AutoCAD Civil 3D - Data Shortcuts

[gjkengineer]

Hello, I have been experimenting with Data Shortcuts in Civil 3D 2017. I have specified a 'Working Folder' and created 'Data Short Cuts' using the sample structure. I've then created surface, alignment, profile and corridor data shortcuts which all work very well and look like there is plenty of potential. The problem I’m experiencing is this, when i want another user to be able to connect to the Working folder and subsequent data shortcuts folder in order to access the referenced survey and design elements, i am unable to do this. I navigate (in the prospector tab of tool space) to Data Shortcuts, right click and select 'Working Folder'. The only options available to me are to create New Data Shortcut folders, which I don’t want to do. I was expecting Civil 3D to recognise there was a data shortcut directory already established within the selected working folder, display the file path at the top of the Data Shortcuts drop down menu, and populate the Surfaces, Alignments, and corridor fields with the available data shortcut design elements present within this working folder. I've spent the better part of the day trying to resolve this without success. I've found one work around, which requires the user to open one of the source drawings in order for the data shortcut directory data to become available. but this seems like a convoluted process to what should be relatively straight forward. Any help/advice anyone can offer is greatly appreciated. Thank you in advance Gerry. AutoCAD Civil 3D 2017; Win7 Enterprise; Pentium i7; 64GB RAM; 4GB CGC; 1TB SSD

[Jowennl · Accepted solution]

Hi @gjkengineer,

Can you try this <Data shortcut Article Link> that I created? I have 3 screencast attached there and that may give you some tips and tricks about data shortcut.

First important thing you need to remember is that if you intend to share your data shortcut to someone like in a company, it is ideal to create the whole data shortcut and folder structure in a shared common data environment (CDE). It can be Autodesk Vault or Local Network drive or any equivalent you can have. If that is what you've done then all your colleague needs to do is to set working directory and he can access your data shortcut already. All source drawing should also be accessible by everyone in your team for data shortcut to be successful.

Cheers,

Jowenn

[codee]

"Set Data Shortcut Folder"

[g_k50]

Also it is necessary to associate the drawing file to the project.  This is done in Toolspace, right click in the data shortcuts about half way down the menu click on "Associate Project to Current Drawing"