Reverting Drawing

[GreenMan415]

Good Morning Everyone,



I have run into a problem, thoughout the past couple of months/year some of our drawings have magically been reverting themselves to previous versions. What I mean by that is not that the drawing is going back to a previous version, but rather parts of the drawings are going back to a previous version.



To give an example:



Drawing A was updated with a new office layout in June 2010.

Drawing A was updated with a new staircase and 3 offices in August 2010.

Drawing A was updated with a new layout in September 2010.



Come November 2010, Drawing A shows the changes from June, the changes from September, but it is missing one office and the staircase from August.



We have limited Read-Only access to the master files (which are the ones changing). Users are required to make a copy of the file before starting their project. Once the project is complete only one person in the department is allowed to update the master file.



I have had our IT deparment make sure no changes were happening in backups, nor other users outside of the department were accessing the network files without authrization. Only other item to add is that these drawings used to have Archibus connected to them, but were recreated before this issue started and are fully clean.



System: AutoCAD 2010.



Any help that can be provided would be great.

[philip.199690]

I have run into a problem, thoughout the past couple of months/year some of our drawings have magically been reverting themselves to previous versions.


I think I see a potential cause.



We have limited Read-Only access to the master files (which are the ones changing). Users are required to make a copy of the file before starting their project. Once the project is complete only one person in the department is allowed to update the master file.


Ideally this scheme would work. In the real world, people don't always follow the schemes.

What seems to have happened is that two people "checked out" Drawing A in August. Person A added the staircase and an office and replaced the master. Person B, meanwhile, added the other two offices and duly replaced the master--thus writing over the changes Person A made. Could that be what happened?

You need some way to lock the master files. Why can't someone edit the master file directly? That way you know the changes will register.

[cadtag]

...Users are required to make a copy of the file before starting their project. Once the project is complete only one person in the department is allowed to update the master file....




You use the term 'Required'. Is that policy, or is it handled with technology? If the former, you are seeing why policies like that don't work reliably. If you believe that that process (eg checking out/copying a drawing) is the way you want to work, then either implement an EDMS solution, or accept the reality that 'stuff' happens, and you'll continue to find similar issues cropping.

Blunders are an unavoidable fact of life, and a process that calls for fallible human beings to step through multiple hoops, will continue to break down.

[GreenMan415]

You use the term 'Required'. Is that policy, or is it handled with technology? If the former, you are seeing why policies like that don't work reliably. If you believe that that process (eg checking out/copying a drawing) is the way you want to work, then either implement an EDMS solution, or accept the reality that 'stuff' happens, and you'll continue to find similar issues cropping.

Blunders are an unavoidable fact of life, and a process that calls for fallible human beings to step through multiple hoops, will continue to break down.

This is a required policy. However someone could of course turn that off and overwrite the master.

To answer the earlier post, the reason that we do not allow the employee to write directly to the master file is this reason.

[cadtag]

This is a required policy. However someone could of course turn that off and overwrite the master.

I'm not following what you are saying. Policies are written or documented procedures for doing something. Are you saying you have a technological 'something' that implements that policy? If so, what is it and how can people turn it off? turning it off w/o logging that actions is not good practice.



To answer the earlier post, the reason that we do not allow the employee to write directly to the master file is this reason.

But that CREATES this problem. You've got people working on copies, and obviously the system does not work reliably. AutoCAD drawings do not revert to anything - either someone is overwriting them, or your IT tools are restoring bad versions, or some one some where is doing something.

To prevent that, either work on the live drawings,( and let the operating system/network manage access and locking) or spend money on an EDMS to manage checking drawings in and out, manager versioning, and locking files.

[nextvkin]

You can check in rthe drawing properties to see who last saved the drawing/s.