A prospective fabricator who is not a project member should receive information through a controlled external-sharing process rather than being granted ordinary project-folder access. Enabling public sharing permits authorized files to be distributed externally, while a transmittal creates a formal record of what was issued, when it was issued, and to whom.

The BIM manager should select only the documents required for the bidding process, confirm that external sharing is permitted by the project’s information-governance procedures, and establish any applicable expiration, download, or access controls. A transmittal also provides a traceable issue package and reduces ambiguity regarding which file versions formed the basis of the recipient’s bid.

Setting folder permissions to Everyone generally applies to eligible users within the project environment; it does not provide a properly controlled method for distributing information to unknown external parties. Audit and Compact is a Revit model-maintenance operation unrelated to access. Centralizing a model and creating local files concerns traditional worksharing and would be inappropriate for bidders who are not authorized project contributors.

External sharing must remain limited, deliberate, and auditable.

Reference topics: Public file sharing; transmittals; non-member access; external bidding packages; Common Data Environment security; controlled information exchange.

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