Group Clashes

What Group Clashes does

Group Clashes turns a long, flat list of clash results into organized, clearly named groups inside Navisworks Clash Detective. You define one or more grouping rules — for example, group by Level, by System, or by the grid zone where the clash sits — preview exactly which groups will be created, and apply the result. The groups are created directly in Clash Detective as native Navisworks groups.

Everything happens locally in your Navisworks file. Nothing is uploaded to the cloud, and your clash results themselves are not changed — they are simply organized into groups.

Why grouping matters

A clash test with hundreds or thousands of individual results is hard to work with. Grouping brings order:

Faster triage — set status, priority, and ownership for a whole group at once instead of clash by clash.
Clear ownership — hand one group (for example, "Level 2 — Ductwork") to the team responsible for it.
Better publishing — when you publish a clash set to ClashWise, groups carry over to the web, where your team can review and manage them at group level.
Reliable 3D viewing — the web 3D viewer works best with focused scenes. Opening a group is a natural way to stay within the viewer's limits.

Grouping is especially important before you publish. If you start a publish or update with 100 or more clashes where more than 30% of them are ungrouped, ClashWise shows a Group before publishing prompt and offers to open this tool for you. You can continue without grouping, but grouped sets are far easier for your team to work with on the web. For details, see the Publish, Update & Sync Clash Sets section of this help center.

Who can use it

You must be signed in to the plugin.
You need a Starter subscription or any plan that includes Clash Management (Pro, Business, or the trial) — plans that include Clash Management also include all Starter tools.
The button is part of the Full Suite edition of the plugin. If you installed the Starter edition, the Group Clashes button does not appear on the ribbon — install the Full Suite edition to use it. A Starter subscription is enough; only the installer edition differs.
The button is always visible and clickable in the Full Suite edition; your subscription is checked when you click it, and a message explains if access is blocked.

Where to find it

In Navisworks, open the ClashWiseAI ribbon tab and click Group Clashes in the Clashes panel. The Group Clashes window opens. You need an open Navisworks file that contains clash tests with results.

The window can also open automatically from the Group before publishing prompt during a publish or update — in that case, the affected clash tests are already ticked for you.

How to group your clashes

In the Clash tests pane on the left, tick the test or tests you want to group. The hint reads "Tick the test(s) to group", and a label confirms your selection (for example, "2 tests selected"). You can collapse this pane with ‹ Hide tests and bring it back with Show tests ›.
Under Grouping rules (top → bottom builds the composite group name), click + Add rule and build your first rule (see "Building grouping rules" below).
Add more rules if you want more specific groups. Rules are combined from top to bottom, and the group name is built in the same order — use the ↑ and ↓ buttons to reorder rules, or ✕ to remove one.
Adjust the naming options if needed: Group name prefix:, Separator: (default " — "), and Min size: (default 2 — buckets smaller than this stay ungrouped). Tick Ungroup existing first if you want to replace any groups that already exist in the selected tests.
Click Refresh preview and review the Preview tree. It shows, per test, the groups that will be created, how many clashes land in each, and how many stay ungrouped, with a summary line like "4 group(s) · 220 clash(es) grouped · 12 left ungrouped · across 1 test(s)."
Click Apply and confirm. If you ticked Ungroup existing first, the confirmation also warns that existing groups in those tests will be removed first.
Read the results summary — it reports "Done." along with tests processed, groups created, results moved, and any skipped items — then click Close.

Your new groups now appear inside Navisworks Clash Detective, named exactly as shown in the preview.

Building grouping rules

Each rule row has four parts:

Category — pick the model property category that holds the value you want to group by. A special Clash location entry is pinned to the top of the list; it groups by where the clash point sits in the building rather than by an element property.
Property — pick the property within that category. You can type to filter the list or enter a custom property name. When Clash location is selected as the category, the property choices become Level, Grid, and Grid + Level.
Side — for element-property rules, choose which of the two clashing elements supplies the value: A (default), B, Pair (both values combined), or Either.
Bucketing — Exact (default) groups by the exact property value. Bands groups numeric values into ranges; click Bands… to define them.

Numeric bands

The Numeric bands editor lets you turn a numeric property (an elevation, a dimension, an offset) into labeled ranges:

Set the Band count: (default 5) and click Auto-seed from data to generate evenly spread bands from the actual values found in your clashes.
Fine-tune each band's Min (≥), Max (<), and Label in the grid, or use Remove selected to delete a band.
An info line reports how many numeric values were found and their range. The first band is open at the bottom and the last is open at the top, so every value is always covered.

Presets — save and share your grouping recipes

The Preset: row at the top of the window stores complete grouping setups so you can reuse them:

Type a name in the box and click Save to store the current rules and naming options as a preset. If you don't type a name, an automatic one is suggested (for example, "Group by Level · System (Pair, Bands)").
The Save button's dropdown also offers Delete, Import, and Export.
Presets are saved on your machine. Use Export and Import to share a preset file with teammates so the whole team groups clashes the same way.

What happens next

The groups are created inside Navisworks Clash Detective — open Clash Detective to see them. From there you can:

Continue triaging in Navisworks at group level.
Publish the clash test to ClashWise, where the groups carry over to the web (see the Publish, Update & Sync Clash Sets section).
Use Enhance to give groups descriptive AI-generated titles (see the Enhance Clash Titles (AI Naming) section — choose an "Apply To" option that includes group titles).

Tips

Start with location. Grouping by Clash location → Level (or Grid + Level) is the most universally useful first rule — it works even when element properties are inconsistent between models.
Keep it to one or two rules. Every extra rule multiplies the number of groups. Two well-chosen rules usually give groups that are small enough to own and large enough to matter.
Preview before applying. The preview shows the real group names and sizes — if you see hundreds of tiny groups, raise Min size: or remove a rule.
Group before you publish. Published sets inherit your grouping, and grouped sets are far easier to review, assign, and view in 3D on the web.

FAQs

Does grouping change my clash results? No. It only organizes existing results into groups inside Clash Detective. Statuses, comments, and viewpoints are untouched.

Can I undo a grouping run? Yes. Use Navisworks undo, or re-run Group Clashes with Ungroup existing first ticked and different (or no) rules.

Can I group by distance or proximity? No. There is no proximity or clustering rule. For numeric properties, use Bands to group values into ranges.

Do groups sync with the web? Groups you create here are included when you publish or update a clash set. Separately, groups created on the web can be brought back into the model during an update or sync — see the Publish, Update & Sync Clash Sets section for how the two directions interact.

Where are my presets stored? On your own machine. They are not stored in the model file or in the cloud. Use Export / Import to move them between machines or colleagues.

Troubleshooting

"Select at least one clash test." — tick at least one test in the Clash tests pane before applying.
"Add at least one complete rule (a category and a property)." — every rule needs both a category and a property selected.
"No active document." — open a Navisworks file that contains clash tests with results.
The Group Clashes button is missing from the ribbon — you have the Starter edition of the plugin installed. Download and install the Full Suite edition from https://clashwise.ai.
A subscription message appears when you click the button — sign in, or check that your account has a Starter (or higher) subscription. If you were offline for an extended period, reconnect to the internet once so your subscription can be re-verified.

Limitations

Grouping applies inside Navisworks only at the moment you run it; it does not run automatically as new clashes appear.
Buckets smaller than Min size: stay ungrouped (default minimum is 2 clashes).
There is no distance-based or geometric clustering — grouping is driven by property values and clash locations.