Cloud Collaboration for Entertainment Industry

[Haydenovative]

Hi Guys,

We have just had a long group conversation and found ourselves going in circles regarding using the cloud rather than our office server for our Vectorworks applications.

I suspect we have a unique setup with unique issues and googling Vectorworks cloud collaboration only takes me to the VW Cloud services, and while they may still end up being the correct answer, there are things we don't like about that and we keep coming back to dropbox or Onedrive for business.

We have 5 VW Licences, 4 belong to our account managers and one for me who creates all blank venue plans and symbol folders. I work from within the office and so do they 99% of the time, but for when they are on the road touring the shows they need version control and access to documents and that where we are coming undone.

The current method is that they take away the files on USB sticks, work on them remotely and (They often forget to) upload those files when they are next in the office. This has lead to changes being missed and people overwriting others work, so a solution must be found.

We currently hold All venues, shows and symbols on our office server, if we were to upload everything to Dropbox that would create enormous local storage issues on all of the laptops as well as all machines having to constantly be synced as each manager changes their files and they are re-distributed amongst the rest of the group, this also raises the issue of two people working on offline versions of the file and who's overwrites who's when they are both brought back online.

I'm interested in how anyone else is dealing with these issues, as well as managing the sheer size of our databases now, please ask me any questions to help you ascertain what were doing wrong and how we might implement cloud computing.

[Haydenovative]

Pluses and Minuses

DROPBOX for business:

- Keeps enormous local versions

- Doesn't stop multiple users accessing the files simultaneously (Overwrite issues)

+ Keeps unlimited 'Undos'

+ Recognised by Nomad and has solid apps on all devices, easy collaboration with other companies

OneDrive for Business:

- Isn't recognised by Nomad, has complicated file structures, Apps on devices are a bit buggy

- Difficult to collaborate with people outside of the business not also using OneDrive

+ Unlimited Storage

+ Were already paying for it as part of Office 360

VW Cloud Services:

- Creates enormous PDF Files that are pretty much useless

- Cant send links to folders to people outside of the Vectorworks world

- Large files aren't viewable on Nomad anyway

+ Native to Vectorworks so should be the right answer

+ Concerns around 3D Credits and costs once this is enabled

[Kevin McAllister]

I think the new Project Sharing feature coming in VW2016 will do most of what you need ( https://techboard.vectorworks.net/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=210685#Post210685 )

It also sounds like your account managers ideally need remote access capabilities for your server......

KM

[Mickey]

I'm interested in how anyone else is dealing with these issues, as well as managing the sheer size of our databases now, please ask me any questions to help you ascertain what were doing wrong and how we might implement cloud computing.

I think the new Project Sharing feature coming in VW2016 will do most of what you need ( https://techboard.vectorworks.net/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=210685#Post210685 )

The new project sharing feature isn't going to work for the entertainment industry. I've looked into it, and thought for a moment it would, but so far as I can tell not yet.

To point of the topic.

There is no perfect solution, and all the versions I work with are subject to the discipline of the users, but I'll share with you how I've done it with the teams I work with.

First of all I hate dropbox because of the way their pay structure is. I prefer Onedrive, but since most people use Dropbox I have to play along.

All files are stored on the cloud drive let's say Dropbox. After the show is over files are cleaned up and moved to the company server.

The trick is for everyone to use workgroup references.

You create the master file. That master file contains no original data.

The master only has references to other files.

For example:

Venue

Scenery

Rigging

Catering

Lighting

Audio

Video

I've worked on shows where each of these is a separate file being worked on by an individual. Of course they can be combined into whatever workflow is best for you.

This is great but only if you don't change the name of the file so all the references stay connected. What if you want to do versions? You create an archive folder, and you save as today's date into the archive. Don't forget to close the file and reopen the original. (yes this method creates a massive storage footprint with all the archives, and backups, and backups of archives. Dropbox will love you for it)

That's all fine and dandy when only 1 person is working on each department. What if you for example have 2 lighting guys (or girls) working on the same plot? Depends on the work being done, but we use Lightwrite http://www.mckernon.com to manage database changes. One person can be doing drafting while another is doing circuiting and stuff, but it can go really wrong if you don't pay careful attention. Instead we mainly use the "football" method. It's kinda like rugby. Who's holding the football? When a person opens the drawing they send out a mail or text, when they close the drawing again a message goes out so others know when the drawing is open. One good thing about using the desktop apps for Dropbox, One Drive, and Google drive is you can see the .lck file when someone else has opened the file, but that only means something if you open the folder and don't just open from the software.

Like I said this takes discipline. All it takes is for one misinformed person to decide they don't need all this junk in their folder on their desktop app and delete it for all hell to break loose. (sadly I've seen it happen) Thankfully Dropbox does have backups now because of this issue. I don't think the other services do.

Feel free to PM or email me and I'll send you some pdf's that outline the file structure.

-mickey

[rDesign]

From this Vectorworks 2016 post by JimW it appears that Vw2016's Project Sharing feature currently should work remotely via a VPN but currently not with Dropbox, OneDrive, et al.

Sharing remotely should be no issue for a setup like a VPN, but for now users MUST be on the same logical -if not physical- network in order to use Project Sharing.

Delayed-update file sharing utilities like iCloud, OneDrive, Google Drive or DropBox would not work with this, as they could cause you to get out of sync with the original because of their own sync schedules. We would need to directly implement APIs in order to support things like DropBox and Drive sharing, which may occur in the future.

Which confirms Mickey's sentiment that Vw2016's Project Sharing won't work with his described remote workflow.

[Haydenovative]

It also sounds like your account managers ideally need remote access capabilities for your server......

KM

While we do have access to the server remotely, using remote desktop or teamviewer to use Vectorworks remotely to access Vectorworks is very painful. Australia has crappy upload speeds so working on anything that isn't local short of being on the network is pointless.

I completely understand the Master file referencing and I'm intrigued. Our shows aren't usually big enough where we have multiple departments putting together separate elements although I'm sure we will get there.

Discipline is the key word and many of our issues arise from this lack of discipline, if anyone taking a file away to work on remotely could remember to keep version control and replace it back on the server when they return then this would be completely alleviated.

Thank you all so much for your insights, I will keep this post up to date with how we progress and anyone with more concepts please post below!

[RickR]

What would you think of a file compare tool?

Word has this feature and I sometimes use it to solve issues similar to what has been discussed.

I have often wanted a "find duplicates" feature as well. All this is related to versioning and file management.

Edited August 12, 2015 by RickR