Online Collaboration???

[Shaun v Rooyen]

We are looking at methods of "Virtual Teamwork", if you could call it that.
Online project collaboration/co ordination. I know of Buzzsaw & FTP, but, was wondering how you all are dealing with sharing your project documents with your teams/consultants. And if there is anything, I should take into account when considering moving away from the mundane, manual email option that we currently run.
Any views in the matter would greatly be appreciated.
Thanks.

[Shaun v Rooyen]

Jeez thanks for all the invaluable input. Come on, are you telling me you all use e-mail?

[blads]

Jeez thanks for all the invaluable input. Come on, are you telling me you all use e-mail?
Yep! 'fraid so... email to clients and/or consultants

[Max Lloyd]

E-mail here. Occasionally we use fax?????

[Mr Spot]

Sometimes we use www.aconex.com but mainly FTP or email.

[gbrowne]

I asked about collaboration software a while ago, in the dedicated forum and got a suprising lack of resposes too. Which leads me to think buzzsaw, although on the surface a really great idea, is not being implemented...

We were going to get it, but nobody in our office was interested, I think I was the only person who was keen.

Is it the case that everyone thinks everyone else is using it? But in reality aren't?

[rhys]

I asked about collaboration software a while ago, in the dedicated forum and got a suprising lack of resposes too. Which leads me to think buzzsaw, although on the surface a really great idea, is not being implemented...

We were going to get it, but nobody in our office was interested, I think I was the only person who was keen.

Is it the case that everyone thinks everyone else is using it? But in reality aren't?
Too expensive for me

[janunson]

We've never used buzzsaw, but have used PlanWell and another version that i forget the name of. They work OK, but don't offer any amazing benefits in my opinion. We're in the process of installing a planwell server to use to manage all our printing and file distribution (to take away the administration of the FTP site for consultants) We don't know that much about how well it works yet... still trying to get the basic functionality operational.

Correction - I'VE never used buzzsaw, but we have in our company. It worked ok, but was slow and cumbersome. As far as i know that was more than a year ago, so i'm sure it's changed since then; several upgrades have occured.

[Shaun v Rooyen]

Thanks for all the responses it just concluded, what we already assumed.

[PeterJ]

If you have Microsoft's Small Business Server you can set up threaded discussions and mark them as closed out etc. makes it easy enough, in theory, to run an issues log for a project through a web server in one party's office. I looked at it with a colleague a while back but we were only 2 or 3 at thye time and couldn't find a reason not use fax and email.

Mintersoft have a product called Truedesk (www.truedesk.com) which is offered as a groupware server and offers similar functionality to the Small Business Server but also adds project forums, which provide the issue log functionality, and project folders that enable you to upload files and work with version control. I use it to provide webmail for myself and it is easy enough to set up, either on windows or linux, and gets you going quite quickly including permissions and all the rest.

[janunson]

We have some discussion group stuff set up for project management and file distribution, but nobody ever uses it.

[gbrowne]

This amazes me. Apart from the cost, it strikes me as a really good idea, but nobody bothers. We all strive for the BIM dream, but then resort to the printing paper chase and drawing issue sheets...

Agghhh!!

[SkiSouth]

Thanks for all the responses it just concluded, what we already assumed.

Sorry, just found the thread. I've used buzzsaw before, actually worked well. At the time my consultants were in Atlanta, New Orleans, and the owner in Birmingham (all USA), and the client liked being able to see what every one was doing and the project moving ahead. It works well, but I don't think the cost was really justified.

The client was given the option to continue this buzzsaw service after the free trial period ended, but THEY had to pay for it - They chose not to. From then on, just emailed. You can do the same thing with a hosted website and correct login rights, but you have to have a pretty good IT person to maintain it. (of course you can almost afford a separate IT person for some of the pricing of Buzzsaw.)

Anyway, good luck.

[gbrowne]

So the problem then is the cost.

People would use it if it was cheaper.

Over to Autodesk then?

[SkiSouth]

Yeah, I think for my little firm it was like $800.00 a month. Of course that was 5 years ago. You can see what a bad pricing policy does to interest in a product. It's probably cheaper now.

[funkman]

I have designed a house in Sydney where the Client was living in London. Just emailed the drawings as pdf, and did a few walkthroughs. Sent all via email. Much quicker than client meetings!

[Chad Smith]

Email here too. But we do have an FTP which is solely used for file transfer to our overseas offices.

We looked into Buzzsaw a while ago and it was just too damn expensive. I don't know how companies justify the cost.

[gbrowne]

I think we all email, but email isn't really the same thing though. What buzzsaw provides is a 24 hour a day accessible deposit for drawings, in fact all documentation relating to a contract, plus give records of who accessed it and when. It takes away all the "oh I never got that drawing" nonsense. It puts the responsibility on the other parties to get the up to date information.

Oh and has anybody else noticed the post tally seems to be static?

[Steve_Stafford]

...Oh and has anybody else noticed the post tally seems to be static?...Posts don't add to your post count in forum: Revit - Out There. This thread ought to be in Revit In Practice perhaps...

[Shaun v Rooyen]

I think we all email, but email isn't really the same thing though. What buzzsaw provides is a 24 hour a day accessible deposit for drawings, in fact all documentation relating to a contract, plus give records of who accessed it and when. It takes away all the "oh I never got that drawing" nonsense. It puts the responsibility on the other parties to get the up to date information.

Oh and has anybody else noticed the post tally seems to be static?

Well it is so good to see that you are actually getting the whole concept, and problems that we face. Could you imagine the issues at hand when we have to start transferring whole Revit models to Structural & MEP. IMHO The current standard approach of how companies/consultants deal with or manage collaboration is soon take on a new era in it's own.
Looking forward to a new affordable solution!!!

[Lashers]

Most of my exchange is via email. With my overseas clients we would email and then have a "meeting" in hotmail or skype to discuss the scheme. Works pretty good.

For the larger projects then a buzzsaw type solution is sensible and can work well. Most of the ones I have been involved in are bespoke - with varying degrees of complexity! I like buzzsaw, but it has to be a big project to soak up the costs (although I haven't looked at it for a couple of years now) - I liked it when they had a free access service with limited storage, they should do this again and then have reasonable "annual" membership for the host - £100?? then allow a gradual growth depending on use.

Dream on! I always have problems when companies don't understand that everyone doesn't have £40M+ turnover!

2p from me

[janunson]

Well it is so good to see that you are actually getting the whole concept, and problems that we face. Could you imagine the issues at hand when we have to start transferring whole Revit models to Structural & MEP. IMHO The current standard approach of how companies/consultants deal with or manage collaboration is soon take on a new era in it's own.
Looking forward to a new affordable solution!!!

It's why we use FTP - we bought a 50$ ftp server and put it on a 600$ computer, and get as much tracking and access control as a whole Buzzsaw setup, w/ less training, maintenance, and MUCH less $$. That same machine has cost us a total of probably 1000$ (bigger Hard Drive) in 4 years!

[phoulx]

We used Buzzsaw a few times (as a consultant) and it was OK. The architect took quite a lot of time maintaining it and eventually dropped it. I loved it because I was notified when the arch files I needed were updated. It was far too slow to use as a server though and it worked best to just download and upload as needed. I was essentially using it as an FTP.

The pain with FTP is that someone still has to remember to upload the files and then I have to search through five or six folders manually to see what has changed. Have fun looking through 200 files named 04010-X-100-A-RP, 04010-X-100-A-RCP, 04010-X-101-A-RCP etc looking for the 20 files I use and then realize the new version they promised "forgot" to get uploaded.

I know of only one current project on FTP, everything else is email. I've seen ADT created projects with insane amounts of folders that made it impossible keep anything straight. This only adds to the antagonistic nature of architect/engineer communication problems. We are just starting to look at Revit now. How involved is the directory structure? Does an FTP setup make sense? Could a new floor plan be emailed with only a few files?

[janunson]

With revit there's generally only 1 file per building, per discipline, and another file for the site. Not much in the way of directory structure needed. we drop all in 1 folder, then everyone can just sort by date to see what's new.

[truevis]

Might there be some inspiration gained from Alibre's product?

http://www.alibre.com/AlibreLibraries/ftp/inforequest/alibredesign82sheet.pdf


Team Design Sessions.



Multiple Alibre Design users can communicate and work directly on the same sketch, model or drawing in real time. Use Team Design sessions to work with the Alibre Assistant for real-time support, or conduct spontaneous design sessions with your customers or coworkers. In addition to measuring and viewing, you can create and modify geometry together. Simple compact commands are sent between users’ systems and executed locally for optimal performance during team sessions.



• Work with others in real time to create, edit or review designs.

• Invite the Alibre Assistant to a session for on-demand help and guidance.

• Communicate using text chat or voice over IP technology.

• Insert redlines and mark-ups during sessions; save the mark-ups with the design including the time, date and author.

[janunson]

Might there be some inspiration gained from Alibre's product?



Ya, i recently was reading up on Borlands new C++/# package, and one of the new features is the ability for multiple programmers to work on the same code via P2P connections. Wouldn't that be a cool thing for the future of Revit! I know some C text files are a ways away from a fully parametric 3D model, but if Alibre can pull it off, maybe some day..

[Wes Macaulay]

There's a lot at stake when you talk about this -- lots of aspects to consider:

reliable transfer / availability of large numbers of files / large file sizes
logging of activity for accountability purposes

automatic notification (e-mail) when files are added / updated

The question becomes how much you want to pay for the latter features... FTP will do the first and second points (for free, more or less, if you know how to set up your router and the software) but the third point is also important to some people I'd warrant. Only the big buck solutions like Buzzsaw or others offer that. Not to mention online markup of drawings and notification of that and so on!

E-mail and FTP do the job for small and midsize firms -- FTP and e-mail logs would probably stand up in court if it came to that.

And what about realtime desktop conferencing? Am I the only Netmeeting user on the planet?? It's a huge timesaver. A bit of a PITA to set up, but not hard once you know what you've got to do...