20 min read Updated May 2026

Auto Sync Documentation

Complete guide to installing, configuring, and using Auto Sync to orchestrate Sync with Central across your workshared Revit models.

Supported Revit Versions

• Revit 2022
• Revit 2023
• Revit 2024
• Revit 2025
• Revit 2026
• Revit 2027

Installation

Quick Start Guide

The fastest path to your first managed sync. Total time: 10 seconds.

1. Confirm the Tray Icon is Active

After installing, the Auto Sync icon appears in your system tray (bottom-right of the Windows taskbar). The colour tells you the current state:

• Teal - idle / monitoring, all clear
• Blue - sync in progress
• Amber - queued, waiting for clear path
• Red - last sync failed

2. Choose a Sync Mode

Right-click the tray icon → Settings. Pick one of two modes:

• Scheduled Sync - sync at a fixed interval (15 / 30 / 60 / 120 minutes)
• Sync on Idle - sync after a configurable period of inactivity (2 / 5 / 10 / 15 / 30 minutes)

3. Let It Run

That's it. Auto Sync handles everything else: queueing your syncs, waiting for clear paths, notifying you of team activity, and logging every sync to history.

Intelligent Sync Queue

The sync queue is the heart of Auto Sync. Before every sync, Auto Sync checks whether the central model is currently being accessed by another user. If someone else is syncing, your request is automatically queued and executed the moment the path is clear.

How Detection Works

Revit doesn't expose a direct API for checking whether another user is syncing. Auto Sync uses a two-layer approach:

1. File lock detection - Auto Sync monitors the central model's .slog sync log file. When another user starts syncing, Revit locks this file. Auto Sync detects the lock and queues the request.
2. Exception-handling fallback - If a sync attempt encounters a "central model is being accessed" error from Revit, the request is automatically re-queued and retried when the path clears.

Queue Timeout

By default, Auto Sync waits up to 5 minutes for a clear sync path before giving up and logging a timeout. Adjust this in Settings → Queue Timeout.

Scheduled Sync

Set a fixed interval and Auto Sync handles the rest. Your model syncs automatically at regular intervals without any manual intervention.

• Configurable schedule, set to any number of minutes
• Each open model syncs on its own independent schedule
• Auto Sync skips syncs if the model has not been modified since the last sync
• Pause and resume scheduling at any time from the tray menu

Sync on Idle

Sync on Idle waits for you to stop working, then syncs after a configurable idle delay.

• Configurable idle delay, set to any number of minutes
• Tracks user activity via Revit's Idling event and document change events
• Optionally syncs even if no changes were made since the last sync
• Resets after each idle sync so the next sync only fires after a fresh idle period

Multi-Model Support

Auto Sync tracks every open workshared model independently. When you have multiple models open, they are managed in parallel - but never synced simultaneously.

• Automatic detection when workshared models open or close
• Independent scheduling per model
• Sequential sync execution to prevent overlapping operations
• Status tracking per model: idle, queued, syncing, error
• Supports both file-server and cloud-hosted workshared models

Team Activity Monitoring

Auto Sync monitors what other users are doing across your workshared models in real time - even if they don't have Auto Sync installed.

For File-Server Models

Auto Sync parses each model's .slog file to detect:

• When a new user opens the model - you get a notification
• When a user's Revit session crashes - you get a warning
• When the same user has the model open on multiple machines - you get an alert (this can cause data corruption)
• When another user starts syncing - Auto Sync knows to wait

For Cloud Models

Auto Sync uses its cross-instance session coordinator to share status between Auto Sync users. The dashboard's Team tab shows all active users, their machines, and current status across your monitored models.

Multi-Instance Coordination

When you run multiple Revit instances at once (common when working across versions or large projects), Auto Sync coordinates between them automatically.

• A single system tray icon is shared across all instances - no tray clutter
• Tray ownership is managed via a named Mutex - if the owning instance closes, another instance takes over automatically
• Each instance writes its session status periodically, and the tray owner aggregates and displays the combined status
• The status overlay shows models from all instances together

Admin Console (Remote Sync & Close)

For BIM managers and IT administrators, Auto Sync includes an Admin Console for remote sync and relinquishing models that have been left open without having to walk over to anyone's desk.

What It Does

The Admin Console lists every active Auto Sync session reporting to the shared Team Status Folder - user, machine, PID, open models, and last-seen timestamp - and lets an admin issue a Sync & Close command against any of them.

The target user sees a warning toast on their machine (configurable warning period, default 30 seconds), then Auto Sync saves all open documents (syncs workshared, saves local) and posts a graceful close to Revit.

Access Control

• The Admin Console tray menu item is only visible to users whose Windows username appears in admins.json in the shared Team Status Folder
• The receiving instance independently validates the issuer's username against the same admins.json whitelist (defence in depth)
• The shared folder's NTFS ACL must restrict write access to admin users - this is the primary control
• The first admin can bootstrap an empty list; afterwards only existing admins can add or remove admins

Command Lifecycle

• Commands carry an explicit 5-minute expiry - stale commands left over from an offline target are dropped, not executed on next startup
• Each command is processed exactly once (idempotency by command ID)
• An accepted / completed / rejected result file is written back so the issuing admin sees the outcome
• Every accepted command is written to the Sync Log as an audit event including the issuing admin and reason

Receiver Opt-In

• Each user can disable acceptance via the acceptAdminCommands setting if they want their machine to be unreachable
• The warning period before close is configurable per-user

Centrally Managed Settings

IT and BIM managers can lock settings across the whole team from a single file, so everyone runs the same configuration. Create a file named admin-settings.json in the shared Team Status Folder (the folder set under Settings → Team Status Folder) and include only the settings you want to control:

{
  "syncIntervalMinutes": 30,
  "queueTimeoutSeconds": 300,
  "relinquishOptions": { "checkedOutElements": true }
}

• Any setting you include is applied to everyone and locked. Locked options show greyed-out in each user's Settings with a "managed by your administrator" note.
• Leave a setting out and users keep control of it.
• Remove the file and everyone gets full control back on the next launch.
• Control who can edit the file with the folder's Windows permissions - restrict write access to admins, the same as admins.json.

Auto-Relinquish

Automatically relinquishes borrowed elements and worksets on a schedule - without syncing. Keeps models unlocked for other team members when you step away or forget to relinquish manually.

• Configurable interval (default: 60 minutes)
• Optionally relinquish on document close
• Trigger manually from the tray menu - Relinquish Now
• Respects your relinquish settings (which worksets and elements to release)
• Runs via Revit's ExternalEvent pattern for thread safety

Configurable Relinquish Options

• Standard Worksets
• View Worksets
• Family Worksets
• User-Created Worksets
• Checked Out Elements

Auto-Compact

Periodically compacts Revit files to reduce bloat and improve performance. Uses Revit's built-in compact-on-save mechanism.

• Configurable interval (default: every 24 hours)
• Trigger manually from the tray menu - Compact Now
• Tracks space saved across compactions in analytics
• Runs via Revit's ExternalEvent pattern for thread safety

Auto-Reload Links

Periodically reloads all linked Revit and CAD files in open documents to keep them in sync with the latest version on the server or network.

• Configurable interval, set to any number of hours
• Trigger manually from the tray menu - Reload Links Now
• Reloads Revit links (RevitLinkType) and CAD links (CADLinkType)

System Tray Icon

A persistent system tray icon provides at-a-glance status and quick access to all features. The icon colour changes to reflect the current state.

Status	Colour	Meaning
Idle / Monitoring	Teal	All clear - monitoring active
Syncing	Blue	Sync in progress
Queued	Amber	Waiting for clear path
Error	Red	Last sync failed

Tray Context Menu

• Status line showing the number of monitored models
• Sync Now - trigger an immediate sync of the active model
• Sync All - queue a sync for every open workshared model
• Relinquish Now - release all borrowed elements without syncing
• Compact Now - compact all open models to reduce file bloat
• Reload Links Now - reload all linked files to the latest version
• Pause / Resume Monitoring
• Sync History - open the dashboard
• Settings - open the settings dialog
• Manage Licence
• Admin Console - only shown to users in the shared admins.json whitelist
• Show / Hide Status Overlay
• About Auto Sync
• Quit - hide the tray icon (add-in stays loaded)

Desktop Notifications

• Sync success with duration - wording adapts: workshared models show "synced", non-workshared/local files show "saved"
• "Already up to date" confirmation when manual Sync Now is triggered against an unmodified model
• Sync failure with error summary
• Queue status when waiting for another user
• Team activity alerts (user opened model, user crashed, duplicate sessions)
• Admin command warning when a remote sync-and-close is incoming

Status Overlay

A small floating overlay window shows real-time sync status directly within Revit. It displays model status, team activity, and can be toggled on or off from the tray menu or settings. The overlay updates live as models are opened, synced, or closed.

Sync Log & Analytics

Every sync, relinquish, compact and reload Auto Sync performs is recorded to a local history, and that history powers an at-a-glance analytics breakdown. Both live in one place: the Sync Log tab of the Sync History window (tray icon → Sync History).

History is stored per machine at %LocalAppData%\AUTOM8LABS\AutoSync\Log\ and is the single source of truth for everything below.

Event Log

A sortable, colour-coded record of every operation. Each entry captures:

• Timestamp, model name & path, and the user who triggered it
• Trigger - Manual, Scheduled, Queued, User-Initiated, Relinquish, Compact, Reload Links, or Open
• Result - Success, Failed, Cancelled, or Skipped (colour-coded)
• Duration and queue wait time
• Sync comment, and the error message if it failed
• File size before/after (so compaction savings are visible)
• Cloud model flag (ACC / BIM 360)

Filter the grid by model, result, trigger, date range, or free-text search, and sort on any column.

Retention: keep history for 7, 30, or 90 days, or unlimited (Settings → Logging). Entries older than the retention window are purged automatically on startup.

Analytics

The top of the Sync Log tab summarises the history into live metrics - no setup, it's computed from the records above:

• Success rate, average sync duration, and cumulative time spent syncing
• Daily sync frequency and peak sync hour
• Queue wait statistics (average and maximum)
• Per-model breakdown - sync count, success rate, duration, file size, and average open time, with the slowest model flagged
• Disk space recovered through compaction
• Extremes - longest sync, most-failed model, and fastest model

Settings

All settings are accessible from the Settings tab in the dashboard (or via the tray menu) and are persisted to %AppData%\AUTOM8LABS\AutoSync\settings.json.

Setting	Default	Description
Enable Auto Sync	On	Master toggle for all automated sync behaviour
Sync Interval	30 minutes	How often to automatically sync each model (scheduled mode)
Queue Timeout	5 minutes	How long to wait for a clear path before giving up
Central Check Interval	10 seconds	How often to poll the central model status
Sync Comment Template	Auto Sync - {timestamp}	Comment applied to each sync
Show Tray Icon	On	Show/hide the system tray icon
Show Desktop Notifications	On	Toast notifications for sync results
Show Status Overlay	On	Floating overlay showing model status
Log Retention	30 days	How long to keep sync history
Enable Sync on Idle	Off	Sync when user goes idle instead of on a fixed schedule
Idle Sync Delay	5 minutes	How long user must be idle before triggering sync
Sync on Idle Even if No Changes	Off	Sync even when no changes detected since last sync
Enable Auto-Relinquish	Off	Periodically relinquish borrowed elements
Relinquish Interval	60 minutes	How often to auto-relinquish
Relinquish on Close	On	Relinquish borrowed elements when closing a document
Enable Auto-Compact	Off	Periodically compact open models
Compact Interval	24 hours	How often to auto-compact
Enable Auto-Reload Links	Off	Periodically reload linked files
Reload Links Interval	24 hours	How often to auto-reload links
Team Status Folder	(empty)	Shared folder for team activity data
Accept Admin Commands	On	Allow remote sync-and-close commands from admins in admins.json
Admin Close Warning	30 seconds	Warning toast shown on the target machine before a remote close fires

Custom Sync Comments

Configure a sync comment template that is applied to every automatic sync. Default: Auto Sync - {timestamp}. Makes it easy to identify automated syncs in the Revit sync history.

File Locations

Item	Path
Settings	%AppData%\AUTOM8LABS\AutoSync\settings.json
Sync Logs	%LocalAppData%\AUTOM8LABS\AutoSync\Log\
Session Data	%AppData%\AUTOM8LABS\AutoSync\Sessions\
Admin Whitelist (shared)	{TeamStatusFolder}\admins.json
Admin Commands (shared)	{TeamStatusFolder}\command-{Machine}-{Pid}-{Guid}.json
Admin Results (shared)	{TeamStatusFolder}\result-{Guid}.json

How It Works

Sync Collision Prevention

Revit doesn't provide a direct API to check if another user is actively syncing with central. Auto Sync uses a two-layer detection approach:

1. File lock detection - checks if the central model's .slog file is locked, which is the most reliable indicator of an active sync
2. Exception-handling fallback - if a sync attempt encounters a "central model is being accessed" error, the request is automatically queued and retried when the path clears

Thread Safety

All Revit API calls must execute on Revit's main thread. Auto Sync's monitoring, scheduling, and team activity services run on background threads, but all actual Revit operations (sync, relinquish, compact, reload links) are executed via the ExternalEvent pattern - the only safe way to call the Revit API from background threads.

Licensing

Auto Sync requires a valid licence to operate. On first launch, if no valid licence is found, the Manage Licence dialog opens automatically. Licence status is displayed in the dashboard title bar.

• Licence validation on startup
• Manage Licence dialog accessible from the tray menu and dashboard
• Licence status displayed in the Sync History window
• 7-day full-feature trial - no credit card required

Troubleshooting

Auto Sync icon not appearing in tray

• Confirm the add-in loaded - check the Add-Ins tab in Revit for the AUTOM8LABS panel
• Check Windows tray icon visibility settings - Windows can hide infrequently-used icons
• Open the dashboard from the Revit ribbon button; it will register the tray icon if needed

Syncs are stuck "Queued" indefinitely

• Check the Team tab to see if another user is genuinely mid-sync - the queue is doing its job
• If no user is syncing, the .slog file lock may be stale - close and reopen the model
• Increase Queue Timeout in Settings if your model is large and syncs legitimately take longer than 5 minutes

Admin Console menu item not visible

• Confirm your Windows username appears in admins.json in the Team Status Folder
• Confirm the Team Status Folder path is configured in Settings and accessible
• Restart Revit after editing admins.json - the whitelist is read at startup

FAQ - Common Concerns

The objections the Revit community has raised about auto-sync since 2017 - and how Auto Sync addresses each one.

Changelog