If you use worksets and central Revit models you will notice that you no longer get the 3 or so backup files which usually appear alongside the current file.  Typically your browser folder would look something like this.

If you enable worksets allowing multiple users to access and share the same Revit model, you will notice that these rollbacks (or backups) no longer appear. 

On a workset enabled model, Revit stores 20 backups of the central file by default but it is not possible to see or access these backups like the single user file.

To rollback to an earlier version of your central file you must use the following steps...

Without any Revit project open, go to File > Backups…

Browse to find your central file and look for the folder which has the suffix of _backup (this is usually in the same folder as the central Revit file). 

Double click to view the contents of this folder (but notice that nothing is in there?). 

Ignore the fact that nothing is in there and click ‘Open’.

As if by magic… it opens up a dialogue box which shows the save history.  It shows the date and who performed the save.  In the example below I used some fictitious usernames as an example.  You can see that the last save was performed by revit.user No.2 at 16:29

To sample a file you can simply select the version and click ‘Save As…’ and it will make a new independent model where ever you choose.

To make the changes permanent to the ‘Live’ central file, use the ‘Rollback…’ button but BEWARE… this change is permanent and you will loose any changes made beyond this date.

If 20 rollback versions just aren’t enough for you, you can change this to another number (but be careful as this will increase the file size of the backup folder). 

Open your local copy of the central file and click ‘Save As…’  In the dialogue box click ‘Options’ (bottom right) and change the number of backups to suit. 

Don’t bother changing the file name, just click save.  If it tells you this file already exists, you can just overwrite it.  That’s it done! The information is sent back to your central file and the number of backups to retain will be updated.

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