Several users: staying in projects for days-while other users are trying to work-ERRORS

[simmonsEDP9W]

This is really an in-house Best Practice type of Question

Several users open multiple projects and leave them open for days and days. (While other users are trying to work on the same projects, whether they are just an in-house central model or they are in the Cloud). Then, days later, (those that leave the projects open, will just continue to work on the project without syncing and leave it open for days and days again). Many error messages arise from this poor practice.  (file out of date, user-xyz has control (ask for permission, or the dreaded, etc).

So, my question is. Does anyone have any intelligent write up that outlines/explains why this is a poor practice? So that, armed with concrete evidence, i can teach others why they should stop this poor practice.  An outline with actual pictures would be a special benefit.

Thank you for any suggestions/comments/help.

David

[Jason.P]

This is just a really bad practice, and I would just implement a very simple office / company rule, that you must close all Autodesk software and any related project files. Regardless of it being Revit, Autocad, Advanced steel etc. You should also do a small office learning session on the proper way to save and sync revit. I do not think an explanation is really needed. This is also really important if you are going to be moving over to tokens, as you will be charged per day, for each user.

Something like an end of day check list. 

save model (min every 1hr)

sync model (twice a day or as required)

close model

close software

Just for the record you can also remotely kick people out of the model if you really need to.

Revit Cloud Worksharing Best practices (autodesk.com)

Feel free to reach out to me if you have any more questions. 

[hmunsell]

“Does anyone have any intelligent write up that outlines/explains why this is a poor practice? So that, armed with concrete evidence”

i’d say your evidence is already in your office. Document these errors, document the time/hours lost (your and there’s), archive the history files from the projects (this will show you who was in the files and when they saved). Did I mention document yet 😉? Get your information organized and bring it to your management. Show management the time lost, and the hours lost and the impact on the project budget. Hopefully they will back you up on enforcing a office policy. 

i’d also work on trying to figure out what the root cause is as to why they’re working like that. Are they just lazy, do they not care that it’s causing other people downtime? Do they not understand how central and local files work? I had a couple people working like that at one point because they “didn’t want anybody else to see what they were doing until they were ready”. 

Not knowing what authority you have in your office, depending on how forceful you want to be, there are ways on the servers to enforce group policies. It’s been a while since I’ve done IT, but IT should be able to push something that restarts a PC at a certain time (2am?). People will lose work, but after they do that a couple of times hopefully they’ll learn to shut down there PC’s at night before they leave. 

[simmonsEDP9W]

Indeed, ignorance is an issue for some. However, a lot of people believe it's too time consuming to shut down, close projects, exit Revit, etc.  Some of those are management. So, i'd like to be gentle moving forward but i'd also like to be candid. Documenting the issues and showing them that the Autodesk Forum is full of Experienced/Expert users that have the same opinion may bode well for me.  

All, Keep up the input! i believe it will be valuable coupled with the documentation that i put together.

thanks!

David

[Jason.P]

they few minutes it will take them each day to do things properly, will save hours of rework, if not days later down the road. Errors on their end and others side of the model, lead to time spent figuring out the error, finding the solution, this is all time you can not afford on a project, nor should you be charging to a client. 

I put a little schedule in my first reply, but here is another one.

arrive at office, open revit, go get coffee, open file, continue on project

coffee break, hit save and go get coffee

lunch, hit save and synce go have luncht (everyone comes back with synced models...yaaaa us)

coffee break, hit save and go get coffee

end of day, hit save and sync, close and exit. 

so easy. 

But I totally get your frustration, as old habits for people are hard to break.

If all else fails use the lunch box example. 

good revit users make and pack a lunch every day, always having fresh and new food to eat. (aka data and modeled elements to syn)

bad revit users, make a lunch on Monday, save it and do not go to eat it tell Friday...rotten apples, moldy sandwich and out of date milk. 

[simmonsEDP9W]

Roger that!

[hmunsell]

@Jason.P 

I like your Good Revit User/Bad Revit User example. So True..... 😂

[Jason.P]

Thanks, not my first rodeo. LOL

[simmonsEDP9W]

i Liked it! 🙂 😂

[Jason.P]

thanks very much. Let me know if there is anything I can do for your. Feel free to reach out directly to me.

[simmonsEDP9W]

Anyone else want to weigh in here....