BIM 360 to Autodesk Forma Migration Services
Company Overview
The University of Pennsylvania Health System (UPHS) is one of the world’s foremost academic medical systems, with a history rooted in more than two centuries of pioneering leadership in healthcare. Penn Medicine, of which UPHS is a part, is home to the nation’s first hospital and the first medical school—the Perelman School of Medicine—Penn Medicine has built a legacy defined by scientific discovery, exceptional medical education, and outstanding patient care. The Perelman School consistently ranks among the top recipients of National Institutes of Health funding and has driven transformative breakthroughs, including CAR T cell therapy and the Nobel Prize–winning mRNA vaccine technology that reshaped the landscape of modern medicine.
Today, Penn Medicine operates as an integrated $11.9 billion enterprise supported by nearly 49,000 faculty and staff who work across a broad network of hospitals, outpatient centers, and research institutes. This highly collaborative ecosystem enables Penn Medicine to translate research into practice rapidly, strengthening its position as a global leader in innovative, compassionate healthcare. Its continued commitment to discovery, multidisciplinary excellence, and community impact ensures that Penn Medicine remains at the forefront of shaping the future of medicine.
Client Challenges
UPHS faced a complex and high‑risk migration from Autodesk BIM 360 to Autodesk Construction Cloud (Now part of Autodesk Forma), involving a large volume of active and archived project data that needed to be moved while preserving folder structures, naming conventions, and limited version history. The migration was further complicated by Revit version compatibility issues, including upgrading older models such as HUP East from Revit 2018 to 2025, as well as the need to re-path AutoCAD and Revit linked files, with no ability to repair broken links in source data.
Ongoing construction and design activity added operational pressure, requiring careful scheduling to avoid disrupting active projects and relying heavily on timely stakeholder engagement, approvals, and decision‑making. Additional risks included incomplete or poor-quality data, system performance issues such as cloud latency or downtime, and dependencies on client-provided resources, including licenses, access permissions, user lists, and priority schedules.
Complexities around permissions management and third‑party access, along with numerous migration exclusions (RFIs, issues, markups, model coordination data, archived projects, non-Revit-linked files, collaboration packages), increased the need for precise scope control. Compliance obligations, internal governance requirements, and the risk of scope creep, delays, or added costs further underscore the importance of strict coordination, timely reviews, and disciplined project governance.
Client Goals
UPHS’s goals for the migration were centered on ensuring a seamless, accurate transition of all required project data from BIM 360 to Autodesk Forma while minimizing disruption to ongoing work. They sought to preserve existing folder structures, file naming conventions, permissions, and limited version history to maintain full data integrity. The organization aimed to upgrade necessary Revit models and reestablish linked file paths so projects would remain functional and accessible post‑migration. To keep active design projects on schedule, UPHS prioritized careful sequencing of migrations and timely stakeholder engagement for reviews and approvals. Additional objectives included reestablishing appropriate user permissions, managing third‑party access, and validating the completeness and accuracy of the migrated data through structured review cycles. UPHS also emphasized maintaining compliance with internal governance requirements, controlling scope boundaries, and mitigating risks such as incomplete data, cloud performance issues, or delays caused by limited resource availability. Ensuring that all required licenses, credentials, and decision‑making channels were in place was essential to supporting a well‑coordinated, efficient migration process.
Symetri USA Prescribed Solution
Symetri USA delivered a structured and carefully governed migration approach to transition UPHS’s BIM 360 data into Autodesk Forma with accuracy and minimal disruption. The solution began with a comprehensive discovery and mapping phase, ensuring that folder structures, naming conventions, permissions, and all data‑placement pathways were fully understood and approved prior to execution. Symetri also performed Revit model upgrades and reinitialization, including converting legacy models such as HUP East from Revit 2018 to Revit 2025, and repathed both Revit and AutoCAD linked files to preserve model functionality in Autodesk Forma. To support continuity of active projects, the team followed a priority‑based migration schedule, deferring projects with ongoing design work as needed.
During execution, Symetri conducted a precise transfer of all applicable files, maintaining folder integrity and retaining limited version history where supported. UPHS was given a formal validation process with up to two revision cycles to ensure the migrated data met accuracy, completeness, and usability requirements. The solution also included reestablishing user permissions and access controls, assigning admin rights to designated individuals and coordinating the re‑invitation of external collaborators while excluding inactive accounts for a clean user environment. Throughout the project, Symetri provided comprehensive project management, including communication planning, risk mitigation, stakeholder alignment, governance oversight, and adherence to defined scope boundaries.
The project concluded with the delivery of a Final Migration Report, documenting all transferred data, migration considerations, and remaining action items. Overall, this prescribed solution provided UPHS with a centralized, secure, and scalable ACC environment, ensuring improved collaboration, operational continuity, and a strong foundation for long‑term digital asset management.
Corporate Business Outcomes
Symetri’s structured migration approach enabled UPHS to overcome its complex data, versioning, and workflow challenges by delivering a seamless transition from BIM 360 to Autodesk Forma. By preserving data integrity, upgrading and reinitializing critical Revit models, reestablishing permissions, and aligning the migration schedule with active project needs, Symetri helped UPHS achieve its goals of minimizing disruption, ensuring accuracy, and maintaining governance throughout the process. As a result, UPHS now operates within a centralized, secure, and scalable Autodesk Forma environment that enhances project coordination, improves data quality, streamlines collaboration among internal teams and external partners, and strengthens long‑term digital asset management—ultimately supporting more efficient operations and future‑ready project delivery.
Conclusion
UPHS’s migration from BIM 360 to Autodesk Forma presented a complex set of challenges—including the need to preserve large volumes of data, upgrade legacy Revit models, manage stakeholder coordination, and maintain continuity for active projects. In response, the organization defined clear goals focused on maintaining data integrity, minimizing disruption, ensuring compliance, and building a secure, scalable digital environment to support future project demands.
Symetri’s prescribed solution directly addressed these goals through a structured, priority‑based migration approach that emphasized detailed discovery and mapping, rigorous data validation, and careful scheduling around ongoing project activities. The solution also ensured accurate data transfer, upgrade and reinitialization of Revit models, and the re-establishment of secure permissions and linked file dependencies, all guided by a strong governance and communication framework.
As a result, UPHS achieved a centralized, reliable, and future‑ready Autodesk Forma environment that improves project coordination, enhances data quality, and supports long‑term digital asset management. The successful migration not only resolved immediate operational challenges but also established a foundation for greater efficiency, improved project delivery, and scalable growth. Through Symetri’s expertise and UPHS’s alignment on goals, the organization is now better equipped to manage its expanding project portfolio with confidence and continuity.
