Topic: Open from Local or Central

[RobDraw]

In training, we were taught to always open the central model. A new hire that was trained elsewhere was taught to always open their local file.

What is best practice and why or does it really matter?

[M@yhem]

You can create a local model from the central by simply opening the central model and utilizing the CREATE NEW LOCAL toggle (turned on automatically whenever a valid central model is selected).  The central model will be copied to the user's DEFAULT PATH FOR USER FILES setting.  This is faster than copying the central model from the network to your local drive, renaming, opening and clicking through the "this model has been moved from X to Y" message box.  It also ensures that you're always using the latest and greatest version of the model.  If you haven't worked on the local model for a few weeks while others have, when you open your local file you may not be able to reload all of the latest changes because there just may be too many.  Personally, I like to copy/rename/open the central model because I like to keep my local models organized in a similar structure to our network (I.E. project number and name).

So to answer your question, either way of creating a local file is acceptable - one is just faster than the other.

[RobDraw]

This user is opening his old local file, not creating a new one. I was thinking that he might run into trouble sooner or later but up until now he's been trouble free.

[M@yhem]

This user is opening his old local file, not creating a new one. I was thinking that he might run into trouble sooner or later but up until now he's been trouble free.

Tell him to STOP opening an old local model.  If it's been more than a week since the last time he's opened his local file, he needs to create a new one using one of the two methods I described above.

[RobDraw]

Thank you for confirming my thoughts.

[Krushert]

This user is opening his old local file, not creating a new one. I was thinking that he might run into trouble sooner or later but up until now he's been trouble free.

Tell him to STOP opening an old local model.  If it's been more than a week since the last time he's opened his local file, he needs to create a new one using one of the two methods I described above.

Since I am learning Revit I will ask the "why" questions.
Why would would he have to create a new local if he could just "Resync" a second or third time to get the rest of the updates?

Just curious?

[RobDraw]

He said something similar and I just responded, "Why go through the trouble of opening the local and syncing when you could get the latest by opening from the central?"

Now if for some reason his local had changes that had not been synced with the central then I would think that he would have to open his local and then sync with central in order to retain his changes.

[RobDraw]

This coworker is continuing to open his local file. Is there anything I can do to the central file that will give him an error when he opens his local file? He is relatively new and I don't want to have to go to management with this.

[danallen]

I know nothing about revit, but can you change his workstation file association behavior to include some command line switches that force opening from server? Or to run a batch script which does same?

(future revit wannabe)

Dan

[M@yhem]

This coworker is continuing to open his local file. Is there anything I can do to the central file that will give him an error when he opens his local file? He is relatively new and I don't want to have to go to management with this.

Nope.  While it's okay to open/resync from a local file, it's not recommended if he hasn't worked on the project for more than a couple of days.  Revit may not be able to reconcile the amount of changes.  It's always best to start with the latest information.

[diarmuid]

Our Revit users need to map the network drive daily as the Revit models are stored on a specific network share.  The energy policy makes the machines switch off here at night and the must remap every morning (its an icon  on the desktop that runs a "cmd" file from the newtwork).  Part of this daily share remap will go to the save location of local models and blow away all revit models.

This means that the Revit user must obtain a new local file daily.  This server share "cmd" file used to copy revit central files to the local folder, but it got messy when there was a few revit jobs on the go.  Some guys were working on four or five different Revit projects.  I was also very uncomfortable with the warning message appearing all the time that this central model is not at it original location etc.  So i dropped the force copy part but kept the force delete and the user now opens the central model and creates the local file his or herself as needed.  Now I'm only trial running this at the moment so its a "suck and see" but there are no problems so far.  The downside is you are relying on people not to open the central model but a local copy of same.I looked at trying to automate it but without much luck.

In short, regardless of which method, we force a user to get a new local copy every day.  weather it was automated or not.  Hope this helps

D.