SharePoint based Support Files - Lessons Learned

[EIversonAnvil]

This is less of an inquiry and more a report of results. The company I work for has stored support files on our local servers so that all settings and standards can be accessed by all users without having to worry about versions. The secondary portion of this is that we have software that allows us to change the options prior to startup so that standards for client "A" don't have to be the same for client "B". This works well when working across 100GB ethernet, but as we all went to working from home with a variety of speeds it became problematic.

Typical issues:

• Excessive start-up times (as much as 6-9m for a blank drawing)
• Command lag (entering commands has to be done 1 keypress at a time, we were seeing a lag of up to 3s between typing the first letter and when you could type the next key)
• Tooltip lag (any instance when a tooltip would populate would generate lag of 3-30s)

In the past, to avoid these problems what we've done is copy the support files to the C drive, but without knowing how long we'd be working from home the question was how do we deal with updates to the support files.

The solution we came up with was to store the support files on SharePoint (SP) and use the OneDrive (OD) application to sync the files to the local computer. To do this we've replicated the general folder structure of the server at the top level with our support files in their relative positions below it. Such as below:

SERVER
└ ACAD-SUPPORT-FILES
  ├ APPS
  ├ CLIENTS
  │ ├ CLIENT-A
  │ │ └ [Client specific files]
  │ └ CLIENT-B
  ├ FONTv22
  └ LISPv22

The result is that the average time to open a file is well under a minute, generally around 40s, and there is a general improvement in response time for all commands and tooltips. The only lag we're experiencing is the lag of the working files that are located on the server.

We have found 1 problem with this method, and we do have a work-around, however the nature of the problem is such that we are unaware if it's happening it areas that simply aren't as visible. This method syncs the files from SP, OD has 3 basic states for file being synced.

• In Cloud
• On Device (Temporary)
• On Device (Always)

When a file is "In Cloud" AutoCAD does not necessarily recognize the file is available for use. This was found by way of CTB files being unavailable in the Plot window. The files were in the correct location in the SP folder but were not available in AutoCAD until we right clicked on our Plot Styles folder and selected "Always keep on this device" from the OD menu. This fixed the missing CTB issue.

[sophia_lee]

Hi @EIversonAnvil , 

Thank you so much for your information. 

The content is very helpful. 

Warmest.

[scbunker]

Do you to link Excel files into ACAD drawings via OLE links? Have you found a workaround for doing that when the Excel files are on sharepoint or onedrive?

[dmfrazier]

"In the past, to avoid these problems what we've done is copy the support files to the C drive, but without knowing how long we'd be working from home the question was how do we deal with updates to the support files."

Why not just set up a recurring task (to run at a low-impact, specified time or event), that robocopies the support files (via BAT file) from the server to the client?

[EIversonAnvil]

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I'm rather unclear what you're wanting to accomplish. If I am understanding your comment correctly, the answer is "no".

My posting was specific to the support files that all users may use during the course of their work, not the working files. We still leave the DWG files that are client deliverables on our server, it's simply the support files that we've migrated to SharePoint. Files such as LISP routines, scripts, menu files, block libraries, and definitions are all now stored on our SharePoint server and synchronized down to the individual PCs through OneDrive. 

[EIversonAnvil]

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@dmfrazier wrote:

Why not just set up a recurring task (to run at a low-impact, specified time or event), that robocopies the support files (via BAT file) from the server to the client?

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Our structure is such that we have multiple departments and clients that not everyone uses. Dept 1 may use only baseline AutoCAD, whereas Dept 2 may use AutoCAD with 3rd party addons (also stored on SharePoint now), and Dept 3 may use another CAD software. All those support files are currently organized within our local server, and now SharePoint. In addition to this Clients A, B, and C, each have their own block libraries and standards we have to adhere to. So 2 users in all likelihood don't need the same files for their work. Because OneDrive initially makes only a file table of what's available, a user requiring 1A files wouldn't have to download 2C files. Since we didn't have time to push the support files to the end-user's PCs before the shelter-in-place orders took effect, reducing the download required for our server drive that stores around 500GB of files was preferable.

We briefly discussed the possibility of an in-house application that could download the specific Department/Client combinations, but ultimately decided that the SharePoint solution was the most cost-effective and quickest to implement. An additional bonus is that the SharePoint solution does not require connection to the VPN to work. As such it can be run after hours without having to worry about dropped VPN connections, an issue we've been running into, especially for those with poor internet connectivity.

[dmfrazier]

Gotcha. Clearly, your situation is more complicated than mine.

Thanks for posting your "lessons learned" and this response. Some day it might come in handy.

[EIversonAnvil]

At this point we aren't using excel files within our documents nor do we use OLE links, so unfortunately I don't have an actual solution for you. 

Theoretically if the DWG and the XLSX are both stored in the same SharePoint folder, and they're linked using a relative link, you could synchronize the SP folder using the OneDrive app and have it work, although you may need to ensure that both files (or at least the XLSX) are set to "Always available on this device".

[EIversonAnvil]

That was a method that was floated and considered, but there were a few flaws with doing it in our situation.

Our ACAD server that houses the files in office houses roughly 500GB of files covering 6 disciplines and 125+ clients. At the moment we're dealing with a subset of that reflecting 8–9GB of files (182,000+ individual files) and a dozen active clients. While 25GB isn't a huge drain on a 1TB hard drive, if only 1GB is necessary why push the extra, and if in switching clients a user then had to download another 1GB of data to perform their work, then that would make some of our more rural users unable to work for several hours.

OneDrive allowed us to make all the files in our active subset available in a virtually on demand state. In the year of working this way, with the exception of the CTB files we've not found any other support files that are invisible to AutoCAD when not "available on the device". So as a file is requested it gets downloaded.

[EIversonAnvil]

And now I feel like a goober because I just replied to your reply not realizing that I'd done so 8 months ago.

[nick.vanegmond]

Hi @EIversonAnvil , just picking up on a "older" topic. We are also exploring in using SharePoint for Support files. Good to read you made this happen and working for your company. We choose to keep as much support files stored on the default location, the local c-drive. If it doesn't require to be in the cloud, then leave it standard and don't try to improve it.

However, we do share some files like the CTBs and DWTs. Al short background how we deploy software, we use SCCM to create install packages with most settings predefined and include shortcuts and profiles. This works like a charm!! Our current solution for the support files is to install it via SCCM on the local D-drives as a package. This contains AutoCAD, Civil3D and Revit files. During installation of on of the tools, a script will check if the folder D:\ApplicationData\ is present, if yes, the package installs the tool and leaves the folder unharmed. If no, the second package will install the support files to the D-drive (all links are predefined in the SCCM packages of each tool). 

There are two mayor downsides to this way of working...

1. Updating the package. If you add, remove of update files, the package need to be deployed to all (400 in our case) users. This can be done with a push but still, it will take some time and you don't want to do this that often.

2. We are staring to use AWS Virtual Desktops combined with local installations on laptops. There is no D-drive on the VM, so we can not deploy the ApplicationData package to that environment. We "solved" it by copying and linking to the folder on the C-drive, but this is all manual labor to maintain this. 

So, we are looking for options and now exploring Sharepoint. This seems to have all the benefits for sharing files in multiple environments and even countries. We use Sharepoint for communities and also store lots of source files live Revit Families and AutoCAD customer libraries. Would be perfect to synch the files to local like you described and preconfigure the tools to link directly to that location when installing. Here comes the tricky part (at least this is where we are stuck at the moment...)

Our idea was to synch the online SharePoint folder to the Business OneDrive on the laptop or VM and have this synch automatically activated when the user installs one of the tools (deployment rights via AD and link SP rights to this folder as well and push right via group policy). Only thing we notice is that the folder is using <USERID> in the path name. In my case: D:\Users\<USERID>\Company ABC\AutoCAD - Application Data\ (Business OneDrive is set in System variables to D-drive due to limited size of C-drive). 

- How can we link the path in AutoCAD (by default) to the folder using a variable in the path? 

- Are there any other options to synch a folder to a shared location (which not use the USERID of some variable) we can use both in the VM as on the laptops? 

Please let me know if you have any tips or tricks that may help up. Feel free to contact me directly. 

Thanks!!!