A Workshared Revit project needs to throw a lot of data back & forth to the Central file (aka "chatty")
We have had a few people use our VPN successfully, but when it came time to SWC, it killed the rest of the team. 8-10 minute SWCs were not unusual. And anyone else attempting to save had to wait for them to finish.
In other words, a VPN is not viable for Revit.
If you really want people to be able to work out of the office, you'll need some sort of Virtual Machines, like VMWare
Or go to C4R

Use a Remote Desktop application, so you can run Revit on the same local network as where the central file lives. Your internet connection will only have to handle graphical output delta's and your inputs.
Some of us have even taken to using their desktops on their smartphones. Not sure if a touchscreen helps with using Revit though :d.

Before we go too far, we need to establish some correct terminology so that readers dont get confused: There is a VPN connection to your office, and then there is Remote Desktop (where you log in to another machine that is still in the office). They are completely separate things. Chances are, your company makes you VPN in order to use RDP, but its important to distinguish between the two, as far as this conversation goes. When you use RDP for Revit, the "workstation" doing the heavy lifting is obviously still IN the office. Thats another important part. What gets sent over the internet is your commands, and the display on the screen. But all of the *model data* stays "in house" so to speak.



So, a few things for you to know: In THIS instance, you are connected via VPN, and are NOT using RDP. This means that actual "model data" is flowing over the internet (as you guessed). What you also need to know is this is not an officially supported workflow from Autodesk, AND it is known to corrupt central models, A LOT. Depending on the companies VPN and how stable and reliable it is, you might get lucky and not have it corrupt models. But when it does corrupt a model, you'll be asking what you can do to "fix it," and there wont be a fix:

Worksharing from outside the Local Network is only really supported on Revit Server (another series of applications) or Collaboration for Revit (model hosted on Autodesks "internet cloud." Ive been in some offices (with great internet and great VPN) where a single SWC from a VPN connection automatically fragged the central for good. Its ugly.

There is a technical reason for it, and the reason has to do with the file transmission protocol being different for non-workshared and standard workshared projects, versus Revit Server / C4R projects.

The next question i typically hear when i explain this to people is:
The unfortunate answer is: If you have so much work to do that you take the machine home, do non revit stuff at home, or bring home content to edit, or something. Without Revit Server or C4R, (or Remote Desktop in to a spare machine in the office) you dont have a reliable safe way to work on workshared models from home, unless you take the model home with you (and only one person at a time can do that).



Not only will they all be hampered by their internet, but your company is also gambling on their employees internet being stable enough with the company VPN, with mission critical files. Its an all around bad idea. Turning down the worksharing frequency will aide the perception of the symptoms, but it wont aide the actual problem at all. All element by element borrowing is still done at the Central File level, in real time.

What are some best practices when working remotely on a workshared Revit file?

1. Dont.
2. If you must, use Remote Desktop and a spare machine still in the office.
3. If you dont like RDP, convince management to buy a Virtual Desktop Solution with real dedicated vGPU terminals at the office.
4. If you dont like any of the three, configure EVERY laptop that has to be workable from home as its own Revit Server Accelerator (unsupported and finicky to maintain), then also set up Revit Server Accelerators at the company, then move all your models to Revit Server, explain to IT the difficulties that means for backing up the models and they they have to do it quasi-manually, explain to users that they cant shut off their laptops for a half hour after performing a SWC, and get ready for the inevitable problems when someone DOES close their laptop lid early, and they lock everyone else out of the file.
5. Buy C4R for each user. 800 bucks per year per user. Host the Model at Autodesk.

Ive read, seen, heard, and done it all. Trying to "get hacky" with it to make it work, is a mistake. A "decent" dell desktop tower than can run just about every revit model on the planet, is 1600 bucks. Buy another one. Put it under your desk. Remote in to it. Call it a day.

Twiceroadsfool - This is exactly the kind of information I was looking to get! Thank you very much.

You are right I was misrepresenting what I was doing VPN / Remote desktop, and I do know the difference, just used the wrong nomenclature.

Although I run a small team with small projects, I've tested just about every non-costly technique and hack to make this work. Here are some additional comments:

• Don't try WebDAV either. Depending on the client and your settings, it may look like it saves fast, but there is caching which can lead to corruption
• This may not apply in your case but we've discovered with a Synology NAS, turning on it's Cloud Sync will corrupt the Central file, even you're not trying to be clever and use the sync to work remotely.
• So far for us, Remote Desktop is the only viable solution for workshared projects. We're using TeamViewer.

I now this is an old thread but I'm hoping this will get picked up!

Is there are reason this was in position 5, and not really expended on?

I believe it's now been replaced by BIM360. We're looking into using this on a project where the will be a lot of remote working, and we will need input from other companies. We've been recommended it by our reseller, but looking at the what you've said there it's the only option that lets them sell us anything! If we assume everyone has a half decent internet connection and the company is happy with the price will this work well?

We had assumed that ther other trades would e-mail us their changes and we'd load them into the central model, but it seems like BIM360 would allow them to work on it directly which on the face of it seems preferable?

Thanks in advance for any help

Correct.


Yes it should work just fine. I've been using this service since its inception and it's worth every penny.

That is correct, everyone can be in the same Central Model at the same time and work simultaneously, with the performance being close to, or the same as everyone being in one office, depending on network and hardware.

-TZ

It was in position 5 because this particular thread was started by someone that was already considering working remotely on physical hardware, with files on remote servers, so i expanded on the complexities of those options, first.

Advising the OP to consider BIM360 (formerly C4R) is a completely alternative route, so i suggested it last. Order shown was not intended to be an order of recommendations.

Once everything is set up in BIM 360, the time saved in not emailing models back and forth pretty much pays for the subscription.
As far as everyone working in the same model, I'd still split them apart by discipline. BIM 360 models can still be linked into each other & you won't bump into each other as much with separate models. Also, your SWC times will be better a.) because your model is smaller and b.) you won't be waiting for someone else to finish their SWC