Sharing between two offices

[truevis]

If the two offices are not actually working on the same model at the same time, cant you just do this:

Work from the central file on your local server in the USA.
At the end of the working day, copy this file to the Philippines
At the beginning of the Philippines day, make the copied file into a new central file and work from it locally.
At the end of the Philippines working day, copy this file back to the USA.
At the beginning of the USA day, make the copied file into a new central file and work from it locally.
Back to the beginning.

Might work if the files and two servers had exactly the same network name & path. That might fool Revit into thinking all was the same. Some sort of script that would lock the Centrals for certain times of the day might be needed, too. Otherwise, chaos...(?)

[dbaldacchino]

cwade, unfortunately I think you have to fundamentally change something that is essential to make things work in life, and that is attitude.

You're seeing things through a negative lens, and regardless of any solutions that members might offer you, nothing is going to be satisfactory. Other disciplines have pains too, perhaps not as great as MEP, but you need to understand that 2d printed drawings are not the future. We don't know how long they'll be "the norm" and I don't dare to speculate. Besides, they are the norm in most cases today, and that's what we have to address. Most of what you mentioned that was a problem in RMEP is about "pretty". As much as I love "pretty", that's not all that we do. Good drawings translate to better communication, but pretty & wrong drawings are no more than lipstick on a pig. Obviously if you're good and disciplined at coordinating manually, then perhaps using Revit won't give you much of a benefit. And yes, Revit is a design tool. I fail to see how that equals increased liability in your eyes.

However if you're forced to use Revit, you need to change your attitude and be more proactive and positive. I went through this with the project manager on my first couple of Revit jobs and it wasn't easy. We were heading to "crash and burn alley" until he left and we got someone else with a different attitude. And guess what? We succeded because the mood was different. So I think the most important thing to solve is this. Next, you can address the technical and technology issues.

I wish you all the luck.

[gary.mcleod]

Dave is right, I'm afraid. There are tremendous headaches associated with these new technolgies that may well take a few years to shake out. But we as professionals have choices. We take the bull, and not the bull---- by the horns and make it work. Or we can wait while others do. This is the time to all step back and truly look at what it is we do. As Dave says, we are about communication. And if anyone takes the time to look around they will see communication takes on many, many forms. All of which can be clear...or confusing depending on the communicator. A true communicator can practice their art in any form understand the message is more important than the medium. I've seen plenty of really, really, poorly communicated drawings from hand drafted to ACAD. To say that acad is the benchmark that all other communication is measured is ridiculous, shortsighted, and well, just stupid.

I've seen first hand two very different approaches to this challenge, including RMEPs limitations (pretty gutsy to say it's awful or 10 years out!). the one approach was similar to cwades (or in all fairness, the principal or company). they pit their whole case on not "looking a certain way". Stops them dead in their tracks. the other approach: it doesn't look like we expected but, hmmm, can we communicate it another way? and geesh, lo and behold, REVIT ALREADY PROVIDED THEM ANOTHER WAY to clearly communicate some information. Guess which company I work for now?

Final thought: aside from Revit or any other BIM authoring application, the purported benefits to BIM lie far outside our little corner of the industry. The construction community "gets it" and maybe even before the owners, will be pushing more for an integrated BIM process whether or not it's actually required. Their sub contractors are as well. And where those that maybe share the attitude expressed above should worry is that sub-contractors, particularly sheet metal, plumbing, fire protection, facing a dearth of design models being delivered to them are beginning to not only build them themselves, but also provide the professional design services as well.

No doubt a lot that adds up to a huge challenge, especially when we have to consider the economic conditions that have profoundly affected many of our colleagues. But the real challenge is not in the technology being up to the task. It is or will be beyond reproach. The real challenge is ourselves being up to the task. Frankly, I'm not always convinced we are.

[Beancud]

Dave is right, I'm afraid. There are tremendous headaches associated with these new technolgies that may well take a few years to shake out. But we as professionals have choices. We take the bull, and not the bull---- by the horns and make it work. Or we can wait while others do. This is the time to all step back and truly look at what it is we do. As Dave says, we are about communication. And if anyone takes the time to look around they will see communication takes on many, many forms. All of which can be clear...or confusing depending on the communicator. A true communicator can practice their art in any form understand the message is more important than the medium. I've seen plenty of really, really, poorly communicated drawings from hand drafted to ACAD. To say that acad is the benchmark that all other communication is measured is ridiculous, shortsighted, and well, just stupid.

I've seen first hand two very different approaches to this challenge, including RMEPs limitations (pretty gutsy to say it's awful or 10 years out!). the one approach was similar to cwades (or in all fairness, the principal or company). they pit their whole case on not "looking a certain way". Stops them dead in their tracks. the other approach: it doesn't look like we expected but, hmmm, can we communicate it another way? and geesh, lo and behold, REVIT ALREADY PROVIDED THEM ANOTHER WAY to clearly communicate some information. Guess which company I work for now?

Final thought: aside from Revit or any other BIM authoring application, the purported benefits to BIM lie far outside our little corner of the industry. The construction community "gets it" and maybe even before the owners, will be pushing more for an integrated BIM process whether or not it's actually required. Their sub contractors are as well. And where those that maybe share the attitude expressed above should worry is that sub-contractors, particularly sheet metal, plumbing, fire protection, facing a dearth of design models being delivered to them are beginning to not only build them themselves, but also provide the professional design services as well.

No doubt a lot that adds up to a huge challenge, especially when we have to consider the economic conditions that have profoundly affected many of our colleagues. But the real challenge is not in the technology being up to the task. It is or will be beyond reproach. The real challenge is ourselves being up to the task. Frankly, I'm not always convinced we are.

Well said Gary!

I think you know when you are up to the task when you can produce drawings of the same quality in just about all CAD package. Majority of the people I met who refuse to change can only use AutoCAD, nothing else. They tend to make 1000 excuses and critisism without giving it a fair go.

[Craig_L]

Well said Gary!

I think you know when you are up to the task when you can produce drawings of the same quality in just about all CAD package. Majority of the people I met who refuse to change can only use AutoCAD, nothing else. They tend to make 1000 excuses and critisism without giving it a fair go.

Well I don't think that's fair to say about the original post. He's obviously given it a fair chance, and has thought about all the things he can't seem to fix. I think what he's lacking is support, and I have been lucky enough to have someone in another office that has been able to remote in and give me assistance over the phone. If I didn't have this I would have probably just gone back to CAD to get the job done on time. I think many people, in the early stages have had to half do things in CAD and Revit to meet their deadline, and this simply comes back to training and knowledge of the software. This will just take some time, as someone else stated it's like learning another language - you start off sounding stupid but after time you can have a conversation and eventually you become fluent. One thing is for sure is that if you pack it in now, you wont progress any further. I hope you can find some encouragement in the fact that other MEP companies are producing drawings and are happy with the quality. It's just a matter of discovering what works for you, and get some support, you need a trainer that is going to answer that huge list of problems you can't solve, and they SHOULD be out there. I think expecting it work itself out in the first 1 or 2 projects is unrealistic, you need a process to refine your list down as you cross those easier ones off the list.

[Andrew Dobson]

Might work if the files and two servers had exactly the same network name & path. That might fool Revit into thinking all was the same. Some sort of script that would lock the Centrals for certain times of the day might be needed, too. Otherwise, chaos...(?)

Dont just copy the central file, copy it to the other location when leaving for the night, the next morning, inthe other locationbs open it with "detach from central" ticked and then save this as a new central file each time.
Then do the reverse that night

This works fine.

It it is when two offices work on the same central file at the same time when you have problems. I here that Riverbed is the way around this.

[cwade.109269]

Ok, first off, I still maintain that Revit is not currently usable for the MEP field (at least not without using a lot of workarounds) and there certainly is no way that everything can be done in Revit MEP (although some of our contracts are starting to say we have to, so I am not quite sure what to do there).

I still maintain that overlapping lines look ugly, which is what ductwork does when hidden lines are enabled for an example, but that's not the point of this thread.

The point is sharing work between two offices, please note the following requirements:

- Both offices must be able to work on the drawings at the same time, now not always, but there are times.

- The Philippines office needs to be using their machines, so that they are using their licenses and not ours.

- The speed must be reasonable enough to allow work to be done.


Since this thread was originally started, we have setup a VPN, but we are finding it to be a bit slow.

Our internet connection is 3.0 Mbps down and , so I know there is only so much we can do.

In our Philippines office they are supposed to be running at about 6.0 Mbps down and 3.5 Mbps up. We are testing these speeds right now to confirm that is indeed what they are running at, go figure, they can get faster upload speeds there than we can here.

Now what I am wondering is if there are any tools, that are not super expensive (I understand that Riverbed is in the thousands of dollars and this is simply not an option), that can help us work with these speeds?

Please note that the VPN is setup using an old server here, using Windows 2003 Server if that is any help at all. All that computer does is setup VPN access.

[dbaldacchino]

You really have 3 options.

1. Figure out how to structure your work so that each location works on unique parts of the project. So for example split the building into 2 (use worksets or separate each into a unique project file and link them together. Pick which one will house the sheets and become the main model): one office works on A and the other on B. You can also have one office working on details and the other on design and modeling perhaps. Or split by discipline: one does mechanical and the other does plumbing and electrical for example.
2. Use Remote Desktop to operate a PC in one office from the other location. This will be faster, safer and more reliable than using VPN to save to central, borrow elements/worksets etc. over WAN.
3. Get a WAN acceleration device. Expensive? Absolutely. The best solution? Probably so.

Just keep in mind that in CAD, you couldn't work on the same file, so you had to split the work one way or another. Although it might be harder in Revit, the use of those techniques might still help you divide work between offices and get it done successfully.