Using Teamwork as a standard practice.

[Anonymous]

We have decided to begin using teamwork as a standard practice on ALL projects. This decision has been based on the tremendous performance improvements I have seen in AC 8.1. There are now no significant delays in signing in, changing workspace, sending and receiving, etc. compared to opening and saving a solo project. The only added overhead is (obviously) the requirement to define the workspace.

The advantages we see are greater security against data loss (multiple backups & local drafts) and more administrative control of standards (having to sign in with with exclusive access to change attributes.

I am posting this both to provoke feedback and discussion as well as to promote the idea to others and respond to any questions people might have.

Any takers?

[Anonymous]

Matthew wrote:
The main problem I have found with teamwork is that people are unfamiliar with the details of the workflow when it is only used occasionally. The biggest issue is that people forget to sign out since there is no reminder about this when you quit/shut down. Until GS fixes this it can only be managed by developing good habits, and these can (of course) only be developed with regular use.

I agree. There's still some confusion that goes on. But eventually everyone will get it. Just like you said Matthew....through regular use and practice.

Hopefully GS will take teamwork to a whole new level in future AC versions to come. Simplify the process. (teamwork has great potential).

[Da3dalus]

TomWaltz wrote:
How are you handling creating new projects? Just sharing the project as soon as you do a "New from Template"?

We're just getting back into Teamwork (we went a couple of years with small projects that didn't require it). I would still recommend waiting until the CD phase to start sharing a project. You need it most at that time, and it's more clear where to divide tasks ("I'll take all the plans, you take all the layouts, and you take all the sections/details"). When you're "conceptualizing", the model is best placed in one designer's hands.

I've also seen some make the mistake of sharing just to create renderings. If you're doing schematic renderings or animations, just open on different computers as "read only", and let them crunch. You can then save all of the movies and renderings to the same server, without the pains of Teamwork.

[Anonymous]

Da3dalus wrote:
I've also seen some make the mistake of sharing just to create renderings. If you're doing schematic renderings or animations, just open on different computers as "read only", and let them crunch. You can then save all of the movies and renderings to the same server, without the pains of Teamwork.

Good point. It never occurred to me to use Teamwork for rendering but if people are doing it they should stop and do as you suggest.

[Anonymous]

Matthew wrote:
It looks like time to breathe some life back into this topic.

At one of my clients we are implementing Teamwork as standard practice. I will be sure to post our experiences as we go along.

While we made this decision using AC9, it becomes even more important (and useful) in 10 with the PM integration.

BTW, Djordje; It seems to me that this topic might be more appropriate to "Working in ArchiCAD" or the "CAD Managers" forum.

how did the process go?

i ask because we just completed (mostly) our first archicad project...which we tried to use teamwork with (probably bit on more than we could chew).

we're now taking a step back to work on further developing templates etc. an issue i have is that i believe teamwork to be useful, but some of the consultants we're in touch with tell us to use hotlinked files...i just feel like thats such a waste of the software.

a question: do you use seperate templates for teamworked files vs. stand alone files?

thanks!!

[TomWaltz]

Alice wrote:
i ask because we just completed (mostly) our first archicad project...which we tried to use teamwork with (probably bit on more than we could chew).

we're now taking a step back to work on further developing templates etc. an issue i have is that i believe teamwork to be useful, but some of the consultants we're in touch with tell us to use hotlinked files...i just feel like thats such a waste of the software.

a question: do you use seperate templates for teamworked files vs. stand alone files?

All files in Archicad start out as solo projects and theoretically you can share a project and later unshare it whenever you want. There's no reason to have separate templates for teamwork vs. solo.

Teamwork can be a little tricky, but it's critical to being productive. I've met people who don't use it and prefer hotlinked modules. Using hotlinks to share projects creates more problems than is solves, such as problems with attribute management, potential coordination issues, and losing the ability to use hotlinks how they were intended.

I hope the consultants who recommended that to you did not claim to know Archicad well, because they don't (or at least that part of it, anyway, but if they can't handle Teamwork it would make me wonder what else they don't know).

[Anonymous]

Not to sound iconoclastic or anything (well - actually I guess I DO mean to sound iconoclastic!) but Teamwork is bureaucracy by design. It was ill conceived out of the gate. If you want to get mired down in constrictive practice and have all sorts of data management problems - yeah - it's the way to go. There are many other ways of achieving a superior result (better speed, data safety, clarity of role, etc...) without using teamwork.

See my post on this thread for an example:
http://archicad-talk.graphisoft.com/viewtopic.php?t=22082

Personally - i'm not terribly keen on hotlinks either for the same reasons. I suppose my objection to both Teamwork and Hotlinks is that it uses something I'll call a graphisoft 4th generation technology. All the most elegant and quickest solutions address the core structure/kernel of the program and not it's add-ons.

ArchiCAD is somewhat conducive to 'out of the box' thinking - but is getting less so. If you're just a WEE bit creative with it - it's pretty amazing what you can do..! Just my 2 cents.

[Anonymous]

We use teamwork on a project (a few now) and other than just taking a day or two to get used to it, no one really complained.

I think most got used to sending and receiving changes often to keep the file up to date and had no issues. Although we did have one person who laid out the basics and then opened it up to team work.

I say use it if you like, don't use it if you don't want to, but stick to one or the other, like everyone else is suggesting.