The missing feature in Autodesk Forma
Forma is powerful for managing files within a single project. But as soon as you need to find something across projects, you hit a wall. There's no built-in cross-project search.
This matters more than it sounds. Consider the scenarios BIM Managers and Document Controllers face daily:
"Where's the latest fire strategy report?"
Could be in the main build project, the coordination space, or the client's document management project.
"Find all RFI responses from the last 30 days"
Spread across multiple projects with no way to query them together.
"Which projects still have v1 of the spec?"
Version management across a portfolio is impossible without cross-project visibility.
"How much storage are we using?"
No portfolio-level view of file counts, sizes, or types across projects.
The manual approach and why it fails
Without cross-project search, the workflow looks like this:
For a portfolio of 15 projects, a single file search can take 20-30 minutes. If someone asks you to find something urgently, that's 30 minutes of project delivery time lost to navigation clicks.
Cross-project file search with Foreman
Foreman connects to your Forma account and indexes files across all your projects. A single search returns results from your entire portfolio in seconds.
Search by
File name
Partial match, wildcard, or exact name
File type
.rvt, .dwg, .pdf, .ifc, or any extension
Date range
Created or modified within a time window
File size
Find large files eating storage quota
What you can do with results
Export to CSV
Download the full result set with file paths, sizes, dates, and project names
Sort and filter in-browser
Sort by name, date, size, or project. Filter results without re-running the search
Navigate to source
Click any result to jump directly to the file in the Foreman file browser
Storage analytics
See storage usage by project, file type, and identify stale files
Real-world scenarios
Urgent document request from the client
The client asks for "the latest structural calculation for Block C". You know it exists somewhere across your 12 active projects.
Without cross-project search
Open each project, navigate to the structural folder, scan file names. 15-25 minutes. You might miss it if it's filed under an unexpected name.
With Foreman
Search "structural calc Block C" across all projects. Results in 5 seconds. Sort by date to find the latest version. Click to navigate.
Storage cleanup before renewal
Your Forma subscription renewal is coming up and you need to understand storage usage and clean up large unused files.
Without cross-project search
No portfolio-level storage view. Manually check each project's files, try to identify large or stale files. A full-day exercise for a large portfolio.
With Foreman
Search all files sorted by size. Filter by last modified date to find stale files. View storage analytics by project and file type. Export to CSV for reporting.
Audit preparation
An ISO 19650 audit requires you to demonstrate that all deliverables have been published to the correct CDE state across all projects.
Without cross-project search
Manually check each project's Published folder. Cross-reference against the deliverable schedule. Compile evidence manually. Days of preparation.
With Foreman
Search for deliverable files across all projects. Export the complete list with paths, dates, and versions. Evidence compiled in minutes.
Combining search with Attribute Extract
Finding files is step one. Often you also need the metadata — versions, custom attributes, dates, sizes — in a structured report. That's where Foreman's Attribute Extract comes in.
The workflow: search to locate the files you need, then extract their attributes into CSV, Excel, or JSON. Or skip the manual step entirely — define a saved extract that pulls attributes from specific folders on a recurring schedule. Your TIDP, transmittal register, or document status report updates itself.
Key takeaway
Cross-project file search isn't a nice-to-have — it's essential for anyone managing more than a couple of Forma projects. Foreman fills the gap that Autodesk doesn't, turning a 20-minute manual hunt into a 5-second query with exportable results.