Do you use TeamWork?

[Anonymous]

I'm curious to know how many of us use TeamWork and in what manner.

This would be an interesting piece of trivia and it might also be helpful to the GS development team. Let us know if you do or don't and why.

Thanks,

[__archiben]

85 - 90% of our projects are BIG and teamworked to some degree or other.

the job we have currently on site (3-6 people at time) could not have been done without teamwork. (although occasionally i felt that teamwork was working against us ).

~/archiben

[Anonymous]

I'm not sure what percentage of our projects are 'BIG' however after initial design stages ALL of our projects our teamworked.

Our typical project files size is 100Mb+ ...

Although not *all* projects are always worked on by more than one person at a time this setup ensures flexibility and consistency. It also simplifies the backup process (in all ways).

In fact - apart from network speed - is there any reason _not_ to teamwork??

- Stuart

PS. GS probably sells a lot of 'single' licences which might bias the results?

[Anonymous]

I and most of the firms I work with use teamwork to some extent. You may recall that I started the threads about using teamwork as a standard practice and the wish for the unified file format. (Most of what I have to say on this topic is already there, along with the valuable contributions of many others.)

Teamwork is essential for any project on which more than two people are working; for two it is often useful and sometimes essential; and even for a solo operator it can be useful.

My biggest complaint about teamwork is that it is a different process than working in a solo project and so requires additional training, support and troubleshooting. Secondary complaints are the confusion people have about saving and maintaining drafts, network performance (though this is considerably improved of late), and trying to remember what can be altered as team leader and what requires exclusive access. All these problems could be solved (and probably numerous other improvements made) by merging the solo and teamwork project types into a single file format and open/sign-in interface.

[Erika Epstein]

Matthew wrote:

Teamwork is essential for any project on which more than two people are working.... and even for a solo operator it can be useful.

Matthew,
You have often said that you recommend teamwork for solo practitioners, but I still don't understand WHY?

I don't use it in my own practice as I am a solo practitioner and my cat has so far refused to learn archicad, nevermind teamwork.

I do, however, use it on occasion when I work with other offices and find its interface as you mentioned, quite different, and also awkward and time consuming; non-intuitive. Although, once you get the hang of it... you get used to its quirks.

I go into other offices quite a bit and often hear when there is more than one person that they change projects to and from teamwork, taking it back to a pln whenever they can for ease of use. They too are finding the interface too time-consuming and awkward to be bothered when they don't have to.

I do hope Teamwork continues to evolve as theoretically teamwork is quite wonderful and essential.

[SeaGeoff]

Where I work, at EDGE LLC in Seattle, we teamwork projects as soon as a second designer joins a project. But I have been reluctant to recommend TW as standard practise for solo projects or when only view or mark-up power is needed by the added users. The return is often not worth the hassle. I do feel strongly that TW should be standard practise and agree completely with Matthew's call for a single file format and standardized workflow.

This is so important for ArchiCAD going forward that I've been somewhat disappointed that we haven't heard anything from Graphisoft indicating their commitment to improving TW. From a user's perspective I would like to see the ArchiCAD team improve TeamWork as part of a comprehensive re-engineering of the ArchiCAD file structure. The challenge of ever larger and more widely distributed design teams, which must now include consultants and clients, demands an integrated approach to portability (library management), assembling large projects from nested sub-projects (hot-linking), real-time publishing (querry the model via light weight viewer, IFC, etc.), real-time subscribing (live links to diverse file types like PDF), and multi-user access (TeamWork).

I hope the developers see TeamWork as I do, not only an essential feature of a single file/muti user database, but also as a cornerstone in the construction of a modern collaborative building modeling system.

[Anonymous]

Erika wrote:
Matthew,
You have often said that you recommend teamwork for solo practitioners, but I still don't understand WHY?

I don't recall recommending teamwork on a solo project, only pointing out that it can be useful at times.

I do, however, use it on occasion when I work with other offices and find its interface as you mentioned, quite different, and also awkward and time consuming; non-intuitive. Although, once you get the hang of it... you get used to its quirks.

This is the main problem that I have with teamwork; the workflow is different from (and clumsier) than working solo.

I go into other offices quite a bit and often hear when there is more than one person that they change projects to and from teamwork, taking it back to a pln whenever they can for ease of use. They too are finding the interface too time-consuming and awkward to be bothered when they don't have to.

I have often done this myself (switching back and forth). IMHO this one of the great saving graces of teamwork and ArchiCAD; that it is so easy to do this. In fact just today (yes Sunday ) I am working on a PLN which I have saved from a PLP to clean things up before it is shared again tomorrow to crunch out 66 sheet set by the end of the week (phew).

I do hope Teamwork continues to evolve as theoretically teamwork is quite wonderful and essential.

Here, here! There is much room for improvement in this very important area, but let's not forget that it is still pretty darn good and perhaps the best thing available so far (I haven't had the chance to look at Revit lately). It sure as heck beats tracing over xRefs and such.

[Erika Epstein]

Matthew wrote:

I don't recall recommending teamwork on a solo project, only pointing out that it can be useful at times.

Semantics.
What I am trying to ask is when have you found working on a solo project that will never be shared with others the occasion to switch to teamwork?

[Anonymous]

Erika wrote:

Matthew wrote:

I don't recall recommending teamwork on a solo project, only pointing out that it can be useful at times.

Semantics.
What I am trying to ask is when have you found working on a solo project that will never be shared with others the occasion to switch to teamwork?

When I am using two copies of ArchiCAD on two computers on the same project at the same time; such as when I am running 3D visualizations or updating sections on one while I am noting and dimensioning on the other.

[Erika Epstein]

AHA!
I see self-cloning inyour future