Tips and tricks for working remotely

[kate.merriman]

Hello Autodesk community!  Do you have tips and tricks about how to survive and thrive while working remotely?  Share them here to help those who may be struggling with working from home for the first time or for much longer periods than normal (now that companies are helping slow the spread of COVID-19 by requesting or requiring employees to work from home).

What keeps you motivated, connected and feeling well?

What technologies are you using to stay productive?

Share your thoughts, both silly and serious and let's get each other through it!

[MoshiurRashid]

Well, the situation in my small country is not yet worse but bad. 3 confirmed infected and many under observation. I have a bad feeling that the number will be bigger in a week or two.

As a trainer, I had to shut down all the trainings for a while but, I continued to teach the most enthusiastic ones via Skype and Whatsapp. On the other hand, design works are going typically as it goes. But, I think my office will start working remotely also when the situation will get worse.

Please, stay safe everyone. Wash your hands when you return from outside, stay cleaned and drink a sip of water between 15-30 mins.

God bless.

[MarkGunnAutodesk]

Nice one @dan.stine . And for those of you using Zoom, there is an option to replace your background with an image instead, which I've found incredibly useful, as my office is my bedroom.

[patrick.emin]

And news from the Zoom company:

Zoom CEO Eric Yuan Is Giving K-12 Schools His Videoconferencing Tools For Free

[kate.merriman]

That is really good news, Patrick!  My 6-grader niece and all her classmates are using Zoom now.  It's wild to imagine the uptick in Zoom use that must be going on right now.

[Mistress0fTheDorkness]

https://www.inc.com/jason-aten/these-5-tech-companies-are-providing-free-remote-working-tools-during...

[steven-g]

So many different experiences for different people, I can well see how having family wandering about could be distracting, I live alone so that's not an issue. But I love it, my last place of work there were just 3 of us in the office, that was two too many. I love the solitude and especially the quiet if I get distracted by outside noise I put on headphone with just white noise (no that's not a band). I did find it difficult for a while settling into a 'productive' routine it was very easy to drift off into nonsense a quick internet search could run into half a day. I now find forcing myself to only work for two hours and then take a break the best method, keeps me focused. I also used find it easy to lose a 12 stretch once I was 'in the zone' (working but just no idea of time). I do find it more satisfying to set targets and stick to the two hour slots using an alarm to force me to stop. It's also much easier to keep a reliable track of bookable/billable hours.

[nicolaghiaroni]

Hello, I am a teacher of drawing and art history of high school, I currently work with my students in google 'Meet' for video lessons and class rooms. For the exercises I use Screencast and I find it fantastic, my students really like it. I only share them with students. I am not a champion of communication but I am enthusiastic about you Autodesk experts ... quick answers and very useful service. Thanks, a warm greeting from Italy and Milan.

[DRStandrich]

Instead of having to have a computer with the software all installed on at home, our company uses the remote access to connect to my PC at work. Works really well as I’m using the processing power of my pc at work, and only accessing the picture at home. I am running Civil 3D quite well.

[andrewdroth]

My hope is that this situation gets a discussion going on how poorly Autodesk software (Specifically Inventor+ Vault) is set-up to use remotely.

I currently run two instances of Inventor and Vault, one at the office and one on my home laptop. I've tried to set-up everything as strategically as I can to make the workflow as smooth as possible, and it is still a headache. 

I'm currently using the VPN option to log-into the vault server at work, but half the time it's less headache to just remote into the work machine and suffer the graphics toll. 

If Autodesk is listening, I think these VPN options are weak workarounds and there should be user friendly options for those that want to work remotely using your software.

I'm not sure how it is with the rest of the software catalog, but with Inventor's styles, libraries ,content center , profiles , presets , application options, user customization, vault settings, etc. it is very trying to make it work. And I'm probably more experienced  with networking, CAD management and Inventor than a lot of people trying...

I'd be interested to hear how easy the other packages are to use from home.


EDIT: If you agree, tell them here.

[kate.merriman]

Hi Andrew,

Autodesk is definitely listening!  In fact, this is a brand new form we've created for just exactly the kind of feedback you gave here.  Do you mind copying and pasting it into this form?  If not, I will find another way, but this will get the most attention.  

https://autodeskfeedback.az1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_4Z9w19VIOX4h48d

Thanks so much,
Kate

[andrewdroth]

@kate.merriman Thanks!

I have and I added the link to my post.

[m_kingdon]

I asked this question in the main forum but is Autodesk able to offer temporary licenses?  I am currently knee deep in corridor modelling and using remote access has been problematic in the past.

[kate.merriman]

Would you describe what you need here?  https://autodeskfeedback.az1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_4Z9w19VIOX4h48d

[cbenner]

@andrewdroth 

In addition to Kate's suggestion, I would also suggest that you could join the >>Vault and/or Inventor Beta program<<  if you haven't already.  This is a great place to make your voice heard directly by the people who really need to hear this kind of thing.  Trust me, they are listening and they are engaging.  Sometimes it just takes longer than we might like.  

[Mistress0fTheDorkness]

That's very cool! 

My sons will be in school Monday and Tuesday, discussing with their teachers how they will continue to learn while the school building is shut down for a few weeks. 

The kids who don't have devices at home already will be loaned one of the school's Chromebooks and I have already heard that a local internet provider is giving student households without current access, 60 days of free internet service with no connection fee. ... I don't know how many are so rural there aren't current lines in their areas? But, it's good that there are at least some options to keep them progressing.

My older son was due to take the ACT (standard pre-college exam) in a week, but, it's been postponed. 

[kate.merriman]

As usual, Chris, I like your suggestion even better than mine! 🙂

[michelle.rasmussen]

My trick to get moving is to drink a LOT of water. First you take a break to fill your water glass at least once per hour. In turn, it makes you use the bathroom a lot more, thus more movement. LOL!

[leowarren34]

@michelle.rasmussen Movement is good especially when we won't be getting as much as we are used to/need so the grouchiness will be a pain but hopefully keeping moving will alleviate that.

[DRStandrich]

Kansas just shut schools down for the rest of this school year!

[cbenner]

And as Tuesday dawns over mid Michigan, this thread suddenly becomes more important than ever to me.  I am currently setting up at least one laptop with all of our drafting software and tested it at home last night to see how well we can access Vault through our VPN.  The decision hasn’t been made yet, but we want to be ready to transition at least some

people to working from home.  So far so good.