Standalone installations and networked design centre

[JamesPowell7164]

I hope that someone has experienced this previously.

We have 8 detailers and 6 internal designers with one off site designer. All have standalone installations of AutoCAD on their local machines. We are all connected to the company network and have access to common drives. We have some standard blocks that we use and we are planning to store these and access them from the Design Centre. My question is:

Is it possible to have one copy of the information source (the drawing in the design centre) that all standalone machines can access so that if any changes occur to the blocks, they can be done to one drawing without the necessity to then copy the drawing onto each workstation.

We are all on the same version of ACAD LT (2017).

Thanks in anticipation.

[pendean]

Place your shared blocks on the files server/shared PC in a folder, with subfolders in it.
On everyone's ADCENTER, navigate to that folder and tag it as "HOME".

Just like you do all of your project files on a file server/shared PC.

Or are you saying that you all, in this one office and among the 8 of you, really and truly work on 8-separated machines with the possibility of having 8-copies of every single project file floating all over the place with no central location for access?

[JamesPowell7164]

Stop laughing - I can hear you from here!!!!

I am saying that we are networked but we all have standalone installations and yes - it could be that we have more than one copy of a file!

We used Radan and that has its own server and stores files in personal directories on that server.

The new AutoCAD installations have no strategy laid down and so therefore each person, in theory, is allowed to store information locally. Dumb or what???

Unfortunately I am not responsible for the implementation of IT strategy otherwise this loophole would quickly be closed.

Thanks for your help Dean.

[pendean · Accepted solution]

That is a setup that is not designed for sharing, so forget about it 😞

Once things change, you can share as you wish.

Good luck.

[JamesPowell7164]

We do have a central network drive but we have Acad installed locally on each machine. We can share files but we are just having the rollout for the company. What I want to do is to be able to allow people to use standard blocks via the design centre but then, if any of the blocks are revised or updated, not to have to install the standard drawing on every machine.

Does that make sense?

[pendean]

Your shared blocks can be on any PC or drive on your network that everyone else can access with a drive letter or full path using good ole WIndows Explorer without having to plug something in/out or log-in anywhere.

There is no requirement or restriction for them to be installed along with the AutoCAD program only.