Desctop connector synchronize tricker

[ollikat]

Hello...
Firstly, I do apologize if this is in a wrong forum...just quite yet fully know the BIM 360 product line.

I would like to know better, what is the tricker for the desctop connector to synchronize changed files.

I'm asking this because we are developing a Revit external application (add-in), where we have additional file beside the actual project file (rvt). We are constantly reading & writing into this file. But it seems that while we are doing this (programmatically), the file is not updated/synchronized properly.

* The file might not even physically exist, when tried to be opened from the code. The connector only downloads the actual file after it is being opened directly from the windows file explorer
* When writing some changes, the connector doesn't updload changes. Again, changes are being transfered after some manual operations are performed for the file.

So...again, how to "touch" the file programmatically in the way that desctop connector will wake up and do it's job :-).

[ollikat]

Hello...
Firstly, I do apologize if this is in a wrong forum...just quite yet fully know the BIM 360 product line.

I would like to know better, what is the tricker for the desctop connector to synchronize changed files.

I'm asking this because we are developing a Revit external application (add-in), where we have additional file beside the actual project file (rvt). We are constantly reading & writing into this file. But it seems that while we are doing this (programmatically), the file is not updated/synchronized properly.

* The file might not even physically exist, when tried to be opened from the code. The connector only downloads the actual file after it is being opened directly from the windows file explorer
* When writing some changes, the connector doesn't updload changes. Again, changes are being transfered after some manual operations are performed for the file.

So...again, how to "touch" the file programmatically in the way that desctop connector will wake up and do it's job :-).

[Luciane_Conceicao]

Hi,

Thanks for your post.

I understand that Desktop Connector will only download files that are opened by the user, so that would explain the first part of your query.

Now, I am checking what will trigger the file upload and get back to you soon.

Cheers,

Luciane

[Luciane_Conceicao]

Hi,

Thanks for your post.

I understand that Desktop Connector will only download files that are opened by the user, so that would explain the first part of your query.

Now, I am checking what will trigger the file upload and get back to you soon.

Cheers,

Luciane

[ollikat]

Hi, and thanks for your reply!

To be more precise, I think I'm after a bit more detailed technical answer though. I believe it probably will require some of the developers to provide some insights about desctop connector implementation.

If it's not meaningfull to share such details in this forum, I would appreciate some technical contact from the dev team etc.

[ollikat]

Hi, and thanks for your reply!

To be more precise, I think I'm after a bit more detailed technical answer though. I believe it probably will require some of the developers to provide some insights about desctop connector implementation.

If it's not meaningfull to share such details in this forum, I would appreciate some technical contact from the dev team etc.

[Luciane_Conceicao]

Hi,

Our engineers say that the changed file is probably not being uploaded because it's also in use.

I am waiting for further response from our engineering team.

If you prefer, you could post your question here: BIM 360 API Forum.

Cheers,

Luciane

[Luciane_Conceicao]

Hi,

Our engineers say that the changed file is probably not being uploaded because it's also in use.

I am waiting for further response from our engineering team.

If you prefer, you could post your question here: BIM 360 API Forum.

Cheers,

Luciane

[Luciane_Conceicao · Accepted solution]

Hi,

Thanks for waiting, here is the update I got from our engineers:

Desktop Connector will pick up new versions (per save) within 15 seconds and upload that version to the data source (BIM Docs). However, there are some known workflows where the Desktop Connector needs to wait until the application is closed before it can upload the files. This particular workflow is when you have a new version of a file that references a file that is outside of the Desktop Connector workspace. The reason for this is because the Desktop Connector cannot track the file status of files that are not in the workspace. It would be problematic if a file was uploaded before a new version of one of its linked files was saved. To be sure, it purposely waits for the application to close.

I hope this explanation helps you, please let us know if you need any other details.

Cheers,

Luciane

[Luciane_Conceicao · Accepted solution]

Hi,

Thanks for waiting, here is the update I got from our engineers:

Desktop Connector will pick up new versions (per save) within 15 seconds and upload that version to the data source (BIM Docs). However, there are some known workflows where the Desktop Connector needs to wait until the application is closed before it can upload the files. This particular workflow is when you have a new version of a file that references a file that is outside of the Desktop Connector workspace. The reason for this is because the Desktop Connector cannot track the file status of files that are not in the workspace. It would be problematic if a file was uploaded before a new version of one of its linked files was saved. To be sure, it purposely waits for the application to close.

I hope this explanation helps you, please let us know if you need any other details.

Cheers,

Luciane

[anil_mistry]

Hi @ollikat,

I'm just checking in to see if you need more help with this. Did the suggestion that @Luciane_Conceicao provided work for you?

If so, please click Accept as Solution on the posts that helped you so others in the community can find them easily.

Thank you and have a great day!

[anil_mistry]

Hi @ollikat,

I'm just checking in to see if you need more help with this. Did the suggestion that @Luciane_Conceicao provided work for you?

If so, please click Accept as Solution on the posts that helped you so others in the community can find them easily.

Thank you and have a great day!

[ollikat]

Hi

Apologies for my late respond. I'm afraid that I still haven't got an answer I was hoping. The reason is that file synch simply doesn't happen in the scenario I originally described. I actually just tested it again.

* Even waiting for a while (a lot more than 15 secs), nothing happens
* Even closing the Revit process (thus shutting down all our application activities), still it doesn't get synchronized.

So...to me it seems like desktop connector is not capable of synchronizing when file(s) are being modified "behind the scenes". For some reason it seems that it doesn't notice the change.

I also ensured that when using our application in similar way, but using a normal local file, the file time stamp was constantly updated while modifying it similarly. So that should not be a problem there (I mean not being properly updated etc.). I need to do this because Desktop Connector folder view doesn't show the time & date column.

So it still remains a mystery for me. The first thing I would like to know for SURE is that, is the scenario even tried to be supported by the desktop Connector (detecting changes in the background instead of manual editing or direct Revit interaction)? If not, then could there be any work arounds to apply and try to get Desktop Connector reacting. And if yes, could there be some kind of short coming in the Desktop Connector functionality...?

[ollikat]

Hi

Apologies for my late respond. I'm afraid that I still haven't got an answer I was hoping. The reason is that file synch simply doesn't happen in the scenario I originally described. I actually just tested it again.

* Even waiting for a while (a lot more than 15 secs), nothing happens
* Even closing the Revit process (thus shutting down all our application activities), still it doesn't get synchronized.

So...to me it seems like desktop connector is not capable of synchronizing when file(s) are being modified "behind the scenes". For some reason it seems that it doesn't notice the change.

I also ensured that when using our application in similar way, but using a normal local file, the file time stamp was constantly updated while modifying it similarly. So that should not be a problem there (I mean not being properly updated etc.). I need to do this because Desktop Connector folder view doesn't show the time & date column.

So it still remains a mystery for me. The first thing I would like to know for SURE is that, is the scenario even tried to be supported by the desktop Connector (detecting changes in the background instead of manual editing or direct Revit interaction)? If not, then could there be any work arounds to apply and try to get Desktop Connector reacting. And if yes, could there be some kind of short coming in the Desktop Connector functionality...?

[Luciane_Conceicao]

Hi,

I am in touch with our engineering team and will let you know once I have news, sorry for the delay.

Cheers,

Luciane

[Luciane_Conceicao]

Hi,

I am in touch with our engineering team and will let you know once I have news, sorry for the delay.

Cheers,

Luciane