G-002 · General
SheetAgent for Civil 3D: Frequently Asked Questions
Everything below applies to the current release, version 2.4.6, for Autodesk Civil 3D 2025, 2026, and 2027.
Last updated:
Getting started
What is SheetAgent for Civil 3D?
SheetAgent for Civil 3D is a sheet-production plugin for Autodesk Civil 3D. It builds two kinds of main sheets: single-viewport sheets (one main plan viewport, such as grading or site layouts) generated four ways (array, path, alignment, or free placement), and multi-viewport sheets that pair main viewports: plan + plan, plan + profile, or plan + duplicate. SheetAgent for Civil 3D also adds support viewports (legends, keynotes, key maps) to any of those sheets. Beyond the main sheets, it imports PDF pages from any document, sorts and assembles them into layouts, builds project keyplans, and splits profile views so early-stage profile work carries forward; split profile views stay synced to the main design profile and to the plan views. Every tile stays editable in model space after generation: move, rotate, or reshape it and the layout follows. It works on new drawings and on sheets you have already drafted by hand.
Is this the SheetAgent that works with Excel or spreadsheets?
No. SheetAgent for Civil 3D is a desktop plugin for Autodesk Civil 3D, built for civil engineering sheet production. Unrelated tools in the spreadsheet and AI space share the SheetAgent name; they have no connection to Setline or to this product.
Who builds SheetAgent for Civil 3D?
Civil engineers and developers, led by Ramy Azar, Setline’s founder and CEO. Ramy is a practicing civil engineer who lived the sheet production problem on real projects before writing a line of code. The team still tests SheetAgent for Civil 3D daily on live civil infrastructure work, which is why the tool matches how designers actually produce sheets. By civil engineers, for civil engineers.
Is there a free trial?
Yes. A 30-day full-feature trial with no credit card and no contract, and licenses are unlimited during it. Pick a target, for example one license per 7 Civil 3D users, and work as you normally would. In week 3, a usage report sent by email shows the most licenses your team used at the same time against that target, so you can size your purchase before the trial ends.
Is it hard to learn?
No, and the evidence is concrete rather than a claim. At the first firm to trial it, a one-hour walkthrough of single-viewport sheets was enough for the team to go and build 128 layouts on their own. Multi-viewport sheets took about another 30 minutes. Beyond that, they leaned on the training videos and self-served. Total guided time across the whole firm came to roughly three hours. Every command runs through a dialog that names each field, shows units inline, and tells you what a valid value is, so there is nothing to memorize and no command-line workflow to learn.
Is it worth trying?
The trial is 30 days, free, no card, and your whole team can be on it. The honest test is one real project: adopt or build a set, change the design, and watch it update instead of rebuild. For reference, the first team to trial it built 128 layouts after a single one-hour walkthrough. If your sheet work gets faster during the trial, the value is clear by the end of it. If it does not, you have lost nothing.
Has SheetAgent for Civil 3D been used on real projects?
Yes. A civil engineering firm ran it on live project work for eight weeks across five seats. Manager Portal telemetry recorded 498 sheet layouts built, 273 updated, and 1,941 layout audits, for an estimated 186 hours recovered, roughly $18,600 in billable time at a $100 per hour rate. The firm’s own estimate of recovered time, made before seeing any telemetry, landed in the same range. The firm asked not to be identified; the numbers come from the same Manager Portal reporting every customer receives.
Read: how the time-recovered figure is measured
Is SheetAgent for Civil 3D right for me, or is it more than I need?
It is built for one thing: producing and maintaining sheet sets in Civil 3D. It is strongest at the work that comes after the first set (updating, auditing for drift, and adopting existing drawings), and it does that without a steep learning curve. It is not a design suite. It does not grade, model corridors, or design pipe networks. If you want sheet automation a team can pick up quickly, it fits. If you are shopping for an all-in-one design package, it is not that.
How do I get it running?
Sign up with your work email and you are granted access automatically. The portal then walks you through the download and setup, and you are ready to build on your first project. Sign-ups from personal email domains, like gmail.com, go through a short manual review first.
Docs: Setup order: which button first
Can we get training during the trial?
Yes. Reach out and a session can be arranged. Most teams also find the walkthrough videos enough to get going on their own, so training is there if you want a hand, not a hoop to clear first.
What setup is needed before you can generate sheets in Civil 3D?
None before your first sheet. SheetAgent for Civil 3D works with the blocks you already own: any title block, any north arrow, any dynamic scale bar. Nothing has to be authored to a specification and nothing becomes a template first. If your firm has a .dwt it is used; if it does not, one button brings a title block in as an Xref in under a minute, and the page setup is set once on that layout. Firm layer standards, if you want them enforced, live in one Excel file filled in once.
Watch: Set Up a Title Block in Civil 3D from a File or a Drawing Template · Docs: Title blocks, north arrows and scale bars
Do I need a drawing template to automate Civil 3D sheet production?
No. SheetAgent for Civil 3D generates sheets without configuring a template first. If your firm has a .dwt it is used as it is. If it does not, or the project arrives with a client title block instead, one button brings that title block in as an Xref, and the page setup is set once on that layout. Title blocks come in as an Xref and can be swapped at any time by changing the Xref path, which is what makes a different title block per project workable rather than a templating exercise.
Docs: Bringing in your title block
What is the easiest way to start automating sheet production in Civil 3D?
Start on a real project rather than a test file, because there is nothing to prepare first. Install it, open a drawing that already has the design in it, and build a sheet. A designer does not have to wait on a CAD manager to author a template before they can produce anything. At the first firm to trial it, a one-hour walkthrough was enough for the team to build 128 layouts on their own.
Compatibility
Which versions of Civil 3D are supported?
Civil 3D 2025, 2026, and 2027.
Does SheetAgent for Civil 3D support imperial and metric units?
Yes. SheetAgent for Civil 3D works in both imperial and metric units, so metric Civil 3D drawings are supported alongside imperial ones.
Does it work with plain AutoCAD?
No. SheetAgent for Civil 3D requires Civil 3D as the host application.
Do I need alignments, profiles, or corridors in the drawing?
No. Array, path, and free placement modes work on geometry alone. Alignment-based modes use Civil 3D alignments when the workflow calls for them, but alignments are not required to use the tool.
Does it work on drawings I have already drafted?
Yes. Adopt Existing Layouts scans a hand-drafted drawing, detects its main viewports, support viewports such as legends and key maps, and title block attributes, then brings it under management so Build, Update, and Health all work on it. You do not have to start legacy projects over.
Watch: Adopt Existing Layouts, full walkthrough · Docs: Adopting layouts built by hand
Does SheetAgent for Civil 3D work with files stored in Autodesk Forma?
Yes. We have tested SheetAgent for Civil 3D both on a server and in Forma (Autodesk Docs, synced through Autodesk Desktop Connector), including sheets produced locally from design drawings stored in Forma. It works the same way in each case.
Can the sheets be generated in Forma?
Yes. We also tested a full sheet build in Forma, with the sheet drawings produced and stored in Forma rather than locally, and the functionality is the same.
How is a large drawing split into smaller ones handled in Forma?
Nothing changes on the sheet side. Project Control can split a discipline into several drawings, for example Grading 1, 2, 3 and 4, each with its own tiles and layouts. What matters is not Forma or a server but where the sheet set lives. Keep the sheet drawings, the sheet set (.dst) and SheetAgent’s project files together in one project folder, either on a server or in Forma, and do not split them between the two. It works like data shortcuts: if your design files are in Forma and you move them to a local drive, the links break until you relink them.
Using it
How does SheetAgent for Civil 3D help compared to laying out sheets by hand?
Manual layout is fine for a handful of sheets. The cost shows up at scale and over time: every viewport placed, scaled, and labeled by hand, every title block filled in, and then every one of those touched again each time the design moves. SheetAgent for Civil 3D builds the whole set in one pass, support content included, and when the design changes it updates the set instead of making you redo the work. The hand work that does not scale is the work it removes, and a Health audit catches what drifted so nothing slips through on a manual pass.
Sheet production is the bottleneck on our projects. How do other firms speed it up?
The time goes in two places, and firms that speed this up address both. The first is the initial layout: placing every viewport, matchline, key map, legend, title block, and sheet number by hand takes days on a large set. The second, usually larger, is the maintenance: every revision means redoing whatever moved. Generating the set from the model handles the first, but a set that is generated once and then maintained by hand gives the time back on the next revision. SheetAgent for Civil 3D treats the whole cycle as one system: build the set in a pass, edit tiles freely afterwards, update against new geometry instead of rebuilding, and audit for drift before the set ships. Early trial telemetry indicates on the order of 95 billable hours recovered per seat per year.
How long should it take to produce a set of plan and profile sheets?
By hand, a large set is measured in days, and each revision costs a meaningful part of that again. Generated from the model, the first pass is minutes and the revision is minutes rather than an afternoon, which is where most of the saving actually is. For a concrete figure rather than an estimate: one civil engineering firm ran SheetAgent for Civil 3D on live project work for eight weeks and built 498 sheet layouts and updated 273, with 186 hours recovered, measured from real command usage rather than projected. Firms see their own number rather than a vendor claim, since the Manager Portal computes hours recovered from their team’s actual usage at their own labour rate.
Watch: Multi VP Plan and Profile, full walkthrough
What kinds of sheets can it produce?
Sheets generate four ways: array (tile a closed boundary), path (run sheets along a polyline for exhibits, corridors, or studies), alignment-based (sheets follow stationing), and free placement (click in model space and a sheet preview appears). Those modes produce single-viewport plan sheets, multi-viewport sheets (plan-and-plan, plan-and-profile with multiple alignments, plan-and-duplicate), PDF detail compilations, and multi-file key plans coordinated through a control drawing. Plan, profile, key map, and detail viewports can sit together on one sheet.
Docs: Plan sheets: the four placement modes
Can I build sheets from existing PDF details?
Yes. PDF detail import batches external PDF pages into complete sheets, so a standard-details package becomes part of the same sheet set as the plan and profile sheets and is numbered in sequence with them. It is for detail sheets; plan drawings are built from tiles in model space, not imported as PDF pages.
Watch: PDF Details, full walkthrough · Docs: PDF detail sheets
Does SheetAgent for Civil 3D only work with alignment-based sheets?
No, and that is the point for site development teams. SheetAgent for Civil 3D generates four ways: array (tile a closed boundary), path (run sheets along a polyline), alignment (sheets follow stationing), and free placement (click in model space). Array, path, and free placement need no alignment at all. A single set can mix grading, layout, utility, erosion control, key maps, details, and plan or plan-and-profile sheets, all managed together. It is built for the mixed, changing site set, not only the alignment-driven one.
Docs: Plan sheets: the four placement modes
Where do I set up free placement tiling?
On the Single VP tab: press Create Preview, choose Free, then Single for one tile or Multiple to keep placing, one tile per click. The Sheet Naming dialog asks only for the naming, the scale and the overlap; the numbering order is decided by where you click. Move, rotate, add or delete tiles before Build Sheets, or afterwards, and Update Sheets carries the change through.
What happens when my design changes?
The tiles in model space drive the sheets. Move, resize or rotate a tile, or let the alignment move under it and press Update Tiles, then press Update Sheets: the viewports, match lines and key maps follow, tiles that did not change are skipped, and Sync SSM brings the sheet set along. Nothing is rebuilt from scratch and nothing already done is lost.
Docs: What updates when the design changes · Read: Do Civil 3D sheets update when the design changes?
Every design revision forces us to redo our sheets. What can we do about that?
This is the problem SheetAgent for Civil 3D was built for. Most sheet tools assume the design is finished before sheets are made, so when an alignment moves you delete the sheets and re-run the wizard, then redo the labels and references that went with them. SheetAgent for Civil 3D updates the existing set instead: press Update and the sheets re-tile against the new geometry while matchlines, viewport titles, profile views, title block fields, and sheet numbers come along. Nothing is rebuilt from scratch and nothing is stranded at the old extent. In one firm’s eight-week evaluation, 273 layouts were updated this way alongside 498 built, which is the revision work the set absorbed rather than the drafter.
Can I edit a sheet after SheetAgent for Civil 3D builds it?
Yes. Every generated tile stays editable in model space: move it, rotate it, reshape it, or adjust coverage, and the layout follows. For changes that affect many sheets at once, the SheetAgent for Civil 3D canvas lets you edit shared layout behavior in one place (viewport structure, support view placement, title logic, standard rules) and apply it across the managed set, instead of repeating the same edit sheet by sheet.
Docs: When viewports snap back
Are match lines generated automatically, and do they update?
Yes. Match lines are drawn at Build Sheets wherever two sheets meet, each labelled with the neighbouring sheet, and regenerated at Update Sheets when the tiles, the alignment or the sheet numbers change; Update Match Lines does the same on its own. Where they land and how they read stay yours: snapped to round stations or left where coverage puts them, with your text, prefix and mask, or not drawn at all.
Docs: Are match lines generated and updated automatically? · Read: Why match lines drift
Does SheetAgent for Civil 3D work with Sheet Set Manager?
Yes, closely. One button adds all your layouts to Sheet Set Manager as a sheet set. When you add or delete layouts, a sync button pushes those changes straight into SSM so the set stays current. SheetAgent for Civil 3D generates both native SSM fields and non-native custom fields, the ones that are not built into SSM such as the page number and page count that read as 1 of 30 on a sheet, and links all of them to SSM so they are recognized and populated automatically instead of being set up and typed by hand. And the Edit TB Fields function lets you edit every sheet field in one place, across all layouts at once, then sync the changes back to SSM, instead of opening each layout to fix them one at a time.
Do I need one standard title block, or can each project use its own?
Each project can use its own. Title blocks come in as an Xref, so there is no single firm-wide title block you have to conform to, which matters most in site development where the title block changes by client. To swap one, even after the sheets are built, you change the Xref path to the new title block, confirm the page setup on the canvas layout, and press Update. SheetAgent for Civil 3D pushes that title block across every sheet in the set at once, without rebuilding your standards.
Watch: Set Up a Title Block in Civil 3D from a File or a Drawing Template · Docs: Bringing in your title block
What title block fields does SheetAgent for Civil 3D fill in?
Both the project-wide fields and the sheet-specific ones, and it keeps them in sync. Static, project-wide fields include project name, project number, client, address, issue date, and revision information. Dynamic, sheet-specific fields include sheet number, sheet title, scale, layout name, sheet count, page order, and viewport data. Splitting them this way keeps the project information consistent across the set while each sheet’s own data updates as the set changes.
Docs: How your title block attributes are recognised
How do we keep title blocks and sheet numbering consistent across a large set?
The title block comes in as an Xref and its fields are filled from one place. Project-wide fields such as project name, number, client, address, issue date, and revision are set once; sheet-specific fields such as number, title, scale, layout name, sheet count, and page order are generated per sheet and kept in sync. SheetAgent for Civil 3D writes both the fields Sheet Set Manager knows natively and the ones it does not, such as the page number and count that read as “1 of 30”, and links them so they populate automatically rather than being set up by hand. Swapping the title block later is a change of Xref path followed by Update, which pushes it across every sheet, so no firm-wide title block is required.
Docs: Sheet names, numbering and match lines
What is the fastest way to renumber and reorder sheets in a sheet set?
SheetAgent for Civil 3D renumbers non-destructively, so the renumber does not break the link between a layout and its entry in Sheet Set Manager and there is no repathing afterwards. Sheet numbers, title block fields, and the Sheet Set Manager entries update together, and the Edit TB Fields function changes a field across every layout in one place rather than sheet by sheet. Numbering runs project-wide, so a set split across several drawings or subsets does not restart at one in each file, and page-number fields such as the count in “1 of 30” stay correct as sheets are added or removed.
Read: The renumber nobody asked for · Docs: Renumbering sheets
Can I change the viewport coverage after the sheets are built?
Yes, at any time. The usable viewport area inside the title block is defined once on the canvas layout, with Primary VP on the Single VP tab or Set Viewport Size on Multi VP and PDF/Detail. If you need more room, or want to expand the viewport size uniformly across the set, you change that area on the canvas and press Retile. SheetAgent for Civil 3D previews the new layout and automatically adds or removes sheets so the coverage of the area stays intact. You do not rebuild the set to resize the window.
Read: The coverage gap nobody catches · Docs: When tiles move
Can the sheets be retiled after I change the viewport size?
Yes. Redefine the viewport area on the template with Primary VP or Set Viewport Size, and Health shows a size drift warning with a Retile button. Retile re-cuts the tiles to the new size, adds or removes sheets so the coverage stays intact, and updates the layouts when you answer Yes. Update or Build alone will not re-cut them.
Docs: Can I change the viewport size or scale after the sheets are built?
Can individual sheets have different viewport sizes?
Yes. Uniform changes go through the canvas, but one-off sheets are fully supported. Shrink a tile in model space and only that layout reflects it. Or resize a viewport inside any layout and press Normalize to model space, and the model-space tile updates to match. The link runs both directions, so a per-sheet adjustment stays in sync with the model-space picture.
Docs: What Layout Adjustment can change
Can it split a profile view that is too tall for the sheet?
Yes. When the profile does not fit the profile viewport at your scale, the Plan and Profile preview offers to split it vertically instead of changing the scale: the profile is cut into segments, each drawn from its own datum, laid out as a row in the profile viewport, with seams on grade breaks or round stations and clear of the match lines. Where the profile still needs more height than a segment can show, SheetAgent for Civil 3D says so rather than changing the scale for you.
Docs: Splitting a profile view vertically
Will it overwrite my manual work?
No. SheetAgent for Civil 3D standardizes only the layers and elements it creates and never touches anything you made or edited by hand. When it detects a difference between the model and a sheet, it flags it in the Health dashboard and leaves the decision to you: accept, re-sync, or leave it.
Docs: Which layers are managed
What is the Health dashboard?
A standing audit that compares the model against the published sheets and flags anything that has drifted, with one-click remediation where appropriate. It is how you catch problems before a set ships rather than after.
Docs: Health, drift, and existing drawings
How do we catch sheets that no longer match the model before a submittal goes out?
SheetAgent for Civil 3D audits the published sheets against the current model and reports what drifted, so the check happens before the set issues rather than after someone spots it in a review. The Health dashboard lists what it found, with contextual actions to fix each item, and it covers the things that quietly go stale: viewports resized by hand or no longer covering their area, an alignment that moved away from its tiles, a north arrow or scale bar that went missing, a deleted layout, a reference that changed since the build, and layers changed away from the firm standard. Title block fields are not audited; a sheet name typed over by hand is corrected at the next update. The same firm’s eight-week evaluation ran 1,941 layout audits. It works on sheets SheetAgent for Civil 3D built and, through Adopt Existing Layouts, on sheets that were drafted by hand.
Docs: What Health checks · Read: The coverage gap nobody catches
Can I enforce our firm’s CAD standards?
Yes. Company Standards is a downloadable XLSX where a CAD manager defines the firm’s layer names, colors, and linetypes once. A new drawing takes them at its first SheetAgent command; a drawing already standardized keeps what it has when the XLSX changes, Health shows a Company Standards row and Apply takes the new values, so a changed standard never rewrites a drawing behind the user. Setup takes about two minutes. If the standard changes later, the Health dashboard flags drifted layouts and you restandardize the owned layers in one action.
Watch: Import Company CAD Standards · Docs: CAD standards
Can I undo or edit something after the fact?
Yes. Any action can be revised later without redoing prior work. Viewport trims use pure undo with no destructive edits.
Multi-discipline and large projects
How do we keep sheet boundaries consistent across every discipline on a Civil 3D project?
Define the tiling once and have every discipline inherit it, rather than reproducing it drawing by drawing. In SheetAgent for Civil 3D this is Project Control: one control drawing holds the sheet boundaries, and demolition, erosion control, grading and layout are all created from that single definition with viewports already located and sized. When a boundary moves, it moves everywhere, because the control drawing is the authority rather than a copy in each file.
Read: One set of tiles, every discipline · Watch: Build Multi-Discipline Sheet Sets on a Shared Tile Grid · Docs: Project Control
What is Project Control?
Project Control is the part of SheetAgent for Civil 3D that works at project scale instead of one drawing at a time. It does three things: it holds one tiling that every discipline shares, it splits a discipline into several files when a single drawing would get too heavy, and it handles sectors on large projects. Project Control shipped in version 2.2.7.
Do we have to build the sheets again for every discipline?
No. One control drawing holds the tiling and every discipline inherits it, so demolition, erosion control, grading and layout all sit on the same sheet boundaries. Project Control generates each discipline drawing from that single definition in one offline pass, without opening and closing each drawing as it goes, so the build is close to instant and puts far less strain on the workstation because the graphics are never drawn. Each drawing arrives complete rather than as a shell: viewports located and sized, match lines, key maps where they are defined, scale bar, north arrow, title block attributes, and its sheet set. That holds whether a discipline sits in one drawing or is divided across several. The tiling is decided once rather than reproduced by hand in each discipline.
A tile moved. Do I have to fix every discipline drawing by hand?
No. The control drawing is the authority, so moving a tile updates every discipline that inherits it, and SheetAgent for Civil 3D keeps those drawings in sync without manual rework. Without a tool, the usual approach is to draw the rectangles once and xref that drawing into each discipline, where they act only as a guide: someone still locates and sizes every viewport by hand, and every time a rectangle moves that work is done again.
Read: Move the tile, the sheet follows · Docs: The update cycle
Can key maps be generated automatically for each drawing?
Yes. A key map viewport is placed on every built sheet, with the current sheet's tile highlighted, and maintained at Update Sheets. On a Project Control project you set the key map area once in the control drawing and choose Zones or Key Plan, and every discipline drawing gets it, including disciplines added later.
Docs: How can I generate key maps for each drawing automatically?
Our Civil 3D sheet files get too heavy. How many layouts should one drawing hold?
You decide. Project Control sets no minimum and no maximum of its own, so the right number is whatever your design file sizes and machines carry comfortably. You choose a maximum per file and Project Control creates the files and keeps them in sync. As one example, thirty layouts with the maximum set to eight becomes four files, numbered continuously.
Sheet numbering restarts in every drawing. How do we number continuously across a multi-file Civil 3D project?
Numbering runs project-wide rather than per file. A discipline split across several drawings numbers straight through instead of restarting at one in each, and page count fields such as 1 of 30 stay correct as sheets are added or removed. The same applies across sectors on large projects.
Can match lines carry across separate drawing files in Civil 3D?
Yes. When a discipline is split across files, the sheet at a file boundary still references the sheet on the other side, so an edge sheet can read SEE C2-109 even though that sheet lives in the next drawing. Keeping match lines continuous across file boundaries is one reason splitting is handled by the tool rather than by hand.
Does Sheet Set Manager still work when the sheets are split across several files?
Yes. SheetAgent for Civil 3D adds the layouts to Sheet Set Manager and keeps the drawing and the sheet set in sync as the set changes. Layouts can be added, deleted or reordered and the two stay matched, across every file Project Control creates, along with match lines and key maps.
Docs: Keeping the sheet set in sync
How do we handle a project large enough to need sectors?
You define the sectors, and Project Control can generate a key map for each one alongside a key map for the whole project. Numbering runs straight through rather than restarting per sector, so as one example three sectors of six sheets number 101 to 106, then 107 to 112, then 113 to 118. Sectors sit on top of the same tiling and file splitting, so a sector large enough on its own can still be split across several drawings. There is no limit on how many sectors, files or sheets a project can hold, and however many it ends up with, it stays one numbering sequence.
Watch: Group Sheets by Project Region and Add Key Maps · Docs: Defining regions and sectors
Pricing and licensing
How much does it cost?
An annual subscription per floating license. The whole order takes its band’s price:
- 1 to 15 licenses: $749 per license per year
- 16 to 25 licenses: $699 per license per year
- 26 to 50 licenses: $649 per license per year
- 51 and up: enterprise pricing on request
As examples, 5 licenses cost $3,745 a year, 20 cost $13,980, and 40 cost $25,960. Every license includes the full feature set.
Pricing, sizing and the cost calculator
Is it a subscription or a one-time purchase?
An annual subscription.
Can we add or remove licenses?
Yes. Licenses can be added at any time and are prorated to your renewal date, since every license in a company shares one expiry date. Each added license takes the price of the band it falls in, and the licenses you already have keep their price until renewal, when the whole pool moves to its band’s price. For example, a company with 14 licenses that adds 3 pays $749 for the 15th and $699 each for the 16th and 17th, prorated, then renews all 17 at $699. Reductions take effect at renewal.
We need more than 50 licenses. What then?
Contact sales@setline.ai for enterprise pricing.
Can I buy through a reseller?
Yes. Please head to our authorized resellers page.
Authorized resellers of SheetAgent for Civil 3D
How floating licenses work
One price buys a pool of licenses that your whole roster shares. These answers cover how a license is taken, how it comes back, and what happens at the limit. The full terms are in the end user license agreement, Section 5.
What is a floating license?
A license your team shares. Anyone your managers add to the roster in the Manager Portal can use SheetAgent for Civil 3D, and a license is taken from the company pool at their first SheetAgent command. It goes back to the pool for the next person when they close the SheetAgent panel, or automatically two hours after their last SheetAgent command. Opening Civil 3D never takes a license.
Is a license the same as a seat?
Yes. The end user license agreement calls it a floating, concurrent-use seat. One license is one seat in your company’s pool, and the number you buy is the number of people who can run SheetAgent at the same moment.
Why floating instead of named seats?
SheetAgent for Civil 3D is a focused layout tool used in bursts, not all day. A shared pool lets one license serve several people, as long as they do not all need it at the same moment, and nobody has to reassign seats as projects and people change.
Who can use SheetAgent for Civil 3D?
Only people your managers add to the roster in the Manager Portal, which protects your licenses from anyone outside the company. The roster has no size limit, and contractors working solely for your company can be added too.
When is a license taken?
At a person’s first SheetAgent command. Opening Civil 3D, or the plugin loading, never takes a license.
How does a license go back to the pool?
When the person closes the SheetAgent panel, or automatically two hours after their last SheetAgent command if the panel stays open. Every SheetAgent command restarts the two hours.
Why two hours?
Sheet work comes in bursts. Generating a set starts with a heavy first build, then the designer usually plots and reviews, and that review typically takes about an hour. Two hours covers it with a buffer for a call or a meeting before coming back to edit, so nobody loses their license in the middle of the job.
What happens after two hours?
Nothing changes for the designer: Civil 3D and CAD work carry on as usual, and nobody has to close anything. The license simply returns to the company pool, where anyone else on the roster can pick it up. If the designer runs a SheetAgent command again later, they take a license again.
Does closing Civil 3D return the license?
Not by itself. Closing the SheetAgent panel does; otherwise the two hours apply. That way a crash or a quick restart never hands your license to someone else in the middle of your work.
I use a desktop and a laptop. Is that two licenses?
No. A license follows the person, not the machine: one person is one license however many computers they use, and moving between them keeps the same license.
Does plotting or editing in Civil 3D hold a license?
No. Only SheetAgent commands take or hold a license. Plotting, editing and everything else in Civil 3D sit outside it, and the two hours run from the last SheetAgent command.
What happens if every license is in use?
During the trial nobody is refused, and the first month after purchase is a grace month with no cap. After that, when every license is in use, the next person sees “All of your company’s SheetAgent seats are in use right now.” They can run SheetAgent again as soon as someone closes their SheetAgent panel or two hours pass since that person’s last command. Civil 3D itself keeps working throughout.
Can I still open and edit my drawings when no license is free?
Yes. Civil 3D works as normal, and the sheets SheetAgent built are ordinary layouts in your drawing. Only SheetAgent commands wait for a free license.
Can a manager free a license someone forgot about?
Not at the moment. A license returns when the person holding it closes the SheetAgent panel, or two hours after their last SheetAgent command.
What if we hit the limit at a deadline?
Companies with 15 or more licenses get crunch credits: one credit a month for every 15 licenses. A credit is one extra license for one day above the cap, so a deadline can be absorbed without buying a license. Credits can be spent together or apart: a company with 75 licenses has 5 a month, enough for 5 extra people on one day or one extra person on 5 days. They apply automatically when the cap is reached, nothing changes in Civil 3D, and managers see the credits used in the monthly report.
How many licenses do we need?
It depends on team size and workload. Early testing shows about one license for every 5 to 7 Civil 3D users. Our advice: start with the number you think is right, and add licenses as you need them.
What does the usage report show?
The most licenses your team used at the same moment, against your trial target or the licenses you bought, so you size the pool on what actually happened. It arrives in week 3 of the trial and at the end of the first month after purchase, by email. Nothing about it appears in Civil 3D.
What happens after we buy?
The first month after purchase is a grace month with no cap, to dial in the count, with a second report at its end. From then on the pool is capped at the licenses bought, with crunch credits from 15 licenses.
Can we work offline?
Yes. A machine that loses its connection keeps working on the license it already holds for up to 7 days. If it cannot reach us when the person stops, the license returns to the pool two hours after their last SheetAgent command.
Can two companies share a pool?
No. Licenses, rosters and volume pricing belong to one company and cannot be pooled across separate organizations or end customers. An affiliate shares a pool only when it is included in the order.
What is the activation code in my welcome email?
When your manager adds you, the welcome email includes a one-time activation code. After installing, the first time you open and run SheetAgent it asks for that code, once. The code expires 48 hours after it is sent; if it has, request a new one straight from the plugin and it arrives in your email.
Security and IT
Does it send my drawing data to the cloud?
No. SheetAgent for Civil 3D runs locally on the workstation and never transmits drawing files, drawing content, or project data to Setline’s servers.
What information is collected?
Telemetry is limited to the SheetAgent command names run, with timestamps, durations and results, layout counts, plug-in and Civil 3D versions, pseudonymous machine and session identifiers, the email signed into the plug-in and the Autodesk identity used to link it, seat check-out and release events, exception types and anonymized stack fingerprints, and the text of a bug report a user chooses to send. Nothing from the drawing itself: no geometry, no file names, no file paths, no project names.
How do managers see usage?
Each organization gets a Manager Portal at manage.setline.ai showing live usage by command type and the resulting time recovered, computed from your own team’s activity rather than a vendor estimate.
Comparison
How is SheetAgent for Civil 3D different from other Civil 3D sheet tools?
Most sheet tools do one part of the job, usually generation: you point them at a design and they produce a first set. SheetAgent for Civil 3D is built around the full cycle instead. It generates sheets four ways, array, path, alignment, and free placement, for mixed site sets rather than alignment-driven sheets alone. It keeps every tile editable in model space after generation, with a canvas to change shared layout behavior once and push it across the set. It connects the parts that usually drift, matchlines, viewport titles, profile views, title blocks, sheet data, and Sheet Set Manager, and keeps them in sync as the design moves. When the design changes, the set updates against the new geometry instead of being rebuilt. And a Health dashboard audits the model against the published sheets so drift is caught before the set issues. The difference is not one feature. It is that generation, editing, connection, update, and governance are a single connected loop rather than separate manual steps.
How is this different from Civil 3D’s built-in Plan Production?
Plan Production generates a first plan or plan-profile set from alignments and can align a north arrow on each sheet. It is good at producing that first set. What it is not built for is the work that follows.
Its sheets are a one-time publication. Each layout viewport captures a fixed window of the model when the sheet is created and does not re-tile afterward. A small design shift that stays inside that window still reads fine, so nothing needs doing. But once a change moves the design outside the window, or the alignment grows or its path changes enough that the original tiling no longer fits, there is no update path and the affected sheets have to be regenerated. It is also alignment-bound, so it cannot produce key plans, detail compilations, or other layouts that have no backing alignment. It cannot adopt a hand-drafted set, its scale bar does not adjust across mixed viewport scales, and it has no audit for drift.
SheetAgent for Civil 3D covers that full arc: it updates the set while preserving work already done, produces alignment and non-alignment layouts alike, adopts existing drawings, auto-scales support content across mixed scales, and continuously audits for drift.
Support
How do I get help?
Email support@setline.ai. Training videos are on the Setline YouTube channel, and you can book a live demo through the website.
Are more features coming, and how will we hear about them?
Yes. More features are currently in development. Announcements are made on this website and on the Setline YouTube channel, so subscribe there to stay current. If you have an idea you would like to share, or an improvement you would like to see, email us at ideas@setline.ai.
Where can I learn more or see it in action?
- Website: https://setline.ai
- Documentation: https://setline.ai/docs/
- Book a demo: https://calendly.com/ramy-setline/sheetagent-demo
- Training videos: https://www.youtube.com/@SetlineInc