What's the best way to split this project up???

[rob2218]

Please help.
Need some teamwork guru advise.

see attached image.

[Eduardo Rolon]

Rob,

You post the most interesting questions .

I am not a teamwork guru but I think that the breakdown you did to explain the problem gives you the starting point for the delegation of tasks. You can do a search for how to link buildings with different floor levels since a lot of options have been discussed.

IMO opinion in addition to having a project for each building I would have one for the site and separate layout files for documentation.

To coordinate the New Building with the Remodel one I would create in either a volumetric zone(s) that will be saved as an object and placed or an extra simplified design model of the proposal. Doing a design change on the Proposed Building requires that this design team update the volumetric and overwrite the object. The only reason to not use the full model as an object is that it might slow down too much the Remodel project.

HTH.

[Anonymous]

Given the different story heights I think the best course of action would be to have the Phase I and Phase III (sitework) in one file that is teamworked. This could be moduled into the Phase II new addition file. Have a separate Phase II file for the addition work... Then module this back to the phase I/Phase II project. Be sure and select skip nested modules to keep from having duplicate objects. Both files would be teamworked to allow for multiple users.

[rob2218]

Thanks Eduardo,
I try...try to make things interesting I suppose.
it's just that we are faced here at the office with "real world" conditions and well, I need to make it happen.

I've been hired to "make it happen" and make sure it (Teamwork, BIM, etc...) works properly and since I've never claimed to know it all... I need lots of help.


On another note, for all you Teamwork folks, where in the local drive does a copy of the teamwork file reside?
I was asked that today by one of the users here and I didn't have an answer but told her I'd get back to here with it soon.

thanks.

[Anonymous]

In AC13 and AC14 in your local library under application support/graphisoft/TW Data. I don't think knowing this helps in using this data as it seems unreadable without the BIM server.

[rob2218]

Well perhaps I didn't post the question correctly.
Where either on my macs hd or on the server does a PLN copy
Reside in case the database teamwork file craps out?
I need to know where or how I can recreate the Teamwork
Information either via a local copy (local PLN) or a backup
Copy off the server?

[Anonymous]

If the teamwork file messes up you can save a solo copy from anyone that still has a working draft. (Can work offline). For added safety you could save a PLN file to your local or shared hard drive that you could re-teamwork. In my opinion Teamwork is safer as you have multiple backups in everyone's computer that is working on the shared project.

[Link]

There is no local pln. Simple as that.

TW1 was file based. TW2 is a database. AC13+ saves a database version of a local draft in the folder that is set in your work environment profile, under Special Folders, but it's useless to the end user. Only AC's database can make any sense of it.

The best ways to deal with corrupt local data (unfortunately I have has plenty of past experience in this, although not too much recently) are:

At the first sign of ~any~ trouble have the user save a pln to their desktop immediately. This covers you if they can't send & receive for any reason.

If youre having trouble sending & receiving, do a send, then do a receive. Often in these situations, sending the local information to the teamwork project is more important than receiving changes from it.

If all else fails you will need to 'Reload Project from Server'. And it is this last option that I have been forced to employ the most, which is why I tell our users to send & receive as often as they possibly can.

Also schedule regular backups in the BIM Server Manager. I have ours set to save every four hours (of use) and keep the last 10 copies. That's generally enough to take us back a whole week. Then I also manually export all projects every Monday to a separate location. And all of this is backed up to tape daily by the IT Manager.

There's plenty of other ways to backup by stopping the BIM Server and running scripts ( as per the wiki) but this is the smoothest workflow for us.

As for your original question, the reality is that there's no perfect solution (although the best has been discussed IMHO). Please keep in mind that hotlinking is fraught with shortcomings.

Laszlo points out a very important issue to have all attributes the same across all files. I go to great lengths to make sure this is consistent and we have no attribute holes anywhere. This is made harder by the fact that any new attribute cannot be transferred directly from one TW project to the next .aat files must be used. It's worth it though because files with identically numbered attribute IDs will behave well when merged, especially with library parts.

Hotlinked projects with SEOs between stories are problematic unless you hotlink all stories into one file then hotlink that whole file into the master file.

Publishing mod files is a viable option too ( in fact this is our mandated workflow), but just know they cannot be stored on the BIM Server and newly inserted stories in the moduled project can cause existing hotlink instances n the master project to break.

And the biggest issue of them all is merging hotlinking stories into a project with a different story structure. This has been discussed many times here but there's still not a foolproof solution.

Oh and if you decide to break your layouts into a separate file from your model, you run the risk of breaking all your marker references. We've successfully managed to keep all documentation inside one file so far, so haven't had to deal with that issue.

So you have your work cut out for you, especially with phasing, and you'll be able to get 'er done, but there's plenty of ways to skin the cat, just be aware of the pitfalls.

I hope that helped more than confused, keep us posted on how you proceed.

Cheers,
Link.

[rob2218]

wow..yeah, I do have my work cut out for me!....thanks all.

Hummm...now where to begin?....I guess, the beginning!

[rob2218]

Well...apparently from what I've been told by "both" Graphisoft
North America as well as some forum teamwork guru members is
That I can indeed hotlink a "teamwork" database. That
I can hotlink individual stories, entire building model...etc
Off a teamwork database file.
I'm looking for the process of how best to do this function.
I'm looking for a step by step on how to do this.