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AutoCAD Electrical library in Teams/OneDrive

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Message 1 of 11
stefan.stamate
1112 Views, 10 Replies

AutoCAD Electrical library in Teams/OneDrive

Hi there,

Did anyone attempt and was successful in setting up the AutoCAD Electrical library in a Teams shared folder and synchronize it to the local PC for multiple users? Kind of similar to how is set up for network use but instead of a network you would point the env and project files to your local copy of the synchronized files? Was the synchronization of the database successful or did you experience issues with the synchronization? How about the large number of files in some of the folders: did that create any issues?

Thanks in advance!

10 REPLIES 10
Message 2 of 11
JReese-NC
in reply to: stefan.stamate

Although I can't say if there are any specific differences doing it on OneDrive we have been running ACADE off of Dropbox since 2009 with very minimal issues with 2 full time CAD users and 1 or 2 part time users. All initial setup was done with the help of Doug's information (http://ecadconsultant.com/tips.html#Networking) to get setup for a multi-user environment along with some other Autodesk tidbits here and there but overall seems to work quite well for a couple users.

-----
JReese
Dell Precision 3450
Core i7-11700, 32GB RAM, NVIDIA T400
Windows 10 Professional
Autocad Electrical 2025
Message 3 of 11
stefan.stamate
in reply to: JReese-NC

Ok, thank you for the update!

Message 4 of 11
stefan.stamate
in reply to: JReese-NC

I was wondering if you could explain how did you deal with merging the changes from each of the local databases into the master file rather than just synchronizing them, can you shed some light on it? The challenge I ran into is that the local databases are treated as separate files and they will be synchronized rather than merged to the master file. Thus the newest version will be copied over the old one. Now if 2 users are making changes on the same time one of the changes will be lost. Did you have only one user that was in charge of updating the catalog and PLC databases and all the other users were just using what was available?

In Teams for instance you have a collaboration feature where multiple users can access the same Excel or Word file and the changes are merged into the master file. I believe that this is done by Teams and not by OneDrive.

Message 5 of 11
JReese-NC
in reply to: stefan.stamate

We have two primary CAD designers and it's not too uncommon for us to both be making edits to the Catalog database - but we have really built it up enough over the years to not need many edits for most design jobs anymore.

 

You are correct they are truly local files and individual copies on each workstation but at least for us when Dropbox syncs it manages to merge them without losing data. We have seen a few issues with duplicated databases being named as a Dropbox "conflicted" file (a sync error where it duplicates & renames the file it can't merge the changes for) but it is rare.

 

Whenever ACADE is opened it locks the default_cat and ace_plc database and the lock files like the databases themselves are individual files being synced to each system - so how Dropbox and ACADE and Access database edits all work together - I'm not exactly sure. We have even done a few tests between our workstations to purposely open CAD at the same time, open the Catalog database and make changes, save them and exit ACADE letting Dropbox sync and we couldn't prove data loss.

 

Sorry for the delayed response. Unfortunately I can't shed much light on the inner workings but Dropbox has worked well for us for about 10 years now. Teams/OneDrive could work differently with it's sync technology versus Dropbox - I don't really have experience with that on the business side.

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JReese
Dell Precision 3450
Core i7-11700, 32GB RAM, NVIDIA T400
Windows 10 Professional
Autocad Electrical 2025
Message 6 of 11

I have been trying to copy all my networked files to One Drive recently. AutoCAD crashes after I change the paths and I cannot open anything. I have contacted AutoCAD support, and they sent me this link stating One Drive is not supported: https://knowledge.autodesk.com/support/autocad/learn-explore/caas/sfdcarticles/sfdcarticles/Support-... 

 

To get around the database sync issue, I migrated the Access databases to a Microsoft SQL server on our network. It's not local, but it is faster to access through VPN than the Access databases.

Message 7 of 11


@nathan.averett wrote:

To get around the database sync issue, I migrated the Access databases to a Microsoft SQL server on our network. It's not local, but it is faster to access through VPN than the Access databases.


Yeah, about that....

https://knowledge.autodesk.com/support/autocad-electrical/troubleshooting/caas/sfdcarticles/sfdcarti...

 

Just keep an eye on this....


Trond Hasse Lie
EPLAN Expert and ex-AutoCAD Electrical user.
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Please select "Accept Solution" if this post answers your question. 'Likes' won't hurt either. :winking_face:
Message 8 of 11

Yea, I made that post too soon. I had to use the VPN the next day and ran into that very issue! I guess I need to go back to the old Access database so I can at least access the catalog while remote.

Message 9 of 11
keith.lyding
in reply to: JReese-NC

That ecadconsultant link is broken. Is there an updated link that references this information?

Message 10 of 11

https://web.archive.org/web/20230208110534/http://ecadconsultant.com/


Trond Hasse Lie
EPLAN Expert and ex-AutoCAD Electrical user.
Ctrl Alt El
Please select "Accept Solution" if this post answers your question. 'Likes' won't hurt either. :winking_face:
Message 11 of 11

Hi @stefan.stamate 

 

OneDrive doesn't do a good job on merging the database files when more than one person is trying to make changes at the same time. It either overwrites the changes from one user or would create a an extra copy of the database with _username that modified it last.

 

The best solution to this is to set a up SQL Server Database.

https://help.autodesk.com/view/ACAD_E/2024/ENU/?guid=GUID-1C2366EC-5532-480B-8AFE-EF9372809AF5

 

Regards,

Arshdeep Singh, C.Tech, CMSE®
Electrical Designer & Programmer
LinkedIn
www.blackcontrols.com

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