Any way to share besides TeamWork?

[Anonymous]

We have multiple draftsmen, architects, and interior designers working on a project; the project is to small for everyone to delineate their desired workspace. I'm doing as much work from saved SOLO projects as we can, but as you all know copying and pasting is time wrenching. I feel that everybody here is wasting a large portion of their day Signing, Sending, Changing and all that mess. There must be a more efficient way to handle project sharing...like a sort of update or something. Does anybody have any ideas?

[TomWaltz]

Rakela wrote:

Why not use Hotlinks? Everyone can do their part on the project and everything can be shown on a master file. At the end you just break the hotlinks and you have the whole project on one file...

Tom, can you explain please whats wrong with the above ?
and thx in advance

Perhaps you should explain how it would actually work.

[Rakela Raul]

i didnt mean to bother you in the 1st place, sorry if thecase !!

but your experience is formidable, and it would be really easy for you to explain why tmwk should be used and not hotlinking...sorry again

[TomWaltz]

Rakela wrote:
i didnt mean to bother you in the 1st place, sorry if thecase !!

but your experience is formidable, and it would be really easy for you to explain why tmwk should be used and not hotlinking...sorry again

Not at all. I was curious how hotlinks would actually work in that situation, since I don't see any way that they would successfully achieve what Teamwork can. I see a lot of potential short-comings, so many that I could not imagine even trying it. I thought maybe you had a way that worked.

A few that come to mind:

• Assembly - at some point, someone still has to place all the modules together in one place to make all the elevations and sections. Can only one person work on all of those?
• Coordination - if each person has a small part of the plan, how do you know what others are doing? If they change a window design or a trim profile, you will have a fun time getting it from one file to another.
• details - Where do the details go?
• file number - you end up with a huge number of files, increasing the amount of time spent opening & closing files
• reversability - sure, you can unlink the hotlinks at some point... but what happen
• View Set - where do the Views placed on sheets come from? The "master" PLN? Or from each individual part? If the individuals, you better never unlink them. If the main, it's just one more thing in that can only be done in an already crowded file
• Backups - one of my favorite things about teamwork is that it offers the option to keep backups from every send/receive. Combined with a nightly backup strategy, this gives you huge restoration capabilities

Now don't get me wrong. There are great uses for hotlinks and they can be used in conjunction with Teamwork on large projects very successfully. I just don't believe they are a replacement for Teamwork.

[Rakela Raul]

Tom,
thx for responding, my problem is that in my first experience with tmwork i lost a huge file (im sure my ignorance) and im scare to death now !! so, now i have a school project where i have the main pln file with a couple of hotlinks which are the real projects (additions) to the existing projects...but dont know the future bad consequences yet.....and i cannot even foresee it

[Anonymous]

EVAN wrote:

Wow, you're responding early...thanks. Anywway...this sounds great, but are you able to update more than just layer combinations in the PLC?

Actually you can do any of the functions assigned to a Team Leader except those that require exclusive access. Those would modify a portion of the work that is currently being shared; like changing a composite wall type, line type, adding stories etc.

[Anonymous]

we find hotlinks useful but we are not more than 5 people on the same project. So we just update hotlinks to see the differences that are being made once in a while. We use it in combination with the mark up tool and it works fine for us. We had some problems in the past with teamwork (don't personaly know what probs, I've never used it, but I think that AC was much slower or something)..it sounds like a very powerful tool but we are not currently using it..
Maybe it is worth looking at it again..

[Andy Thomson]

I am a huge fan of hotlinks over teamwork. I am not prepared to go into too much detail as to why but here are some key points:

1 - Managing design options via master layers - swicth on and off various major design options, as all layers are shared, but master can switch on/off the options - one team can work on one option - another on another option, etc.

2 - No sign-in/out lag. I still find this is significant. You people that don't ever require to change workspace because you have excellent templates, I can only envy you. I have been working on developing a solid template for years, and I still require to make very frequent changes to it on a single project

3 - Backup can be managed manually, with a bit of discipline, or automatically, with 3rd party crawler/ archive apps

4 - We typically cross-reference hotlinks, so the tower guys can see the podium and vice-versa (but they work in their own workspace) obviously - it is very important to keep attributes the same accross all files, from smallest unit up to the master file...

5 - Grid and core/structural objects/elements as a separate MODs, keeps this from getting messed up. (MOD, PLN, same diff IMO)

6 - Details get managed in an external file

7 - Teamwork files can get very heavy, hotlink building files can stay lighter

I find this approach in general works only when there is a very good management strategy, and the building form lends itself to this kind of team division (ie. Site/Grading/Parking/Substructure is one file, Podium another, Tower another still, mech pent, etc. All team components).

The team leader manages these in a master file that contains all layouts (or a separate layout file if need be, due to size issues) Details reference this master file, but all details are located in a separate PLN - or PLP - this is where teamwork makes some sense...where production staff can 'jam' in a common workspace, this is a kind of 2D and reference 'factory'

At any rate, aA did the new 4seasons hotel in Toronto this way (team of 15 at most??, and 55 or so stories) , and a few condo towers, and we found it much faster, more stable, reliable and familiar to most users.

[Rakela Raul]

thanks also andy....
i am done with MS exporting !!!

[Andy Thomson]

And?..... Did you have success with the MS export of the IFC data and return into AC10??

Others now want to know as well!!