AutoCAD Plant 3D and AutoCAD P&ID users please refer this article that contains information regarding Autodesk Identity Services moving to TLS 1.2 on August 3.

Transport Layer Security (TLS): Updates Required to Maintain Software Access

This applies to  single-user subscribers using certain version of AutoCAD Plant 3D and AutoCAD P&ID listed below; customers using software or versions not listed and customers using perpetual or multi-user (network) licenses will not be affected.

AutoCAD P&ID 2014, 2015, 2016

AutoCAD Plant 3D 2014, 2015, 2016

Although most of you are familiar with AutoCAD Plant 3D Isometric styles, within those styles is another level of organization called “themes” that may not be obvious as to their purpose.  I recorded this short video to explain how themes work within an isometric style, and show how to create your own theme, enjoy!

https://autode.sk/2MiI0AU

Caution: Even though AutoCAD Plant 3D Project Setup allows you the ability to customize quite a bit in the software, there are times when a setting must be directly modified in one of the project files (as shown in the video above).  Whenever you find that you need to resort to manually editing files you should follow good housekeeping practices:

• Make a backup of the file(s) before performing any edits,
• Only change one variable/section at a time and then test to validate your changes,
• Document your changes using comments within the file.

It is always the best to have all updates installed. So, you will have the best guaranty that all available fixes are installed or that you will have access to all new features for that version. But what for updates are available for which version of AutoCAD Plant 3D? Note that you have to install plain AutoCAD Updates separately. They are not included anymore in AutoCAD Plant 3D updates since some years.

Blog “What version is it anyway?”

One more note about the updates. While the plain AutoCAD updates are cumulative, the Plant updates aren’t. This means that for plain AutoCAD it is already enough to install the latest update only but for Plant updates you have to install the former updates of the specific version before. Thumb rule for Plant updates: Install the updates in the order of the publish date (oldest one first).

So, here is the list:

AutoCAD Plant 3D 2016:

• AutoCAD Plant 3D: Extension 1 SP2
  • Update Path: Extension 1 > SP2
• AutoCAD: SP1

AutoCAD Plant 3D 2017:

• AutoCAD Plant 3D: Update 2017.1.1
  • Update Path: 2017.1 > 2017.1.1
• AutoCAD: Update 2017.1.2

AutoCAD Plant 3D 2018:

• AutoCAD Plant 3D: Update 2018.1.2
  • Update Path: 2018.1.1 > 2018.1.2
• AutoCAD: Update 2018.1.2

AutoCAD Plant 3D 2019:

• AutoCAD Plant 3D: Update 2019.1
• AutoCAD: Update 2019.1.2

AutoCAD Plant 3D 2020:

• AutoCAD Plant 3D: Update 2020.0.1
• AutoCAD: Currently none

You can either get the updates via your Autodesk Account, section “Product Updates”. Alternatively, if you have a desktop subscription, you can use the Autodesk Desktop App to be up to date with your updates.

Since 2017 the Enterprise Specialists have been running a monthly virtual community meet-up for Enterprise customers. Unfortunately if you were not an enterprise customer you would have been blocked from registering or accessing the resources page.

Well no longer.

The Plant 3D Virtual User Community meetup is now open to everyone!

We also have a new registration page – https://www.autodesk.com/customer-success/plant-3d

You can still find it in the Customer Success hub Events calendar if that is your preference.

We also have a new page for resources – https://customersuccess.autodesk.com/articles/plant-3d-virtual-community-meetup-resource-store

This page is not restricted to only Enterprise customers. The old page now called Plant 3D Virtual Community Meetup resources – Archive will still be available for now, but only for Enterprise customers.

This year there are 37 classes that list Plant 3D and 8 that list Plant P&ID as related products.
To help see classes important to you at AU Vote now.
Don’t forget, if you can’t make it to AU Las Vegas 2019, most classes are recorded and available to you sometime after the conference. So you should vote as well, but we’d love to see you there.

https://www.autodesk.com/autodesk-university/conference/las-vegas/call-for-proposals/voting

I often find that it can be confusing for people where to find what version of Plant 3D you are using and some times how to read it.

Following on from Bernd’s previous post “All Updates installed?“, I thought this might add some colour if not clarity.

There are two ways to identify the version of Plant 3D. The fastest is to type “PLANTVER” at the command line. This will give you the Plant version and only the Plant version.

This is not my preferred method. I prefer the full detail in the “About’ panel.

When using this method however, it is important to distinguish between the AutoCAD built installed and the Plant 3D Build installed, which as Bernd points out are not packaged together anymore. So how do I know what version of Plant 3D I am using, or the AutoCAD version?

In the top right corner of the Plant 3D window find the help question mark and open the menu below it, then select the “About” option.

This opens the Plant 3D information window. The image below highlights the different areas for Plant 3D’s version and the lower line for the AutoCAD version. 

If you haven’t already don’t forget to check out Bernd’s post on versions – here

AutoCAD Plant 3D 2020 is live It is more stable and with a lot of fixed issues. A lot of issues are fixed/done for this new release by our Plant product team. Look for this article to get more information of these items. This is really great work. Thanks to the team! 

Not the best scenario: You are working on a network project but the network connection will get lost. But you are still working on this project. After awhile you will close the project and you are re-opening. But what has happened? All Plant components of specific drawings (which were still in use in our scenario before) have lost their Plant properties. In Property Palette you will see only plain AutoCAD properties for these components. In this situation sometimes the only solution might be to restore the project drawing from a backup – like Volume Shadow Copies.

Best is if you can pretend this scenario. Currently you have to follow this workflow to avoid data corruption because of network disconnection:

The messages and the procedure will be improved in a future release. But of course we cannot prevent a future network outage in your company.

Article "Deleted Plant 3D Collaboration Project still shown in Open Project window", needed an update to reflect the improvements made to Plant 3D 2019. The update below was recently added. 

UPDATE:

This issue has been resolved in Plant 3D 2019.

In Plant 3D 2019 if the files in BIM 360 Teams are moved or deleted they will no longer be available in the open collaboration project window.

However if there is a copy of the project in the local user cache the project can still be opened using the recent projects list (or opening with normal 'open project'). The project will open as normal and the user will be able to edit the files, but nothing will be recorded visibly in BIM 360 Teams. 
The best practice to resolve this being an issue is to ensure that all users clear their local cache folder of the 'deleted' project files. In this way a user using the recent projects list will get an error as the Project XML can't be found, and the deleted project will not be visible in the open collaboration project window preventing any confusion.  

It is still my personal recommendation to have one only plant 3D project in each BIM 360 Teams project so that they can be archived independently of other projects. But if you are running Plant 3D 2019, you should be able to publish a project of the same name as a deleted project to the same Teams project without the problem of seeing removed projects.