topic Save ArchiCad PDFs to SharePoint instead of Windows Server in Documentation

Save ArchiCad PDFs to SharePoint instead of Windows Server

Rimfire — Mon, 23 Jun 2025 17:17:15 GMT

Hi

Sorry if I can't be as precise as I should - I'm familiar with Win Servers and o365 but not with ArchiCad.

Our customer plans to retire the Windows Server which is used (also) for storing ArchiCad data. The plan is to save data (PDFs I presume) to SharePoint. Any thoughts if this is possible and how to accomplish this.

Thanks in advantage!

P.S. Hopefully General Discussions is the correct forum for my question.

Re: Save ArchiCad PDFs to SharePoint instead of Windows Server

Laszlo Nagy — Mon, 23 Jun 2025 17:22:07 GMT

There have been similar discussions on the forums in the past about cloud-based storage and Archicad saving to/reading from these storage solutions like Dropbox, Box, Google Drive, etc. In general, these could be causing trouble so it may not be recommended. I think many times the issue is that the cloud-base service is synchronizing files to its cloud storage, while Archicad is also trying to access those files or overwrite them, and that can cause problems.

I usually see that these solutions work seamlessly only when the software developer explicitly develops support for them, but as of now, Archicad does not offer support for these.

Re: Save ArchiCad PDFs to SharePoint instead of Windows Server

Eduardo Rolon — Mon, 23 Jun 2025 19:10:50 GMT

OTOH, even if not supported or recommended, I have been running files from Dropbox, OneDrive, and iCloud without issues for years, with my first step of troubleshooting being to make a local copy…

Re: Save ArchiCad PDFs to SharePoint instead of Windows Server

KenMcN — Mon, 23 Jun 2025 19:25:31 GMT

I don’t know if Windows is the same, but on the Mac there is no way to write directly to SharePoint. If you sync that site locally using OneDrive the path includes your name, so no one else can use the same publisher set.
I’ve no real idea how to overcome this, perhaps it’s a version of writing to BIMcloud? However I’m sure that use of SharePoint and similar cloud sites is increasing, so it would seem quite important that Graphisoft looks into this.
Kenny

Re: Save ArchiCad PDFs to SharePoint instead of Windows Server

Rimfire — Tue, 24 Jun 2025 07:05:39 GMT

Thanks Eduardo

The customer have offshore workers. At first though it seems they need to use VPN to get access to local "Master" PC/Server which is used to sync files to SharePoint. If that is the case not much benefits having this type of arrangement. Any thoughts of that?

If the "VPN scenario" is not needed that seems to be a work around.

Re: Save ArchiCad PDFs to SharePoint instead of Windows Server

Rimfire — Tue, 24 Jun 2025 07:08:47 GMT

Thanks KenMcN

SharePoint is so common and it is great for workgroups. Wonder why there is no native support for that.

Re: Save ArchiCad PDFs to SharePoint instead of Windows Server

Lingwisyer — Tue, 24 Jun 2025 08:27:06 GMT

After a month of using Sharepoint directly, we changed to syncing Sharepoint to a NAS instead of the local computers as the delay between saving files on one computer and the files appearing on another was a major annoyance. The only downside so far has been that modifications all come listed as from the single user that was used to sync the NAS.

You should probably enquire what "ArchiCAD data" they are storing on the existing server. If they are hosting a local BIMServer, you cannot run that off Sharepoint.

Ling.

Re: Save ArchiCad PDFs to SharePoint instead of Windows Server

Lingwisyer — Tue, 24 Jun 2025 08:34:37 GMT

You can re-path Sharepoint to a different location when setting up that has an idential path between computers, on Windows anyway. I think it was through the OneDrive for Business settings? This does require a full re-sync though, since it does not let you sync to an existing folder...

Re: Save ArchiCad PDFs to SharePoint instead of Windows Server

Barry Kelly — Tue, 24 Jun 2025 08:41:53 GMT

Sounds like your customer might want to look at BIMcloud SaaS ... https://www.graphisoft.com/plans-and-products/bimcloud/

As far as I know, everything is stored on a Graphisoft server.

Barry.

Re: Save ArchiCad PDFs to SharePoint instead of Windows Server

KenMcN — Tue, 24 Jun 2025 19:04:26 GMT

Same on the Mac, but if multiple users can all access the same location, then aren't you using a file server or NAS? (Which I think the OP was trying to avoid)

I know MacOS made this harder recently (maybe 3-4 years ago?) by putting cloud files into a sandbox of sorts, which ties them to a path that includes your user name, hence why it varies between users and causes issues with Publisher.

Re: Save ArchiCad PDFs to SharePoint instead of Windows Server

Rimfire — Wed, 25 Jun 2025 06:39:32 GMT

Thanks Lingwisyer

Do you have any further info regarding re-path Sharepoint ?

1. Just when setting up the initial SharePoint sync in Win-computers set the local "root" identical, say C:\SP\Archicad (for example). In that way all Windows computers can access those files via ArchiCad?
2. Does above mean that MAC computers won't be able to use ArchiCad / Sharepoint, since they don't have the same local path?

Re: Save ArchiCad PDFs to SharePoint instead of Windows Server

Eduardo Rolon — Wed, 25 Jun 2025 12:29:06 GMT

They can but the issue is that for some items (like project libraries) they will need to remap because they don't do "relative" paths. This can become a hassle in the long term and the reason that for "group access" it is better to set up Teamwork in which ever flavor you can pay.

Re: Save ArchiCad PDFs to SharePoint instead of Windows Server

psmith — Wed, 25 Jun 2025 13:06:20 GMT

We have been doing this for a couple of years now - we use both Mac and PC.

Each project is in a separate Teams Channel - with a 'Team / Sharepoint site' for each calendar year.

Each user does a "Sync' for their projects, and you save the projects to your sync folder.

The annoying thing is that archicad uses 'absolute paths' and not 'relative paths' - this is annoying for referencing external files - but they live in BIMcloud.

Because our teams are small - we just each have our own publisher set with our own path settings so they stay the same....

Re: Save ArchiCad PDFs to SharePoint instead of Windows Server

Lingwisyer — Thu, 26 Jun 2025 01:37:47 GMT

https://support.microsoft.com/en-au/office/change-the-location-where-you-sync-sharepoint-libraries-on-your-computer-ca8a88f6-bc4f-4ec2-a460-864c4e9b2be0

I have pathed all of our cloud folders to a second harddrive that has a common designation between computers, and for the computers that do not have a second, I have created a partition to mimic having one.

I am not sure how file pathing works in MAC. I do not think I have touched one in the past 15 years...

Ling.