Best procedure for revisions?

[Anonymous]

I am in the process of updating our drawing procedures. Currently its a free for all when it comes to revisions. Some people in our office save mulitle copies of the pln for each revision. Some overwrite the file without saving the previous drawing.

The way I see it, you have one drawing file (.pln), but before making any changes to the drawing, save the layout as a PDF in the project folder. Then make changes and overwrite the (.pln) file with a save. Obviously making your revisions clear on your layout notes!

This way you have a record of previous revisions without lots of large files floating around the server.

Am I right or am I way off? Your thoughts please before I get things set in stone! Lol

[TomWaltz]

r wrote:
I am in the process of updating our drawing procedures. Currently its a free for all when it comes to revisions. Some people in our office save mulitle copies of the pln for each revision. Some overwrite the file without saving the previous drawing.

The way I see it, you have one drawing file (.pln), but before making any changes to the drawing, save the layout as a PDF in the project folder. Then make changes and overwrite the (.pln) file with a save. Obviously making your revisions clear on your layout notes!

This way you have a record of previous revisions without lots of large files floating around the server.

Am I right or am I way off? Your thoughts please before I get things set in stone! Lol

The approach I like best is
1) before revisions, make a PLA of your project as it is
2) Make the revisions to the original PLN as revisions occur
3) Make PDFs of each sheet that is revised with an identifiying suffix, like A201-R2.pdf

[Anonymous]

Cheers Tom

[Haneef Tayob]

I have a revisions subfolder to which I make a copy of the plan file with a date suffix added.
eg. Cottage.pln is the current file. Cottage 28Jun06.pln, Cottage 15Jul06 are the old files.

I make sure the old files are kept in a separate folder to prevent them being opened up and worked on by mistake.

[Anonymous]

In my opinion you're right on, Richard. The issued drawing is usually what's important. Therefore the pdf retains the "issue". The model can evolve as needed. Of course if you anticipate the need for the earlier iterations you can obviously save them as AC files.

[Anonymous]

I've also been trying to sort out our office revisions, and have made a system that kind of mirrors our paper one. It's still a work in progress though.

In our job folders, we have a sub folder called PDF (this folder will probably change in name to something like Revisions).

Within that are folders called 'Issued' and 'Received'. Inside 'Issued' there are folders for 'Full Set', 'Planning', and 'Tender'.

When a new revision is issued, it is sent to the 'Full Set' folder (again, maybe not the best folder name, still working on it), and I've set publisher up so that it creates the appropriate folder and puts the drawing in it.

E.g - If drawing V1/100 from the 'As Proposed' folder is issued, publisher puts V1-100.pdf into PDF/Full Set/As Proposed (if the 'As Proposed' folder is already there, a new folder isn't created).

The issuer then has to go into the PDF folder, find the appropriate file and add the revision letter to the end of it. (V1-100.pdf becomes V1-100 A.pdf) This way when ever publisher creates a new file, it shouldn't overwrite an older revision. Unless the issuer forgets to up date the revision number, in which case they get hit with a large stick.

When ever we get to a key stage, planning, tender etc... the appropriate drawings are copied from the Full Set folder, and put into the Planning or Tender folders.

Usually there is just one .pln for the job, but if there are major changes, then we archive before doing these changes.

But as I said, still in progress, and keen to see what other people do.

[Anonymous]

We're doing something similar except we publish to a folder called [project#]\Issued Drawings\Current Set

Publisher is setup to publish PDFs into the "Current Set" folder always. When something is issued (distributed to someone else for a specific purpose) the contents of the issue are copied into a subfolder named after the issue, as in: [project#]\Issued Drawings\Bid & Permit

This keeps the Current Set folder always updated and anyone can know that this is, in fact the current set. Subsequent publishing always goes there, usually on a daily basis for check sets, etc.

[Haneef Tayob]

Haneef wrote:
I have a revisions subfolder to which I make a copy of the plan file with a date suffix added.
eg. Cottage.pln is the current file. Cottage 28Jun06.pln, Cottage 15Jul06 are the old files.

I note that many prefer to keep revisions as pdf files. This is probably best, especially for critical changes and stages of the development.

I however think that with AC10 and its integrated layouts, pdf's records are no longer the easiest way of keeping revisons. Keeping a backup of the PLN or PLA files will suffice should you have to call up an old drawing. This is possibly more convenient as you're only dealing with 1 file rather than a whole lot of pdf's.

[Anonymous]

Haneef wrote:
possibly more convenient as you're only dealing with 1 file rather than a whole lot of pdf's.

One must first decide what is needed to keep and why. In our case, we treat PDF as equal to paper. All of our documents are published to PDF prior to printing or otherwise distributing. The PDF file format is smaller, more flexible, and more understood by the masses. I would guess that the PDF file format would be around for many years to come and not be superseded by advances in CAD file formats - as in things not being forward compatible in their entirety.

When it is useful to keep the model, then so be it, but I would not necessarily recommend using ArchiCAD as a means of retaining records of "real" documents, only as a means of keeping the previous iteration of the building model itself.

[Chris Phillips]

Revision control is a nightmare for any system and the workrounds generally described really reflect the lack of a system at the application level. In the dim and distant past, working on C coding I seem to remember automated version control, much more advanced in concept than a simple undo list. The problem with linkages in to layout books, the horrible occasional needing to rebuild drawings within layouts and related bugs and undocumented software features makes such an undertaking a priority for a practice over the size of one man and a dog.