Edit December 2017------
With the release of the Autodesk Desktop Connector, the workaround/ workflow described below becomes unnecessary. However, if you are on an earlier version of Revit than 2018.2 or are unable to install and use the Desktop Connector, then read on as it will still be applicable. For more information on the Desktop Connector, please follow this link.
Original Article Follows -----------
Currently when using Collaboration for Revit (C4R), you are able to link in Revit files that are also being synced to C4R. While CAD files stored on A360 are not able to be directly linked to in the cloud, you can link to them on a local drive and they are cached into the cloud so they display and work fine for others on the project, as long as they are not unloaded.
The problem that comes up lies with Revit files that are not synced to the cloud. IE, a company working on the project does not use or really need to use the C4R service and just wants to just upload to and download files from Team. Currently Revit cannot directly link to a Revit file that is just uploaded to Team, and unlike the CAD links, Revit files that are linked from a local location will not cache and load correctly for those on different networks. The main workflow/ workaround here is that a linked Revit file needs to either be synced to the C4R service to be linked for all, or the link location needs to be the same in each location for each person and company, (C:\C4RLinks\ for example) but this could also introduce issues if all involved are not downloading the background consistently.
The best workflow to deal with this and ensure everyone is seeing the most recent version, or at least the most recent published version is to have someone regularly sync the project file to C4R, even while that specific team continues to work off locally on their network. This is possible if you follow the steps below:
So just to update, the example is that a company is collaborating with another company that is using C4R, but will not be using C4R themselves, yet they still need to get their file uploaded in a way that it links for the others using C4R.
First thing we would need to do is open a detached copy of the project that we want to upload. After that we can tell it that we would like to enable collaboration and would like to do so using the cloud. The first time we do this everything will simple and not require extra effort.
When the time comes to do this again though there will be extra steps, because we cannot overwrite the old version that is on C4R with a new version, since we have not been syncing with it and for these purposes will be considered a different file.
So we would open a detached version of the networked project again, but before we can upload we need to delete the existing version that is online, however you must do this from the model management tool within Revit. The screenshot below illustrates this:
Once the existing version is deleted, you will be able to re-upload the file. We are not done yet though, as even though the file is in the same location and has the same name, we will still need to use the ‘reload from’ tool in the manage links to point it to the new version:
Now the nice thing here is that in testing, visibility overrides made on linked files have been maintained, even as the elements we applied them to moved around between versions.
So while its more effort than just uploading and linking, it is possible to work in C4R and collaborate with other team members that are not, it just requires a little bit more effort depending on the situation.
