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    Default Learning to Share. Like Kindergarten All Over Again

    I'm working on a fairly large project in Revit: an apartment building that I've linked unit type "blocks" into and workshared for the team to work on. We have maybe 5-6 people working on it at any given time and we are having significant slowdowns related to SWC.

    Some working on the project seem to have little problems while others are being forced to SWC every fifteen minutes or so often requiring several other people to SWC in a sequence to free up the elements that have been requested.

    A few days ago we were having even more significant problems where this was even more pronounced and we had the Revit files locking on us where user A would not be able to SWC until user B had, but user B could not SWC until user A had. To solve this I would save locally and close the file while Relinquishing All Elements. This tactic would unlock the file for us.

    The problem has gotten better. I had a drafting view called Loading Screen set as the Starting View and I suspected that each user was being forced to gain access to this view each time they wanted to SWC. I have turned this off and set it to Last Viewed and this seems to have made things better. (Was my suspicion here correct?)

    However, we continue to have significant slowdowns based on one user who seems to retain ownership of maybe twenty sheets that other users have to gain access to to SWC. See attached picture. The oddity is that this user has not opened, viewed, or edited any of these sheets recently and he often SWC and Relinquishes All.
    Ghost Editing Requests.png

    What can cause this, and how can I keep it from happening?

    We are currently switching to Revit and some AutoCAD zealots in the office are having some fun taking potshots at Revit because of this issue.

    Cheers,
    Kory

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    Default Re: Learning to Share. Like Kindergarten All Over Again

    Can you clarify what you mean by, "...I've linked unit type "blocks" into and workshared for the team to work on..."?

    Are users checking out worksets or just using element borrowing?

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    Default Re: Learning to Share. Like Kindergarten All Over Again

    Certainly, we have four unit types in the building. Each unit type consists of party walls, exterior walls, corridor walls, and floors (interiors are being handled in an additional set of files that have these unit shell files linked into them). These units types are separate files that are then linked into the overall model rather than trying to use groups to accomplish the same. In this way I am able to unload all of the units in the building, by unit type, to improve performance while working on common areas. We also have been setting up options within each unit file for exterior elevation changes that are mapped to a view template in the overall building to keep the number of units to a minimum.

    We only have one workset and everything is being handled via borrowing.

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    Default Re: Learning to Share. Like Kindergarten All Over Again

    Your last statement is the crux of the problem: "We only have one workset and everything is being handled via borrowing." Separating the model into worksets minimizes file locks and borrowing requests. Either break up the model by floors or regions, or by sub-disciplines; this assumes that the 5-6 concurrent users are working on separate floors or separate disciplines. hth.

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    Default Re: Learning to Share. Like Kindergarten All Over Again

    Does it minimize problems just by having the myriad worksets, or would I have to check worksets out to individual users to gain the advantages that you're talking about?

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    Default Re: Learning to Share. Like Kindergarten All Over Again

    Yes, you need more worksets....

    We have a couple for architectural, one for structural, one for interiors, and instead of unloading a linked file you might want to put each unit on a workset too so you can make them inactive instead of unloading them..

    You can have multiple users using the same workset, but probably no more than 2 or 3...

    Also, you should task out people to specific areas...that pic you posted has someone all over the place..and probably should be working in a view and not from a sheet.
    Last edited by cdatechguy; 2012-11-16 at 10:57 PM. Reason: text jumped
    Michael "MP" Patrick
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    Default Re: Learning to Share. Like Kindergarten All Over Again

    My office has been experiencing the same dilemma described by Titan. We have two large projects with 10+ active users each that get jammed up with ownership of sheets when synchronizing. I have been trying to narrow down the root cause and have several ideas, but no confirmed cause. Several thoughts are below.

    Sheet Related:
    1. Keynote Schedules
    Cause: Editing a keynote that is already tagged on multiple sheets. A user updates the keynote within the keynote file, then reloads the keynote file. Since this keynote now wants to update on each sheet it occurs, other users are locked out.

    2. Legend Views
    Cause: A legend that is placed on multiple sheets is updated and the user does not STC. All sheets that have this legend become owned by the legend editor.

    View Related
    1. Items used by Multiple Views: View Templates
    Cause: One user updates a view template, other users are working on views with the view template.

    2. Dependent Views
    Cause: One user changes view settings on a view that affects all other dependent views. This user does not STC.

    The list above are simply speculations on my part, I have not had an opportunity to vet each one. This problem is significant for our team is the sheet related ownership issues, we have been unable to prevent this from reoccurring. Our team has had down times that have lasted over an hour where people are unable to work because we are trying to free ourselves from the ownership deadlock. I had not experienced this issue before Revit 2013.

    Steve, your description of ownership is helpful and I am going to send it out to my team. The explanation of passing along ownership when granting an editing request was something I was unaware of. It explains why we have had users own elements while not being actively in their local. I would not recommend having an entire team use Workshare Monitor. We tried this and with 8 users we managed to clog so severely it affected all network traffic. The issue being that the Workshare monitor constantly pings for updates. Our Network administrators are reconfiguring part of the network specifically because of this issue.

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    Default Re: Learning to Share. Like Kindergarten All Over Again

    Quote Originally Posted by Skellerman View Post
    ...I would not recommend having an entire team use Workshare Monitor. We tried this and with 8 users we managed to clog so severely it affected all network traffic. The issue being that the Workshare monitor constantly pings for updates...
    It is my understanding that Worksharing Monitor does not actively interact with the project file directly, rather it reviews data that Revit already updates in its "Project"_Backup and Revit_Temp folders. I've used WM with much larger teams. If you are experiencing issues it may be the Worksharing Display Update Frequency settings found in Options. That or people piling on with concurrent SwC. A couple people doing it at the same time isn't a big deal usually...but 10 at the same time. I imagine ten people asking me for directions to different places at the same time.

    As for the other sharing issues. It is important to recognize when editing things will impact many elements and others. For example editing and reloading a titleblock affects everyone and many sheets. As you noted editing things that are on more than one sheet or editing a door schedule of all doors...same for room schedules. If ten people try to alter rooms while one person is trying to go through and renumber them...they are bound for some head butting. I always try to make choices about when some changes get applied. Take revising the titleblock for example. I'd prefer to do that at night so that everyone makes a new local in the morning and just inherits the change instead of making every user wait for all "their" titleblocks (their copies in their local file) to update during a Reload Latest.

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    Default Re: Learning to Share. Like Kindergarten All Over Again

    I directed my project team to stop using editing requests this week and we have eliminated the ownership/borrowing loop that Titan described in his initial posting. The fact that an editing request transfers ownership versus relinquishing to no specific user seems to be the heart of the issue. To complicate things further, Revit wants to transfer ownership in the order in which the editing requests were received. So if multiple people issue an editing request to the same user, those people must sync in the same order to stop the loop.

    Steve, your description of worksharing monitor makes sense. We do not have any issues with working in the central file while using Workshare Monitor. It is our network itself that slows down (longer sync times, emails delayed, accessing other network files delayed) because of the frequency in which the workshare monitor accesses the files it "pings" to (maybe the wrong choice in words). I am struggling to clearly understand the relationship between the Worksharing Display Update Frequency and the Workshare Monitor. Does the Worksharing Display Update Frequency control the update frequency of the Workshare Monitor as well as worksharing display updates?

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    Default Re: Learning to Share. Like Kindergarten All Over Again

    Quote Originally Posted by Skellerman
    ...Does the Worksharing Display Update Frequency control the update frequency of the Workshare Monitor as well as worksharing display updates?...
    I don't think so. It is for the Working Sharing Display option available in each view, on the View Control Shortcut Bar. If it is also affecting how often the data is made available to Worksharing Monitor I don't think that Autodesk has said so explicitly.

    The fact that email is affected suggests to me that your server is being asked to do too much. Is it really serving project files as well as hosting your email distribution? If so I recommend that you use a separate server for project data. Data intensive applications like email and VOIP compete unfavorable with Revit and deserve their own servers to maximize performance for each of them.

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