AVAIL’s content management system (CMS) assisted 43-person premier healthcare architectural firm ARCHSOL to not only organize the firm’s reusable Revit families on AVAIL, but the move to a CMS additionally pushed the team to organize its file names and hosted folders for a refined overall content management strategy. Director of Design Technologies Travis Smith walks us through how AVAIL is in use at ARCHSOL and the value their team has found in the CMS.
Jump to
- The benefits of being on the same page
- Visually navigating vetted content
- Organizing ARCHSOL beyond AVAIL’s platform
- Powering up project workflows with Palettes
The Benefits of Being on the Same Page
One of the biggest myths about AVAIL is that it is only valuable for large, 200- to 500-person AEC firms. The reality is that AVAIL’s content management solution can bring value to firms of all sizes.
Based in Scottsdale, Arizona, ARCHSOL is a premier healthcare architectural firm with 43 employees. The firm has been working with AVAIL to organize BIM assets since 2024. “Without a doubt, being on the same page is the biggest benefit to having this tool,” Director of Design Technologies Travis Smith says.
AVAIL’s all-in-one content management solution serves as a single source of truth for the firm’s Revit families, as well as textures for flooring and carpet, textiles for walls and furniture, and more.
“AVAIL helps us find what we need a lot faster,” Travis says.
Visually Navigating Vetted Content
ARCHSOL’s asset libraries are continually growing and changing. Travis has designed a colored-coded system to assist the firm’s team of designers and engineers to visually navigate to vetted content that is current and accurate (displayed with blue backgrounds above).
Organizing ARCHSOL Beyond AVAIL’s Platform
Before AVAIL, ARCHSOL managed its Revit families and texture files exclusively in a folder structure. “We were managing content like everyone else,” Travis says, “essentially, just winging it.”
There were no naming conventions for files, and team members were often downloading assets from the internet or grabbing files that were not standard from past projects. The result was a chaotic repository of old content and duplicates.
After researching and testing content management systems for about a year, the ARCHSOL team decided to adopt AVAIL in 2024.
“We kept coming back to the ease of use and simplicity of the platform,” Travis says. Since implementing AVAIL, "it's been invaluable to what we do,” he adds.
|"[AVAIL’s] been invaluable to what we do"
The process of onboarding onto AVAIL’s content management system brought ARCHSOL organization health even beyond the CMS platform. Because files are indexed into AVAIL and still hosted in Windows File Explorer, Travis and the ARCHSOL team felt compelled to refine their file naming and folder structure, too. Now, content is easy to search and find in AVAIL’s platform, but the team also feels more in control from the backend of Windows File Explorer, as well.
ARCHSOL adopted AVAIL to connect designers and engineers to the content they need, and the team customized their AVAIL Channel Cards to serve as a visual guide through the firm’s content.
Powering Up Project Workflows with Palettes
Currently, AVAIL is used to enhance the ARCHSOL Real-Time Visualization (ARV) support team’s project workflow, making sure content can easily be found.
At project kick-off, an AVAIL Palette will be created and loaded with textures and 3D models to be populated into a design. “I'll start finding basically everything that was on their grocery list,” Travis says. As the project evolves, and more Revit families and textures are added to the project, they all flow through the project’s Palette. “We're using Palettes essentially as a repository for that specific project,” Travis says. Once the project is completed, the Palette is deleted.
“The ARV process by nature is complicated and difficult to manage,” Travis adds. “Without having this tool, it would be exponentially more difficult to do what it is that we're asking our staff to do. [AVAIL] has been a huge plus for us.”
Quick Course: Palettes
Kick-start projects and collaborate easier
Definition:
Unique lists of content to streamline your project workflows
Types:
• Personal Palettes: flexible and temporal (build → use → discard)*
• NEW! Organizational Palettes: add governance and control (Publisher-owned + permissions + broad sharing)
*ARCHSOL is using Personal Palettes in their project workflow outlined above
Study Materials:
- Using Palettes
- Organization Palettes Overview
- The Palettes Playbook: Transform Your Firm’s Project Workflow
About ARCHSOL
ARCHSOL is a premier healthcare architectural firm based in Scottsdale, Arizona. The firm’s team of designers, engineers, and staff are passionate about creating built environments that help people restore, rehabilitate, and recover.
ABOUT AVAIL
Founded in 2016 as a solution for architecture and engineering firms to find the information they need faster, AVAIL creates software for the global architectural, engineering, and construction (AEC) industry. AVAIL’s content management system (CMS) platform and Revit, AutoCAD, and Civil 3D application tools help designers and engineers take control of their intricate network of files in one visual, streamlined solution. AVAIL’s customers include industry leaders Gensler, Perkins&Will, IMEG, LEO A DALY, and Populous.
