Working on workshared model at home. Will this work?

[sheridanWUHND]

Hopefully this explanation is not too convoluted, any help will be greatly appreciated.

I am aware that opening Revit models directly over a VPN is not a supported workflow by Autodesk and could lead to file corruption. I need to do some work to a workshared project at home and do not have a remote desktop set up - our office has no Bim360 seats yet.

Is it okay to copy a work shared central model from my office's server over to my desktop using a VPN. I then plan to detach the central model while preserving worksets, and then will resave as a new central model on my computer. I will then open a local copy of this new central model on my desktop and will work and sync accordingly.

When I am done working I plan on detaching this central model on my desktop while preserving worksets, and then will resave as a central model over the VPN into the same folder on my office's server with the same file name. The other person working on the file and I will be in constant communication about the status of the model and who has the right to work on it on a given day.

I've basically been doing this for 3 years without issue, but only on projects where I was the only one working and I never detached and resaved the central model to the work server over a VPN...I always did this step while in the office over LAN. I was not aware of the VPN issues until recently - I don't know if resaving as a new central model over a VPN is a bad I idea, I hope it is not.

[ToanDN]

Revit server could be an option.

[joe_keogh]

Hi @sheridanWUHND 

Would you consideruing a Trial version of BIM 360 (ACC), for 30 days?

https://projectdelivery.autodesk.com/bim-collaborate-pro-trial// 

[RDAOU]

@sheridanWUHND 

Not sure how practical that is to work with the model overnight or over the weekend... Taking work home is no good. BUT If you do not want to invest thousands of $ in a Revit Server and/or BIM 360...sure it is doable. 

Nonetheless, instead of all the saving, detaching, creating new central back and forth process, you can use eTransmit to package the model and its linked document saving yourself lots of trouble.. Work with it on your laptop from home and when done eTransmit it back and take to the office,

Users will of course create a new local from the transmitted model

An Alternative which I have seen some students do when taking their workshared models home over weekends

1. Each will take a transmitted model
2. From home they would link the transmitted model into a blank Host Model "X" and work in the blank Revit model
3. When back they would bring with them model "X" >>> link it to the Central and bind their work

[sheridanWUHND]

I was looking into this but it involves work setting up a meeting with our IT consultants and I am not sure we will have a compatible server set up. Might be worth looking into for the long term if we don't do Bim360. I just need a quick fix for the next month or so for when I am working from home.

[sheridanWUHND]

I did not actually realize you could etransmit from Revit, this is great to know, thank you. I will definitely use this feature in the future but I am not sure this is much of a better solution than how I planned to work.

Even if I etransmit the model back to my offices server, I will still need to open the file over the VPN to save it as a central. My understanding is that etransmiting it back to a location does not automatically make it a central that someone can immediately open a local from (I did just try a test of this and the etransmitted model still needed to be saved when opened so that it could be used as a central).

[sheridanWUHND]

Thanks for the responses but my initial question was whether I could safely save a detached central model opened on my laptop at home, to our office's server via VPN with "Make this a central Model after save" selected. Or is doing this going to lead to file corruption? I have tested it and it takes some time to save...does this mean it could have issues writing the save and introduce corruption?

There are extensive threads out there about how people should never workshare and sync over a VPN as it could lead to file corruption, but this is a different situation as I would be saving an entire model file over the VPN not synching over it.

[RDAOU]

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@sheridanWUHND wrote:

I did not actually realize you could etransmit from Revit, this is great to know, thank you. I will definitely use this feature in the future but I am not sure this is much of a better solution than how I planned to work.

[REPLY] If you prefer to do it manually go ahead...What eTransmit does is that it basically saves you the trouble of compiling the linked models and IFC and all dependent files which need to be included automatically and/or the trouble of converting all absolute paths of dependent files to relative paths or ‘no path’ in order to ensure that the model can locate the dependent files. 

Even if I etransmit the model back to my offices server, I will still need to open the file over the VPN to save it as a central. My understanding is that etransmiting it back to a location does not automatically make it a central that someone can immediately open a local from (I did just try a test of this and the etransmitted model still needed to be saved when opened so that it could be used as a central).

[REPLY] Using eTransmit, the model would be automatically detached and transmitted as a Workshared model. When you place it on your server and Open from the File menu, eTransmit will be simply presented with a dialogue to save it as a central. IE:

- File Menu Open >>

- Select option from the eTransmit Dialogue (se below image) >>

- Close ... done with no hassle

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@sheridanWUHND See reply in RED

[sheridanWUHND]

Thank you for your help.

If I etransmit the revit model to my office over vpn (or etransmit it to my desktop and copy it over to our office drive). Is there any risk of model corruption?

Also, once I have the etransmitted the file to my office's server location, I plan on opening the file using Revit from my home work station at home to get it to save as a new central (as you included a screenshot of)....is there any chance doing this will lead to file corruption?

I just want to be able to safely work on the file at home and not have to explain to the other person that they not need to do something specific every time they access it. If they can just open it as a local right away that would best. 

[RDAOU]

No it it not likely that it will cause any issues... you are saving/transmitting the file not syncing it but again it depends on the stability of the VPN you are using (data can get corrupt even when transferring on Local network servers). If you are in doubt You can even send it via email and ask anyone there to do the 3 steps mentioned above.

[syman2000]

Why not remote desktop into your work computer and open the Revit file thru that? This is what majority of office uses if they don't want to go thru BIM360 route.

[sheridanWUHND]

know, I know....we were doing that but we had issues. Our IT company pushes weekly security updates which require rebooting and inevitably there were sporadic issues with someone's computer not restarting correctly and then someone not being able to work while waiting for someone else to get to the office to manually restart things. IT could never get it to work without this issue sometimes happening.

So the office has been buying laptops and the ide is that we could always do a cloud based solution (cloud models for revit?, or Bim360 for a bigger project on a project by project basis). Most projects are one person per model so its easy to just transfer the model as needed to work on it. I realize this is not good practice but am careful about backing up to the office server several times through the day.

[ToanDN]

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@sheridanWUHND wrote:

Thank you for your help.

If I etransmit the revit model to my office over vpn (or etransmit it to my desktop and copy it over to our office drive). Is there any risk of model corruption?

Also, once I have the etransmitted the file to my office's server location, I plan on opening the file using Revit from my home work station at home to get it to save as a new central (as you included a screenshot of)....is there any chance doing this will lead to file corruption?

I just want to be able to safely work on the file at home and not have to explain to the other person that they not need to do something specific every time they access it. If they can just open it as a local right away that would best. 

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There aren't likely any issue sending file over VPN.

The issue is that no one else can work on their local model / sync to the office server's Revit central file from the point you started working from home to the time the central is overwritten by your etransmit file.  In other word, people working in the office and people working remotely cannot work on the Revit model simultaneously.  Can you make sure of that?

Since you already have a office server and VPN in place, a Revitserver would only require a few hours of a IT/BIM administrator to be up and running.

[Lance.Coffey]

The following document has information on Options for Remote Access in Revit.

This discussion has reminded me of a couple additional options (that I’m updating the article above with):

• Cloud Models for Revit is a service similar to BIM Collaborate Pro, but access is included with the Revit Subscription. If your model does not need to be workshared, and you have access (or can get access) to a cloud account (BIM 360 Document Management / Autodesk Docs) then you could use this cloud service.
• Working offsite (at risk) is an old option for file-based worksharing where you check out the worksets you will need to be working with while in the office, save the local model, work on the local model while offsite, and then synchronize the local model when returning to the office. (Part of the danger in this method is that if you don’t check out the workset for all the elements you will need to modify, modify elements at risk, and another user makes a change to the same element in the office, then your local would not be compatible with the central model when trying to synchronize.)

Saving new central over VPN 

This would not be as safe operations made while in the office, as a WAN connection will (generally) be less stable than a LAN connection.

However, by only saving a new central model to the server, and then having your colleague wait to work on the model until after you’ve uploaded your changes, it sounds like you would be avoiding a lot of the downsides involved in trying to synchronize over a WAN (specifically when the central model is corrupted, and you roll back a prior version, other users working in the model have to abandon their existing local models and create new ones, losing work).

If you will be using this workflow for saving the central model over the VPN, I would suggest doing one of the following:

• Keep your local copy of the model that you uploaded (that can then be re-uploaded if your colleague reports that the central model can’t be opened).
• After successfully saving the central model, check if it can be re-opened (this could be through creating a local, or copying locally and opening); to make sure that it was not damaged in the upload process.

Also, while focus is often put on bandwidth, when looking at an Internet connection, for this workflow latency (ping time) is important (Revit is expecting LAN level latency, so operations will timeout faster than for a workflow that is expected to be used on a WAN).

Remote Desktop

I imagine it would be possible for fixes to be found with process or hardware to allow more consistent remote desktop usage. For example have IT ensure that each system starts back up successfully when installing an update, and if they can’t do this consistently while working remotely, look into some Internet based power switches (turn it off, turn it back on, then use wake on Lan to wake up the system).