files, it is required to work in AutoCAD with the File Locking App installed or work in Civil 3D.

If you have AutoCAD 2021 ,2020 installed together with AutoCAD 2022 on the same machine, and wanted to enable file locking for AutoCAD 2021 or 2020, please make sure to install the version 2.2.0. (Version 1.0.0  of file locking app in this case will introduce unexpected locking behaviors on AutoCAD 2022.)

• Locking and unlocking is only supported for documents stored in BIM 360. Locking and unlocking is not supported for documents stored in BIM 360 Team or Autodesk Drive.
• If AutoCAD or Civil 3D is open when  File Locking for Autodesk® BIM 360® is installed, AutoCAD or Civil 3D must be restarted.
• When the XLOADCTL system variable is set to 1, referenced files are not locked in BIM 360 (they are only locked in the local cache).
• Automatic locking and unlocking is not supported for DST (sheet set data) files.
• If you install an AutoCAD 2020 or 2021-based product after installing File Locking for Autodesk® BIM 360®, the CloudCollabModifiedOption system variable cannot be modified in the newly installed product. To work around this issue, you can repair the installation of File Locking for Autodesk® BIM 360® or you can uninstall File Locking for Autodesk® BIM 360® and reinstall it
• Crash or unhandled exceptions might be met when working on Civil 3D 2021.1 and 2021.2 installed with File Locking App, which is set to  'Run as AutoCAD'. The crash will be fixed in the future releases of Civil 3D from 2021 update 3.

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