Data Shortcuts Working Folder Location Does Not Work !!!!!!!!!!

[MSchille-1994]

How is everyone setting up there Data Shortcuts folders?  We used to set the Working Folder to each project and then the Project folder to each folder below that.  Problem was, opening other drawings in other projects, the Working folder sometimes would not adjust to that new drawing that was open.  So we switched to having the Working folder the same folder for every project moving forward, and simply set the Project folder from the long list of projects located in the Working folder.  I thought this was the intended workflow from Autodesk, but it is even worse.  It never remembers the Project folder for each drawing you open up.  

Is there a way that consistenly works all the time that any of you have found, or is everyone having this issue?

[user181]

I have no problems with working or project folders.  Are you using the Associate project to current drawing feature when right clicking on the Data Shortcuts in prospector?

[ecfernandez]

Hi guys! interesting discussion. What I normally do is to have an individual working and project folder per project. In this way, and as @user181 mentioned, associating the drawing with the project I never have problems with data shortcuts. 

Regards!

[AllenJessup]

SmartDraft has a tool for that on the Autodesk App Store

We have the full suite. So, I don't know how much the individual app costs.

https://apps.autodesk.com/CIV3D/en/Detail/Index?id=2607700357812369845&appLang=en&os=Win64

[Joe-Bouza]

The way I did it. All out projects are on one server and the root drive is O:. and all the project job number folders are then sequentially listed.

O: is the working folder and the project name is the exact name of the project folder. the _shortcut folder is created one level into the project folder

[cwitzel5NL5H]

I work on a lot of projects and this happens all of the time.   I seem to remember a time when this was working much better, maybe 10 years ago or so.

I have found that by right clicking on the drawing tab at the top, I can "Copy Full File Path", paste it into the Set Working Folder dialog then back up to the root folder.  Saves a lot of time browsing.

Bonus tip, also on the right click is "Open File Location" which opens an explorer window in the folder.

[MSchille-1994 · Accepted solution]

So this is what I found to be the problem. 

Whether it be how we did it before (set working folder and project folder to each project on the server) or how we currently do it (set the working folder to the network drive and the project folder is a long list of projects with the data shortcut folder under each project)...........we had a default _Data Shortcuts folder already created in our project folder template.  The secretary uses that project folder template to create brand new projects on the server.  Well, we were never using the "Create Data Shortcuts Project Folder" command because in our mind that folder was already existed when she created a new job.  I created that project folder by copying an old data shortcuts project folder from another project and deleting all of it's contents.  My plan in theory was good, but it didn't work.  By using the "Create Data Shortcuts Project Folder command, the folder history .xml is setup correctly.  

I tested this on four dummy projects and every time I switched a drawing, the data shortcuts folder switched as expected.

[lmaxson1013]

Oh my!  THANK you so so much!!

[sfore]

We set our DS working folder to a separate folder from where our project drawings are on the server. This folder location houses project folders only for data shortcuts. No drawings are in this location - only data shortcuts. When we browse to where our drawings are on the server and open drawings, the correct Data Shortcuts for the project opens without needing to set project or associate drawing to project.

Years back, I use to keep the Data Shortcut folders in the project folder where our cad drawings are, but if a folder gets renamed or moved, then your data reference ends up broken. The way I have it separated now, data stays safe and no matter what project you open, the correct data shortcuts are shown.

[MSchille-1994]

Yep that works well too.