CDE integrations

Civillo can connect directly to a common data environment (CDE) so you can browse its folder structure and import or revise Civillo layers without leaving Civillo. Files stay sourced and version-controlled in the CDE; Civillo tracks which version of a file each layer was imported from and lets you check for newer versions manually.

Civillo currently supports two CDEs:

• Autodesk Forma (formerly Autodesk Construction Cloud, or ACC)
• 12d Synergy

Tip

CDE integrations are an opt-in feature and are not available by default. Please contact the Civillo sales team at sales@civillo.com to request access to this functionality for your organization or project.

Each Civillo user manages their own set of connections; a connection created by one user is not shared with other users of the project. You will need to create your own connection to use this feature, even if a colleague has already connected to the same CDE.

Access

To create or manage CDE integrations you must be a project administrator, or hold the Layer create/edit group role.

To reach the CDE integrations page, navigate to

Administration -> Integrations -> Common data environments

Create a connection

1. On the Common data environments page, click the button next to the integration dropdown to open the Create integration dialog.
2. Enter a Name to identify this connection (e.g. Main Forma Hub, East Office Synergy).
3. Select the Integration type: Autodesk (Forma) or 12d Synergy.
4. Follow the steps below for the integration type you selected, then click Create.

Autodesk Forma

No further fields are required in the dialog. After clicking Create, you will be redirected to Autodesk to sign in and authorize Civillo to access your data.

Civillo requests read-only access to your Forma hubs; it cannot modify or delete files in Forma. Once you approve access, you will be returned to Civillo and the connection will be ready to use.

Approve Civillo in your Autodesk account

Before Civillo can see a Forma hub, a Hub Admin for that Autodesk account must activate the Civillo app in Forma. This is a one-off step per hub, done in Autodesk rather than in Civillo, and it is separate from the sign-in step above.

1. In Autodesk Forma, open Hub Admin and select the hub you want to use from the hub dropdown at the top.
2. Click Apps in the left-hand menu to open the app store.
3. Find Civillo Integration for ACC® (category: Construction) and open it. You can search for “Civillo” to find it quickly.
4. Follow the prompts to activate the app. Once activated, the tile shows an Activated badge.
5. Repeat for each hub you want to browse from Civillo.

Once the app is activated, reload the Common data environments page. You don’t need to reconnect.

Tip

You must be a Hub Admin to activate apps. If you can’t see Hub Admin, ask the administrator of your Autodesk account to do this step for you.

Tip

If a connection shows “You do not have access to any organizations.”, Autodesk returned no hubs for the account you signed in with. Check that:

• Civillo Integration for ACC® shows as Activated under Hub Admin → Apps for your hub, as above.
• You signed in to Autodesk with the account that has access to your projects. If you have more than one Autodesk ID (for example a personal and a company account), click Reconnect and sign in with the correct one.
• You are a member of at least one project in that account with access to Files and can see files there.

12d Synergy

Selecting 12d Synergy reveals three additional fields:

Field	Description
URL	The URL of your 12d Synergy web application or API endpoint.
PAT name	The name you gave the personal access token in 12d Synergy.
PAT value	The personal access token value itself.

Before you can fill these in, your 12d Synergy administrator must generate a Personal Access Token (PAT) for you:

1. Ensure PAT creation is enabled on your 12d Synergy server. In the 12d Synergy Administration application, under System Settings → Web, the Creation and Authentication of Personal Access Tokens setting must be set to Yes. If this is set to No, the Personal Access Tokens tab will not appear in your profile.
2. Generate a PAT from whichever 12d Synergy client you use:
   • Web client: see Generate a PAT in the web client.
   • Desktop client: see Generate a PAT in the desktop client.
3. Note down the PAT’s name and value, then enter them in Civillo along with your server URL.

Tip

A PAT is only valid against the single 12d Synergy server it was generated on. If you need to connect to more than one 12d Synergy server, you will need a separate PAT, and a separate Civillo connection, for each.

Civillo can only access what the PAT’s user account can access. If a file or folder is restricted in 12d Synergy, it will be restricted in Civillo too.

Browse and import files

Once connected, select the integration from the dropdown to browse its folder structure. Both Forma hubs and 12d Synergy jobs are shown as organizations, and their projects (or, for 12d Synergy, sub-jobs) as projects, so the same browsing experience applies regardless of which CDE you’re using.

Navigate through the folder tree to locate the file you want, then click the icon next to it to import it. This opens the standard Upload file to Civillo layer creation form, pre-filled with the file’s latest version. Fill out the layer name, description, and any other layer options as usual, then click Upload.

Revise an existing layer

If a file has already been imported and a newer version is available in the CDE, the import icon is replaced with a icon. Clicking it opens the Revise layer in Civillo dialog, which uploads the latest version as a new revision of the existing layer, carrying over settings such as spatial reference system from the previous revision.

The revise icon is disabled once the Civillo layer is already at or ahead of the CDE’s latest version, or if you don’t have download permission for the file on the remote server.

Check for newer versions

Version checking is manual. For 12d Synergy connections, you can check every imported file in a job at once, rather than file-by-file. Click the icon at the organization level to open the Pending version updates dialog. This lists every file with a newer version available in 12d Synergy, alongside the version currently in Civillo.

Select the files you want to update and click Update selected, or click Update all to revise every listed file. Files you don’t have download permission for on the remote server are listed separately and excluded from the update.

Including files in the version check

Each imported file has a toggle that controls whether it’s included in the version check: means the file is included, and means it’s excluded. Version checking itself is still run manually; this toggle only controls which files show up in the results when you do.

Reconnect a connection

If a connection’s access has expired, it is marked with a icon and the tooltip “Authentication expired. Please reconnect to this integration.”, along with a Reconnect button.

Clicking Reconnect opens the same dialog used to create the connection, with the name and type locked. For an Autodesk connection this re-runs the sign-in and authorization step; for a 12d Synergy connection you will need to supply a valid PAT name and value again.

Delete a connection

Click the icon next to a connection to remove it. Deleting a connection does not affect any layers already imported through it; those layers remain intact in Civillo and will stay associated with the connection if you reconnect later.

Next steps

• Loading data into Civillo: general layer upload guide
• Edit an existing layer: update layer properties after import