How are companies using the Sheet Set Manager ?

[glen353712]

I know this message comes in real late but I am just now really getting into the sheet set manager.

Just to give everyone some background on our office we are a small Architectural firm and up to this date we have created and plotted all drawings from model space. We have used xreferencing and xclip to accomplish everything that paper space does.

With the above stated I see great potential for the sheet set manager. It may not have all the features that I would like in it now, but my hope is that it will be developed more. I see this as moving toward the future.

AutoCAD has made many improvements to how paper space works and is setup over the years, but we never saw a big improvement over our methods until now. Yes the sheet set manager is really setup to work with paper space with only one layout per drawing. You can create multiple layouts but that is more work. The sheet set manager makes using layout worth it.

It has some great time saving features and our office intends to completely change they way we setup drawings to use this new feature. We may like many of you mention not use everything to start off, but we will start off at what has been called level 3. I see no reason to do it half way to get a quick start. It is the setup and procedures that takes the time. Using the sheet set manager is a breeze.

I just hope that before you just brush this off as one of AutoCAD's useless new tools that you will really look at what it can do.

[davidmatyas]

I would have to agree that Sheet Sets are a force YET to be defined, BUT you see, THAT is what sparks YOUR creativity and YOUR own personal solutions for YOUR problems and workarounds and WE (the rest of the augi community!) want to hear about it. In the "OLD" days I used a product called autolog to keep track of project time (AutoCAD release 9) and have YET to see a product that is similar. My point is that for every problem that AutoCAD has, there is a EQUAL and OPPOSITE solution that will (trust me on this!) that will benefit ALOT of users and AutoCADheads such as myself. Thanks for listening!
Matyas

p.s. TWINS are fun HUH?? I'm suprised you have any time to acually type much less press the power button on the cpu. You thought remembering your logon was the most difficult thing to do. HA!
Good luck and keep drawing.

[sinc]

I'm just getting a handle on the SSM.

It doesn't seem to be well-integrated with Land Desktop, though. It's almost like the SSM creates a notion of a Project, so it can do its job. However, Land Desktop already has its notion of a Project, and the two seem to live in two different worlds. This isn't a really bad thing, but it causes some annoyances:

• Create a new sheet in SSM. Even if the sheet set is living in the DWG directory of a LDD project, the SSM doesn't recognize the fact. So, now you must also select the LDD project to associate the new drawing to. It feels like the user has to add every drawing to the project twice. Couple that with setting PROJECTNAME (which is required for some of our jobs), and it feels like the user has to add the drawing to the project three times.
• The SSM can't get Project Name and Description out of the LDD project.
• It is necessary to drop out of LDD and go into Map in order to print the sheet set.

These aren't big issues, but they make things feel awkward. All in all, the SSM is handy, though. And I definitely like it much better if there's a DST file in there when I get a big set of drawings from another company...

[robert.1.hall72202]

Im not real sure what the SSM adds to my projects.
I can generate a print that involves multiple drawing files.
I could do the same on my own.

What else does it allow us to do?

[avdesign]

I use it you've seen some of my head scratcher posts. I have clients that want to use it and build it around their Standards. I'm finding that there's no free lunch. i really want to see far more customization with fields and what yo can do with it.

[sinc]

Im not real sure what the SSM adds to my projects.
I can generate a print that involves multiple drawing files.
I could do the same on my own.

What else does it allow us to do?

As near as I can tell:

• Provides a way to organize and browse your project. Essentially, now you point to the drawing in the "Table of Contents", and open it that way. Makes it easier to jump around, especially if the drawing set comes from another company and you aren't familiar with their file naming standards.
• Provide a central place for Drawing Set information, so that if any of this information changes, it only needs to be changed in one place. The change is reflected throughout the drawing set.
• Automatically creates a Table of Contents for your index sheet, or for the first page of your drawing set. Makes it easy to keep this table up-to-date as pages are added/removed/reorganized.
• Allows one to create "Dynamic Callouts" that update as the drawing is reordered. So, that Detail callout retains the proper page number, even if the detail moves to a different page.
• Also provides another way for creating new sheets, and add them to the existing sheet set.

Basically, another convenience tool, more useful for some situations than others.

[dfarris75]

We use it too but I don't like some things about it:
#2 I want to be able to hit publish to plotter button and to specify the how many sets I need and go to have lunch while it's plotting.
Vali

disclaimer: I haven't read the entire thread...

You can do this thru the "publish dialog box" if your sheets are all set up for the same plotter and such. I ran into the issue a few days ago where my sheets were set up on an old plotter. I added the new plotter to my overrides .dwt file thinking I could publish multiple sets via the overrides, but noooo, I had to go in and reset the plotter in all my sheets first. Then I was able to plot multiple sets. That's one of my quams with SSM. Otherwise I really like it, especially when coupled with fields. Another quam is that you cannot delete or rename a sheet set in SSM (as far as I can tell).

summary: I want to be able to print multiple sets via the "publish using page setup overrides" and be able to delete or rename a sheet set in the ssm.

[Glenn Pope]

disclaimer: I haven't read the entire thread...

You can do this thru the "publish dialog box" if your sheets are all set up for the same plotter and such. I ran into the issue a few days ago where my sheets were set up on an old plotter. I added the new plotter to my overrides .dwt file thinking I could publish multiple sets via the overrides, but noooo, I had to go in and reset the plotter in all my sheets first. Then I was able to plot multiple sets. That's one of my quams with SSM. Otherwise I really like it, especially when coupled with fields. Another quam is that you cannot delete or rename a sheet set in SSM (as far as I can tell).

summary: I want to be able to print multiple sets via the "publish using page setup overrides" and be able to delete or rename a sheet set in the ssm.

Another option would be to open the publisher though the SSM. All your sheets should show up and then you can import the new page setup. Still would be nice to have the option to make multiple plots with overrides.

[Jeffrey.Wiggins]

We don't use it. Simply for the fact that you can't batch publish multi-sheet DWF's, meaning 20 different DWG's that each have 7 layout tabs. If there is a way, I havent found it. They need to simplify this =) Just 4 me !! Since it's my job to publish and publish and re-publish when adjustments are made. I demand automation !! Thx ....

[Chris.N]

hmmmm, before i switched our dept. to SSM, we still did all plotting from modelspace and xref'd a lot. of the things i've noticed and observed, the biggest thing some have a problem with is that SSM only recognizes one layout per file for a sheet in the set. since we had no previous biases, it wasn't a problem for us.

for printing, i have all page setups saved in the sheet template. i can batch plot to plotter, DWF, or any printer i have a setup for, and any quantity i need. unless i update or add them in the middle of the project, the large (full size) format is always default in my setup. it's also great being able to r-click and spit out a reference set on 11X17 by selecting an override plotter and not opening up anything. this info is linked from the sheet creation template also, so it's always the latest and greatest.

as for re-naming files, i've had no problems there either, as long as you are not in the file you are trying to rename. i just wish it would also rename the layout tab...

the SSM has been awesome with the ability to add your own SSM properties. i've even added fields in the SSM propertiesfor where certain types of drawings can be found (schedules, etc.) to update our standard front-end stuff at the 'callout' legend index.

with new stuff available, new thinking is required. for us, it has worked wonderfull! btw, i'm still in v2006.