when is it enough?

[lickec]

Members,
Thank you for querying this topic. Customization in a large (1200) firm can be tough to manage/support.
How much does a CAD Manager create/implement?

The general population uses very little out of the box!
Some users would like "free reign" to customize "their" AutoCAD.

I am looking to understand - is there a balance? Is it possible to inflict standards while some users are freely downloading routines? How do you monitor the time they spend downloading, testing and managing their own routines?

Seeing a pending disaster!
Appreciate your insights!
Ed

[Ed Jobe]

I don't have nearly that many users, but of the few I do have (around 40) I just don't support their customizations. If I have to restore/reinstall acad, I do it to my standard, which is a saved profile. If they have toolbars etc., its their responsibility to back it up.

[Coolmo]

Be careful letting people download all of those nifty little tools out there because some of them can really screw with your AutoCAD and windows settings. We had a guy here (note the word HAD) who loaded all the people's machines around him with all kinds of mess that ended in reloading AutoCAD for everyone he "touched". The problem really came about when he insisted it was not the files he loaded that caused the problem so he promptly reinstalled all the mess back on people's machines. We learned quick about him. We now have a new policy. Install NOTHING without either proper assistance or permission.

All of our company standards (standard blocks, linetypes, templates, menu files, toolbars, etc.) are on the server and cannot be touched by anyone, only accessed. This makes it easy to upload different tools and standards for everyone. They usually don't even have to install anything. It's just there when they load up AutoCAD.

[JASONM30395]

Members,
Thank you for querying this topic. Customization in a large (1200) firm can be tough to manage/support.
How much does a CAD Manager create/implement?

The general population uses very little out of the box!
Some users would like "free reign" to customize "their" AutoCAD.

I am looking to understand - is there a balance? Is it possible to inflict standards while some users are freely downloading routines? How do you monitor the time they spend downloading, testing and managing their own routines?

Seeing a pending disaster!
Appreciate your insights!
Ed

If you are the CAD manager it is your job (responsibility) to do all the customization.

That being said, Are you just a Cad Man. or do you draft as well? One of the biggest things I've run into is that I draft as well and don't get as much time as I'd like to do customizing (without my wife threatening a divorce that is). What I do is allow my Caddies to "research" as much as they want but nothing gets loaded until I've personally tested it to see how it fits into our system. They are not allowed to download anything. If they see something they like they send me a link and it gets checked out. If they want to design there own customization (can't say I've had anyone do that in years) that person and I would get together at lunch or something and go over what they wanted to do. Then if they came up with something, again it would go through the checking process. I found that the balance is reached by listening to what your employees have to say (and I mean really listening) and letting them know you'll try and support there requests as much as possible without jeopardizing the system.

Now this only applies to routines and so on that can have a direct impact on productivity. There profiles are theirs to play with to their heart's content. (I don't care what colour their backround or crosshairs are) The other thing to this is that if someone does find something good then everyone gets it, not just those to the left and right of him.

[michael.12445]

Be careful letting people download all of those nifty little tools out there because some of them can really screw with your AutoCAD and windows settings.


In our experience, some "legitimate" 3rd party add-ons - even some by Autodesk - will add data to DWG files that causes AutoCAD to choke or otherwise behave oddly. Unfortunately, this seems to be inherent to the mechanisms by which AutoCAD can be customized, particularly with compiled code, i.e., ARX programs. In theory - especially since a user who wants to run AutoCAD has to be a "power user" in the Windows user account scheme - an ARX add-on that runs inside AutoCAD can do anything a C++ program can do. That means it could do a lot of damage, especially if the programmer is incompetent, or worse, malicious. I'm guessing that some "freeware" utilities might be written by people in the first category - and I hope they aren't in the second.

Michael Evans

[LanceMcHatton]

I made a separate menu located on the server that everyone has access to. It's a compilation of all the best tools people have created or found (a lot of them come from the great members of AUGI!).

I compile the menus on my machine from the server whenever I make changes and then make them read-only for everyone el;se. They have the freedom to move toolbars around and turn them on/off but that's it.