Publishing Drawings

[Anonymous]

Could I ask again how you guys manage the process of publishing and issuing drawings? This is a question I posed in a previous post as a side issue to the main topic, so nobody answered this specifically.

What I'm curious to know is which of the following methods to most practices use when issuing a set of drawings to a consultant, contractor or client?

a) Publish from the model every time and send the outgoing files to a unique folder recording the party to whom the drawings were issued, or

b) Retrieve the set of drawings from a folder in which the current set is stored, or

c) Some other method?

[Erika Epstein]

Depends which set of drawing you want to send to the consultant: a specific already published set, or one that reflects the current state of the drawings.

I find it easier to publish to a spool folder on my desktop and then move the folder of the published set with the date added to the name into the appropriate folder : 'HVAC to'> HVAC background 090929.
Just one method.

Conversely some like to publish right to the folder the set will reside in for eternity. Too often end up sending a published set to the wrong folder.

[vfrontiers]

My methodology is to have PUBLISHER point only to the PROJECT MAIN FOLDER. The Hierarchy is built into publisher...

So... publisher points to 0803_JoesResidence

Inside Publisher
0803_Consultant
-0803_StructuralOUT
--0803_StructBASES-20090929


The last folder in this structure gets it's name constantly changed as new revisions are issued to consultants... The previous folder will remain on you hard drive and the new folder will be CREATED as publisher goes to work.

[Erika Epstein]

Thanks Duane, I'll try that.

[Laszlo Nagy]

We, too, publish each set sent to whoever in a separate folder.
We of course also have sets at important points in the project such as building permit docs etc.
Also we preserve any such files sent or published.
Just last week I had to find what data we sent to a consultant 2 years ago about a project that is being built right now because someone messed up something and finger pointing is going on.