Is there a way to tell if you are working in the central model or a local copy?

[Anonymous]

Is there a way to tell if someone is working in the central model or a local copy?  The reason I ask is there are some people who dont pay attention when opening up projects and instead of going to open in revit and checking create local copy they just double click on the central model not paying attention. We often have permission problems and I will walk over and ask if they are working in the central file and they always say "I dont know, I dont think so".

[CoreyDaun]

I think an easy way would be to go to Collaborate » Worksets. If they indeed have the Central File open, then they will be the owner of everything, including worksets, families, and views.

[Anonymous · Accepted solution]

Simple way to check what type of model you are in is to look at the save buttons available to you on the Quick Access Toolbar.

• Diskette symbol only - you are in a stand alone model with no worksharing enabled,
• Other save symbol (always think it looks like a present) - you are in a central file with worksharing enabled.
• Both save symbols active - you are in a local copy of the workshared file.

Good luck with trying to break the laziness of double clicking on the files rather than opening the proper way.

You could try educating them to take a copy of the central file (using copy paste function through windows) onto their machine and then open that copy any way they like. That way they will always open up a local copy and when opening, they will be informed as such.

[abulla]

There used to be a handy add-on called the Work Sharing Monitor that would show who was working in local files and who was in a central file, but I'm not sure if it's been updated for 2012.

[Anonymous]

Worksharing Monitor is still the same and comes as part of subscription supposedly. Users should have that open and running at the same time that they are working in Revit worksharing enabled file.

Ideally though - teaching users to look at the Quick Access Toolbar and recognise that they should have two icons available would be quicker and better.