Opinion: Standard Templates and Remote Offices

[clayton_lewis]

I'm looking for feedback from other Civil 3D users in the industry.

Our company is on the cusp of developing Civil 3D standard templates. We have a main office and 5 remote offices. We are trying to come up with a solution to standardizing across the board.

Most offices have been using their own templates that are customized to fit their needs. Talk of merging and compiling a master template(s) is in discussion.

One concern I have is the multitude of styles, fonts, and page setups for each office based on use and client requirements.

This concern is leading me to believe that standard templates per office may be the safest route in order to save the trouble of being inundated with an endless list of styles and settings.

Also, one centralized template and office specific styles nulls out Civil 3D defaults which makes streamlining next to impossible.

Please share your thoughts, opinions, experiences in similar situations.

Thanks.

[TCARCAMO78]

We have one remote office but they are connected to our network server. We have one company template that both offices uses. I personally don't think its a good idea that each office has their own template. Its the CAD's managers responsibilities to ensure that everyone is using and following company standard styles and settings..etc. Its just more work if  he/she has to maintain and monitor 5 different templates. We have one template drawing that is locked and can only be modified by me.

Tony

CAD Manager

www.tonyscivil3dworld.blogspot.com

[thepworth]

I'd have to say that one of the "cooler" approaches I've seen was at AU a few years ago.  I think it was David Garrigues w/ Kimberly Horn.  As a national firm, their approach appears to have been to use a lisp as a precursor to loading the template to streamline things for the intended drawing use. 

We have 2 offices and have separate templates for our water / roads / surveying teams.  We're just about to undertake "consolidation" as it appears you're considering.  We'll see how it goes....

[stacy.dunn]

We use one standardized template for the whole firm.  This template and associated customization routines, menus, etc. is supported and updated regularly.  Each office/project manage has the option to do their own thing if they wish or if they are required.  This allows for standardization across the firm as well as flexibility to meet the needs of our clients.

For example, I have a separate survey template based on the original firmwide one.  I typicall update it as need for survey use and once a year or so to be consistent with the firmwide version.

[jefflambert9091]

We have multiple offices and prior to C3D we had loose guidelines. Each office had drawings that were somewhat different. We took the opportunity with C3D to bring all the offices together with one template.  As far as different clients/jurisdictions, we learned that once you have the template you can copy, rename and modify the template styles to accommodate.