How to Bulk Manage Members Across Autodesk Forma Projects

The problem every BIM Manager knows

A new subcontractor joins the project. You need to add them to Autodesk Forma — but not just one project. They need access to the main build project, the document management project, and the coordination space. Each one means navigating to Members, clicking Add, entering their email, selecting a role, and hitting Save.

Now multiply that by 15 subcontractors across 8 projects. That's 120 individual member additions. Each takes about 45 seconds if you're fast. That's 90 minutes of clicking — and that's before you deal with the inevitable "can you also give them access to..." follow-up.

The real cost isn't time — it's errors. Manual member management leads to inconsistent permissions, forgotten projects, and audit findings that take even longer to fix.

Approach 1: The spreadsheet method

The quickest improvement is a simple tracking spreadsheet. Create a matrix of users vs. projects, mark which access each person needs, and work through it systematically. This doesn't reduce clicks, but it reduces mistakes.

User	Main Build	Docs	Coordination	Role
jane.smith@contractor.com	Yes	Yes	No	Project Manager
mike.jones@mep.co	Yes	Yes	Yes	MEP Coordinator

Verdict: Better than nothing, but you're still doing every click manually. This works for teams managing 2-3 projects. Beyond that, it becomes its own admin burden.

Approach 2: APS API scripts

Autodesk Platform Services (APS) exposes APIs for member management. If you have a developer on your team, you can write scripts that read from a CSV and call the API to add members in bulk.

# Pseudocode — APS member addition
for each row in members.csv:
    POST /construction/admin/v1/projects/{projectId}/users
    {
        "email": row.email,
        "products": [{
            "key": "build",
            "access": "member"
        }],
        "roleIds": [row.roleId]
    }

This is a significant step up. A single script run can add 50 members across 10 projects in under a minute. But there are catches:

You need APS credentials and OAuth token management
Error handling is on you — what happens when an email is wrong or a project ID changes?
No audit trail — who ran what script, when?
Ongoing maintenance: API versioning, rate limits, token rotation

Verdict: Powerful but requires developer resources. If your team has them, this can work. Most BIM management teams don't.

Approach 3: Role-based automation with Foreman

Instead of managing members project-by-project, Foreman flips the model: define roles once, then assign people to roles. The platform handles the rest.

Define your role hierarchy

Use Foreman's Project Matrix to set up roles aligned to ISO 19650 — Party, Functional Role, and Discipline. For example: "MEP Contractor → Project Manager → Mechanical".

Map roles to project access

The Project Matrix wizard lets you define which roles get access to which projects, with what permission level — in a single visual interface.

Add members to roles

When a new subcontractor arrives, assign them a role. Foreman automatically provisions their access across every project that role touches. One action, complete access.

The real payoff: offboarding

When a subcontractor leaves, remove them from one role and access is revoked across all projects simultaneously. No hunting through project member lists. No audit gaps.

Comparing the three approaches

	Spreadsheet	API Script	Foreman
Time to add 50 users / 10 projects	~6 hours	~10 min	~2 min
Requires developer	No	Yes	No
Audit trail	Manual	Custom logging	Built-in
Offboarding	Manual per project	Script per project	One click

Key takeaway

The best approach depends on your scale. For 2-3 projects, a spreadsheet is fine. For 5+, you need automation. Foreman gives you that automation without requiring a developer — and the role-based model means your member management actually gets easier as your portfolio grows, not harder.