Relinquish automatically on close

[Hauk-Morten]

I think Revit should automatically relinquish all elements when a user closes a workshared model. A user has to synchronize periodically and when closing anyway. If a user works for long without synchronizing and then closes the file, any changes lost will be problematic for that person. When elements are reserved by someone who forgot to relinquish and then left on holiday, it stops everybody else from doing their job, potentially for several days. I am working on a big project, and we are having issues with this on a weekly, if not daily basis.

[Hauk-Morten]

@christopher_bahr:
If the dialogs you posted worked every single time, it would at least be a big improvement. The "Save or don't save" (synch or don't) dialog I would still expect to be there, like in all other software (sorry for bad phrasing in my last comment). But the "relinquish?" dialoge would then be reduntant, yes.

I was not aware that anyone intentionally keep things checked out to lock the model. If there are indeed users who have this workflow, the behaviour we're discussing could of course be optional. However, if anyone does this, it might suggest we need a way to protect parts of the model like excel "Protect sheet" or similar anyway, something that can allow more than one person access to the rights of protecting or unprotecting, or at least enable a more transparent way of seeing what is currently locked.

"Auto-relinquish on close" could simply be a checkbox in the settings. But if it was checked by default, it would enable the very few users with that particular workflow to use it without making trouble for everyone else. Yes, a user working offline would lose their work if closing Revit while offline and clicking "Close without synchronizing" in the dialog. Since synchronizing is also not available while offline, that is consistent. Anyone wanting to work on workshared models thus must expect to either keep Revit running until they can get back online, or download a detached model and copy their changes into the workshared model afterwards. I think most users don't even know that working offline with a borrowed license is possible. The hassle of the described behaviour I believe is less than we currently have with unintended ownership conflicts.

 "One use case I know of for Relinquish All Mine is if you take ownership of some chunk of elements and then change your mind. That button serves as the bulk relinquish mechanism for that case without needing to close Revit. Certainly though in most cases though relinquish happens as part of the sync rather than as an explicit action."

If I check out elements, it is in order to change something. I know what triggers a check out of worksets, but I don't know what triggers checking out anything else. So when I am in doubt, I synch. Unless I pressed "Relinquish All Mine" without moving the mouse afterwards, I assume that at all times I have something checked out. Which means, if I change my mind before two seconds have passed since checking out worksets and before I have touched anything else at all, your use case is relevant. I might be wrong on how these things work, but that is how I experience it. So if we lose this ability, I don't think I'd ever miss it.

The fact that "force relinquish" has been moved is indeed very good news, thank you!

I will try to remember to contact support every time anything is still checked out after a synch.

@scott.r.kennedy: I really like the idea of a "synch and close"-button, I would definitively use that. If you post it in the idea board, please link to the idea in these comments so I can vote for it 🙂