Revit customization for small office

[StephenJ]

Installing and running revit is a new experience for me and wanted to see if anyone had similar office setup and would share the way they run their office.

I work for a small Architectural firm that has 3 users that both work from home and at the office. I would like for the users to have access to all the same library information and customization at the office but also when they are at home working. How have you or would you setup revit to achieve this? Do you keep the libraries local on the machines and update them periodically?

As I learn I will get a little more specific but for now a general concept would be great. Thanks.

[jimijherndon]

I was working in a small office where we had similar issues. Instead of setting up a complicated or expensive server, we just got free Dropbox accounts, you should check it out...
http://www.dropbox.com/
There are other similar services too, we also experimented with the beta of Microsoft Live Mesh, but decided dropbox was simpler. We just put our whole office library in a shared folder. Dropbox is also a great way to pass back and forth other files etc. Have fun!

[greg.mcdowell]

Putting the library on Dropbox is an interesting approach. How responsive is it? I imagine it's contingent on the speed of your network.

[twiceroadsfool]

Installing and running revit is a new experience for me and wanted to see if anyone had similar office setup and would share the way they run their office.

I work for a small Architectural firm that has 3 users that both work from home and at the office. I would like for the users to have access to all the same library information and customization at the office but also when they are at home working. How have you or would you setup revit to achieve this? Do you keep the libraries local on the machines and update them periodically?

As I learn I will get a little more specific but for now a general concept would be great. Thanks.

It depends on a whole lot of other questions you need to ask first:

1. Are they going to work on WORKSHARED projects from home? Or standalones, always as just one person? If its the latter, i still wouldnt go with manual copy (personally). Id grant them VPN access from home, then set up "Offline Files" for those network files (the libraries and templates). Then they can work WITHOUT VPN, and everything is pathed as if the network is there, and it remembers and respects all users permissions too. When they need a content update, they just connect the VPN and let it sync.

If its the FORMER (theyre working on workshared projects), youve got a lot more to think about:

1a. Are you planning on them working ON their machines at home (with Revit on the machines at home), or through Remote desktop to a machine in the office?

If the latter, no biggie. You dont need to worry about libraries at all, which makes me think this isnt your intent.

If theyre going to work ON the machines at home: How will they get local files? Across VPN access? Are they (and you) aware how much slower thats going to be? (Plus, here at least, we have strange instances of central files corrupting if someone is in a local and the internet connection flickers...). Or are you planning on them checking out worksets and taking just the local home (scary and dangerous game)?

I guess the bottom line is, if its going to be workshared files they need network access anyway to connect to central, so a redundant copy of the library is moot.

In any other scenario, i prefer the Offline Files system, so all of the pathing stays correct in and out of the office. Plus, Win7 seems to have updated offline files a bit, and it seems to work a little better.