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Who is in my drawing?!?!?!

7 REPLIES 7
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Message 1 of 8
Anonymous
495 Views, 7 Replies

Who is in my drawing?!?!?!

How many CADD managers out there have heard this question? What I need to
know is, is there a way that I can find out who is accessing a drawing on a
network server. We are running NT4.0 with AutoCAD r14 soon to be 2000I. I
know we can create log files and scan them but that would create a headache
for people thinking "big brother is watching me".

Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated.
--
Ken Switzer
CADD Administrator
Parkhill, Smith & Cooper, Inc
Lubbock, Texas
7 REPLIES 7
Message 2 of 8
Anonymous
in reply to: Anonymous

Ken Switzer wrote:

> How many CADD managers out there have heard this question? What I need to
> know is, is there a way that I can find out who is accessing a drawing on a
> network server.

There is an "OpenBy" module posted somewhere on the Autodesk Support website.

AutoCAD 2000 also includes a 'whohas.arx' module, which you can add to each
system's Startup Suite. When drawings are opened for modification, this module
records a small amount of information about the user and machine that opened
the drawing. The WHOHAS command can be used to report this information.
--
Frank Whaley
Autodesk, Inc.
Message 3 of 8
Anonymous
in reply to: Anonymous

You may have to go the way of big brother ...

We used to have numerous problems that couldn't be tracked back to a user (we
have 100's of AutoCAD users) when we switched from Novell to NT Server (back
around 96). We resorted to writing our own utility to log all open/save/saveas
etc. type activity in any drawing and another utility to browse/search the logs.
It has been invaluable in nailing down problems and finding out "who did what
when". While it may appear "intrusive", the bottom line is that the drawings are
company property, worth thousands of dollars (and more), the integrity of said
product is paramount and the repeated failure of users to "fess up" necessitated
such action. For those that criticized us (ala big bro) we could only respond
"TFB, it was the only responsible course of action we could take". Your mileage
may end up similar ...

Ken Switzer wrote in message ...
>How many CADD managers out there have heard this question? What I need to
>know is, is there a way that I can find out who is accessing a drawing on a
>network server. We are running NT4.0 with AutoCAD r14 soon to be 2000I. I
>know we can create log files and scan them but that would create a headache
>for people thinking "big brother is watching me".
>
>Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated.
>--
>Ken Switzer
>CADD Administrator
>Parkhill, Smith & Cooper, Inc
>Lubbock, Texas
Message 4 of 8
Anonymous
in reply to: Anonymous

Do you have anything you can share on tips to developing such utilities? I'd
like to get one in place for many reasons, tracking changes to drawings,
figuring out who changed what last, etc.

"Michael Puckett" wrote in message
news:F49F2D932C074AFCF95F5BA472A4B51C@in.WebX.maYIadrTaRb...
> You may have to go the way of big brother ...
>
We resorted to writing our own utility to log all open/save/saveas
> etc. type activity in any drawing and another utility to browse/search the
logs.
Message 5 of 8
Anonymous
in reply to: Anonymous

Since we deal with tens of thousands of drawings, we limited tracking to
"Open/Save/Saveas" commands, lest we generate too much data. Actual logging
utility was written by a respected friend of mine using arx, though one could
use VLisp reactor code too. Output from log utility is formatted ascii (quasi
csv format) so one could use a text editor with a good search engine (like
textpad) if you didn't have access to the LogBrowser (I limited access to key
personnel). The LogBrowser/Search engine and interface was written in VB.

Best of luck.

Dan Allen wrote in message
<67A629B2E7DA2D3EBC687A2996A91998@in.WebX.maYIadrTaRb>...
>Do you have anything you can share on tips to developing such utilities? I'd
>like to get one in place for many reasons, tracking changes to drawings,
>figuring out who changed what last, etc.
>
>"Michael Puckett" wrote in message
>news:F49F2D932C074AFCF95F5BA472A4B51C@in.WebX.maYIadrTaRb...
>> You may have to go the way of big brother ...
>>
>We resorted to writing our own utility to log all open/save/saveas
>> etc. type activity in any drawing and another utility to browse/search the
>logs.
>
Message 6 of 8
Anonymous
in reply to: Anonymous

Besides the WhoHas.arx, which has to be installed on every machine, you can
also use the NT Server Manager (if you have the permission, and you can get
a utility to run it from 2000/NT/98/95) to search for the file. Sometimes,
I have had to rely on this method, but our office only has 30-35 user.

"Ken Switzer" wrote in message
news:D2BD38D20E51E00B40A021A1EF9B164D@in.WebX.maYIadrTaRb...
> How many CADD managers out there have heard this question? What I need to
> know is, is there a way that I can find out who is accessing a drawing on
a
> network server. We are running NT4.0 with AutoCAD r14 soon to be 2000I. I
> know we can create log files and scan them but that would create a
headache
> for people thinking "big brother is watching me".
>
> Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated.
> --
> Ken Switzer
> CADD Administrator
> Parkhill, Smith & Cooper, Inc
> Lubbock, Texas
>
Message 7 of 8
Anonymous
in reply to: Anonymous

I just loaded the Whohas.arx to our companies standard menu that is loaded
whenever someone starts autocad.
That way I can use Whohas to find out who's in a specified drawing file.

"David Herrick" wrote in message
news:F48504DF31BE6334BFB6798E4E2F5BB9@in.WebX.maYIadrTaRb...
> Besides the WhoHas.arx, which has to be installed on every machine, you
can
> also use the NT Server Manager (if you have the permission, and you can
get
> a utility to run it from 2000/NT/98/95) to search for the file.
Sometimes,
> I have had to rely on this method, but our office only has 30-35 user.
>
> "Ken Switzer" wrote in message
> news:D2BD38D20E51E00B40A021A1EF9B164D@in.WebX.maYIadrTaRb...
> > How many CADD managers out there have heard this question? What I need
to
> > know is, is there a way that I can find out who is accessing a drawing
on
> a
> > network server. We are running NT4.0 with AutoCAD r14 soon to be 2000I.
I
> > know we can create log files and scan them but that would create a
> headache
> > for people thinking "big brother is watching me".
> >
> > Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated.
> > --
> > Ken Switzer
> > CADD Administrator
> > Parkhill, Smith & Cooper, Inc
> > Lubbock, Texas
> >
>
Message 8 of 8
Anonymous
in reply to: Anonymous

Don't laugh.

I installed the WhoHas.arx routine in the startup of ACAD 2000 for the 30+
CAD stations we have here and not only can a person run the whohas from
command line BUT, now when a person gets the "read only" message when they
try to open a file another person is in, the name of the user and the
machine number are displayed in the message. (What a wonderful thing !)

I didn't consciously make this happen. I simply made whohas.arx autoload
during startup. We run Windows NT on our network.

good luck
jm

"John Laidler" wrote in message
news:FC9A9721E018416DA5D77A62FC147808@in.WebX.maYIadrTaRb...
> I just loaded the Whohas.arx to our companies standard menu that is loaded
> whenever someone starts autocad.
> That way I can use Whohas to find out who's in a specified drawing file.
>
> "David Herrick" wrote in message
> news:F48504DF31BE6334BFB6798E4E2F5BB9@in.WebX.maYIadrTaRb...
> > Besides the WhoHas.arx, which has to be installed on every machine, you
> can
> > also use the NT Server Manager (if you have the permission, and you can
> get
> > a utility to run it from 2000/NT/98/95) to search for the file.
> Sometimes,
> > I have had to rely on this method, but our office only has 30-35 user.
> >
> > "Ken Switzer" wrote in message
> > news:D2BD38D20E51E00B40A021A1EF9B164D@in.WebX.maYIadrTaRb...
> > > How many CADD managers out there have heard this question? What I need
> to
> > > know is, is there a way that I can find out who is accessing a drawing
> on
> > a
> > > network server. We are running NT4.0 with AutoCAD r14 soon to be
2000I.
> I
> > > know we can create log files and scan them but that would create a
> > headache
> > > for people thinking "big brother is watching me".
> > >
> > > Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated.
> > > --
> > > Ken Switzer
> > > CADD Administrator
> > > Parkhill, Smith & Cooper, Inc
> > > Lubbock, Texas
> > >
> >
>

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