Office backup Standards - We're moving too fast

[jeff.95551]

One of the great things about Revit is that the model is live and everything is always current. Unfortunately, most of the rest of the world isn't - I'm looking for how other thoughtful people manage this. The biggest issue we have right now isn't keeping the consultant team up to speed, it's 'slowing' ourselves down for all of the secondary users of preliminary drawing sets. Appraisers, estimators, due diligence reviewers, planning reviewers, etc. If I plot a progress set for the appraisers on Tuesday, they get it Wednesday, review it Monday, and come back with questions and clafirications on the following Tuesday. So I add the detail to answer their questions, plot off another set, and send it out the door. By the time they get it, we've made a week's worth of changes, which means they have to start over. They get frustrated, because they can no longer pretend they are shooting at a fixed target. In flat-cad, things didn't change that much, and it was never really an issue. The reality is, you can't schedule this into the process - at least as far as I can figure - so we have started saving off files whenever we send out a progress set. So now I have 10 files saved off that represent a plot set for some entity, and they're always looking for something more that we've already addressed in one of the new sets, so we are mixing sheets, and copying stuff around, and doing things in an admittedly 'un-Revit-like' way. And ending up with the same **** going out the door that we thought we fixed by going to Revit. I don't really think I'm looking for a software solution - maybe just a way to stop time - save off as .dwg files so they can be modified, or maybe find a way to manipulate .pdfs...

Any ideas? And sorry in advance for making you read through the novelette. I just spent an hour trying to figure out which 100meg file was saved off for the appraiser so I wouldn't confuse him. Can I just train him to use Revit?

Thanks,

Jeff

[tc3dcad60731]

Others will have to post with more informatio but I will respond to you on what I think might be good suggestions.

#1 - do not save so many .rvt files at the various stages. you will run out of hdd space before you know it and you WILL get CONFUSED.

#2 - Use .dwf files instead with appropriate naming and dating conventions. Send the link to the free viewer when you e-mail the files. If this is not for you then .pdf them. :|

#3 - I do not know if you can for sure do this, but I believe you can set up read only access through work sharing. ( i do not use, nor at this time need to use, worksharing so I am not positive)

#4 - Are these other people in house or consultants? Can you get them to speed up there review times?

[dhurtubise]

Maybe it's stupid but what about putting your project aside, work on another, and get back to it when you review get's in ?

[Dimitri Harvalias]

Can I just train him to use Revit?

I think Thomas is on the right track. Don't teach them to use Revit, teach them to use dwf's and drawing review tools.
Send them dwf's and have them mark those up so they can be imported directly into your Revit project and an electronic record tracking changes can be kept.
If possible arrange these as as working sessions with the client or project team where you use a remote desktop session or, if available, smart boards to mark the set up together. Each consultant can have their comments recorded in a different color so everyone knows who said what.

Daniel, I don't think that's stupid in fact, it's perfectly sensible however.. it'll never happen in today's world. As design professionals it seems the decisions we need from others are always left until the last minute but somehow the ultimate delivery deadline never seems to get pushed back. :roll:

[jeff.95551]

Thanks for the thoughtful replies. Most of the 'consultants' I'm dealing with are related to financing and estimating the project - they don't have any input back to me, but they need to get a coherent package put together to get the project funded. Because that takes so long these days (and is the tail that wags the dog) it has to happen earlier in the process, and requires much more of our time to manage. Stopping the project isn't possible, and these guys are all still working from paper, so .dwf or .pdf doesn't really matter - it's more for our document management than anything, which is why I'm tending toward .dwg, so we can amend notes and change things in 2d to meet their limited needs. We already have a number of sheet sets set up inside Revit catering to the various document users, but of course they are dynamic and the content updates with changes. It seems like every project these 3rd party users need more and more, earlier in the process. It makes me yearn for the good old days when we only had the city and the contractor to deal with!

And yes, I'm already Confused - hence the post.

[aaronrumple]

Boy - I hope you're getting additional services for all that.

[whittendesigns]

Forget the services, I'd want some more money! LOL, I know that's what you meant.

Seriously, this sounds all really complicated trying to please everyone. I'm glad I don"t have that much to deal with. Probably no way to tell these people they need to get up to date and up to speed with the rest of the world?

[jeff.95551]

We've been dealing with this stuff for a long time - it just used to be that we didn't move that much faster than the rest of the world. Now we are in a small office with Revit and the feedback loop is really short, which means we put out much tighter designs a whole lot faster, probably like the rest of you early adopters. I'm just trying to figure out processes that flow within the zen of Revit for these odd uses that aren't really so odd anymore.

Thanks for your thoughts...