Sharing drawings when working in teams

[Sam Lee]

We have 3 designers all using vectorworks - at the moment all 3 designers are working on the same project.

This presents a problem for us due to sharing drawings - we've resorted to have the drawings on a usb stick and who ever need the drawing uses the stick in their computer and edits the drawing.

This is really unproductive as it means only 1 person can work on the drawing at a time, although it guaranty that who ever is using it is using the latest copy.

Is there a industry standard / approach for working in a team were you all need access to the files ?

We all use google docs in the office which we love as we call all dip into the same files, live. Is there something that can be done similarly in vectorworks ?

[Hippocode]

We split our drawings into multiple files, all referenced in one masterfile. This way we can have multiple coworkers work on the same project ( but not on the same subfile ). Files are stored on our network.

I'm not aware of a better method

[Sam Lee]

When you say referenced in one masterfile - do you mean that its just noted "please read in conjunction with drawing xxx"

or is there a way to actauly reference it.. kinda like you do with hyperlinks linking one excel doc to another ..

[Hippocode]

Those files are referenced. You can choose between absolute or relative, I took the last one so each project has the same folder hierarchy.

Layers and resources can be used between several drawings, I actually like the way it works. I've linked these files in several ways that each file can "see" some parts of the others. The masterplan itself contains everything.

When referenced layers are edited while using them, an update button will refresh the updates from your co-workers directly in your drawing..

[Christiaan]

Is there a industry standard / approach for working in a team were you all need access to the files?

Yeah, it's called a BIM server and Vectorworks doesn't have one. ArchiCAD TeamWork for instance. Vectorworks, however, is stuck with a antiquated file-based layer sharing system for the foreseeable future, called Workgroup Referencing.

We all use google docs in the office which we love as we call all dip into the same files, live. Is there something that can be done similarly in vectorworks ?

We use an internal office server, but you could use Dropbox for this. It's not a direct server (instead files are synchronised between all workstations and the cloud) so you don't get a message that someone else is working on a file but it does have file conflict management built in):

http://dropbox.com

[GWS]

Have a look in the VW Help under 'Workgroup Referencing' it may help you get started.

[Christiaan]

Another thing that Dropbox is very good at is versioning; keeping backups as you go. When I've been working at home on my own stuff I've found this more reliable than VWs' built-in backup; I've had to lower the frequency of backups VW because they take too long.