Off-Site Freelancing

[joeroscia]

Hi CAD Managers-

I am a freelance CAD technician providing outsourcing to a number of local companies.  Currently, I work with this one engineering firm on a regular basis, mostly evenings from my home office.  They forward me an existing conditions CAD file, I modify it to their CAD standards and then create site plans.  Often, there is a need to send these modified files back to the engineering company so they can make some edits for a submission while I am out at another clients office.  Occasionally, months later, I might be asked to do some further revisions on the drawings and both parties forget there are now two different versions of the same project, the originals I developed and the set sent back to them that they revised. 

As you can image this causes some unnecessary stress to both parties.  So I am reaching out to the group to see if anyone has some suggestions to a solution for this problem.  I've heard of a VPN connection in the past but am told that is a very slow way to work with the files.  Any suggestions would be very much appreciated!

Thank you!

Joe

[pendean]

Who is designated the Project Manager for these jobs that you do, anyone? tracking of changes is a serious task that falls on the Stakeholders' designated PM. Sadly it's a human function, there is not an easy-to-implement software or technical solution for losing track of changes when working with an outside freelance technician.

[joeroscia]

Hi Dean-

Yes, there are PM's assigned to these projects.  But, there are times when the project PM might be out in the field so another PM will jump in and temporarily take over the project for the submission to happen and assign me a task without knowing the most up to date files are on their own server.

[pendean]

Unless all of your clients want to implement q file check-in check-out program on their servers and strictly enforce its use and give you complete access all the time, you're looking for solution to an organizational problem that you alone cannot control and they may not be willing to pay for.

As a freelancer, all you can do is be completely difficult and insist on only the PM approve which files you work on (and risk losing the clients) or they need to better control their processes.

I feel your pain but you are an outsider trying to fix an internal organizational problem you have no control or influence over.

Good luck my friend.

[ryan.bales]

Did Deans answer solve your question?

From my perspective I would suggest that that they submit the files to you for reedit before each time you touch them, otherwise it could be a liability on your end. You could use something like Dropbox to share back and forth as well to minimize duplicate files of different edits.