Sharepoint and Project Sharing

[lisagravy]

Is anyone using Sharepoint and Project Sharing successfully? 

 

We are experimenting with Project Sharing, which looks fantastic - but trying to do this remotely with master files saved on Sharepoint for multiple access. 

 

We seem to be having issues with syncing - and I'm not sure if this is due to Project Sharing, or Sharepoint, or a general incompatibility between the two. 

 

(Working on a master file, committing changes and releasing, but then the master on sharepoint not updating.)

 

Any insight or experience would be much appreciated.

[Tamsin Slatter]

Hi Lisa
I'm not familiar with Sharepoint in detail, but assuming that it works like Dropbox, Box, etc, in that a file is stored in the cloud but syncs to a local copy on your hard drive?

If so, Sharepoint is not listed as one of the supported cloud options:
Dropbox, OneDrive, Google Drive, and Box

https://www.vectorworks.net/products/features/project-sharing

 

However, the process for any cloud sharing is that the FOLDER containing the project file is shared (not the project file itself) among the users. Working files should not be stored in that folder. 
I hope that helps... 

[lisagravy]

Thanks @Tamsin Slatter - we're still getting used to it! It's actually OneDrive we're using, though confusingly referring to it as Sharepoint, as when we click on OneDrive the web address then references Sharepoint for some unhelpful reason... (I really dislike Microsoft!) So as far as I'm aware it should be compatible / supported. 

 

We're sharing the folder among users, and working files stored on each desktop. I'm not sure if it's a project sharing issue or one drive issue.

 

It is working - but takes loads of syncing and communicating between users which I didn't think we'd need as much of!

[Tamsin Slatter]

I'll ask someone in the tech support team to contact you...

[lisagravy]

Thanks @Tamsin Slatter, Domas is helping us out!!

[LauraG]

Hello, we are having the same issue as above. We are new to project sharing and haven't been able to get it to sync back to our master file in sharepoint. Is there someone in the tech support team we could contact? Thank you.

[DuncB]

Hi All- We are looking at migrating our live project files to Sharepoint to act as a server (recommended by out IT provider) and i was wondering if anyone could provide an update on the compatibility issues raised above?? He tells us that Onedrive and Sharepoit whilst similar are not the same thing. Does anyone know if Sharepoint will still allow VW project and working files to operate without sync issues?

Any updates would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks in advance for any replies..

[mocha]

Hi all,

 

Just to follow up on the subject, we're having issues again with Project Sharing & Sharepoint/OneDrive, although (again) we're not sure which one (if not both) is to blame?

 

Every time one of the users is committing her changes to the project file, a copy of it is getting created in the same location of the original (saved on Sharepoint) instead of transferring through to the actual master file. Weirdly enough, she can still see other's users updates when refreshing her working file... but they can't see hers. 

 

Given that this is an issue she's been having before with other project sharing files and that nobody else in the office has been experiencing it, we suspect that there is something wrong with the user's settings rather than the files themselves? We're all scratching our heads on this one so any thoughts would be most welcome :)

[Christiaan]

On 8/20/2020 at 1:15 PM, lisagravy said:

It's actually OneDrive we're using, though confusingly referring to it as Sharepoint, as when we click on OneDrive the web address then references Sharepoint for some unhelpful reason

That is SO Microsoft.

[shorter]

We have extensive experience of using OneDrive as a cloud storage solution for CAD and BIM.

 

All I can say is that we no longer use OneDrive, and do not recommend anyone use OneDrive for CAD and BIM.

[Anders Blomberg]

@shorter Out of curiosity, do you use another service for cloud storage and/or as file server? We're currently using Sharepoint as the sole solution for all file storage needs for my little company of 2 people. I'm currently the only VW user as my colleague uses Autodesk products. So far we haven't had any issues but I'm trying to prepare for the future and using Project sharing more extensively.

[shorter]

We have had lots of issues with day-to-day sync failures with One Drive so do not recommend using it for any other purpose than as a document transmittal system.

 

Some CDEs are based on Sharepoint, and that's probably as good as it gets.  You have to remember it is free, provided free of charge with Office 365, so you get what you pay for really.

 

Clients that have used it (most notably those that were sold it by their IT consultant who coincidentally were also selling them 365 licenses...) have moved away from it due to issues on the Mac One Drive app in particular. 

 

I don't know if it's the same for Windows but the MacOS One Drive app is being updated almost daily by Microsoft, or it feels that way.

 

Whereas we have had less of an issue, or almost no issues with Dropbox, other than the usual cloud/mac issues on monterey/ventura where files must be local or Vectorworks complains.

 

I have some using Google Drive and seem happier.  Steer well clear of Box.

 

Project Sharing in the Cloud will always be at the mercy of the internet connection.

 

I would always err on the side of caution and set up project sharing on a local server e.g. a NAS, if there was no requirement for remote working, but even then some NAS have their own built-in cloud serving solutions.  We are preparing a presentation on this so watch this space.

 

Of course, there is Vectorworks's own cloud serving aka VCS.  You don't get much space though, but at least it's free if you have VSS or a subscription.  I must admit to not using it in anger because clients do not want to split their project data on to multiple cloud platforms, and we have no projects where the design team are all using Vectorworks.

 

So, if you are not investing in your own server, my recommendation would be Dropbox, and simply accept the cost for a solution that is probably the best in class.

 

Others may have a different opinion/experience of using Dropbox.

 

 

[Anders Blomberg]

Thanks, BOX was my main potential option at the moment as it seems to be a professional solution with good version handling among other things. Interesting to hear that you've had some bad experience with it.

 

I'm really happy with cloud storage in general so owning hardware would definitely be a step backwards in my mind. VPN's I've used in the past have been underwhelming. My main potential worry about the cloud solutions is that some customers have higher security requirements and won't accept server locations in certain countries/regions, US-based servers are surprisingly a major problem. I think our Sharepoint is currently set to the very unclear "Europe" setting. So far I haven't run into any issues as mentioned though but I don't want to get stuck in a solution that turns out to be a problem down the road. Would be very interesting to see a presentation on the subject with reports and experiences from the current options.

[Christiaan]

We've had an issue for 5 months now where we've been unable to access the OneDrives/Sharepoints of our existing clients, except with personal email addresses. Microsoft Support have proven wholly incapable of solving the problem. I spent a month of wasted time being made to trouble-shoot. Then they did the same to our clients.

 

It's a backend software engineering issue (the type of problem Dropbox would solve in a jiffy), but they steadfastly maintain this idea that it's a configuration problem. Never have I experienced such incompetence in a tech company. It has reminded me why, all those years ago, I went bought a Mac and never looked back.

 

The problem appears to be that our client's 365 accounts ("tenants" in MS parlance) are unable to forget an old account of ours.

 

We upgraded to 365 when our MS Teams trial ran out, instead of moving to the free version. But before upgrading to 365 we had two accounts. One that we were using for MS Teams and another that we were using for OneDrive file-sharing. The file-sharing account had our domain associated with it, but we wanted to upgrade the MS Teams account because that had all our chat history. Once we upgraded we deleted the other account and re-associated our domain with the newly upgraded account. This seems to have triggered the problem.

 

It's this deleted account that our client's tenants are unable to forget about. So now, when we are sent an invite to file-sharing, we get a message that our email address/account can't be found on our client's directory.

[Christiaan]

4 hours ago, shorter said:

Whereas we have had less of an issue, or almost no issues with Dropbox

Dropbox has also been our favourite but we have a major client who's IT department has decided that Dropbox is a security risk, so nobody at their offices can access it. On the other hand they can access OneDrive. I have no idea why Dropbox is considered a security risk while OneDrive is not.

[Christiaan]

4 hours ago, shorter said:

Of course, there is Vectorworks's own cloud serving aka VCS.  You don't get much space though, but at least it's free if you have VSS or a subscription.  I must admit to not using it in anger because clients do not want to split their project data on to multiple cloud platforms

I was reluctant to use VCS for this same reason, but we've found that having our VW project files on a separate cloud platform has actually been advantageous. All our VW files are project files, so all of our VW files are now on VCS. And this has actually proven more efficient. If we were to go back to putting them all on one cloud service again I would maintain the folder structure as we have, with our VW files having their own top level folder, instead of VW files being located in the main project folders along with everything else.

 

and we have no projects where the design team are all using Vectorworks.

 

[Christiaan]

4 hours ago, shorter said:

Of course, there is Vectorworks's own cloud serving aka VCS.  You don't get much space though, but at least it's free if you have VSS or a subscription.  I must admit to not using it in anger because clients do not want to split their project data on to multiple cloud platforms

I was reluctant to use VCS for this same reason, but we've found that having our VW project files on a separate cloud platform has, if anything, created an efficiency. When we moved to VCS I moved all of our VW files, because all our of our VW files are project files. This has turned out to be more efficient than what we had.

 

Now when we go looking for VW files we don't dig down inside our project folders, we go straight to our VCS folder and then to the relevant project. If we were to go back to using one cloud service I would maintain this folder structure we now have, with our VW files having their own top level folder, instead of being distributed located deep inside in our project folders.

 

This separation also feels safer in some way.

 

4 hours ago, shorter said:

and we have no projects where the design team are all using Vectorworks.

Neither do we, but we only use VCS for project sharing within our own practice. Any files shared with other design team members is done via Dropbox, OneDrive or Box.

[shorter]

Does your practice have ISO9001, @Christiaan?

[shorter]

5 hours ago, Anders Blomberg said:

Thanks, BOX was my main potential option at the moment as it seems to be a professional solution with good version handling among other things. Interesting to hear that you've had some bad experience with it.

 

I'm really happy with cloud storage in general so owning hardware would definitely be a step backwards in my mind. VPN's I've used in the past have been underwhelming. My main potential worry about the cloud solutions is that some customers have higher security requirements and won't accept server locations in certain countries/regions, US-based servers are surprisingly a major problem. I think our Sharepoint is currently set to the very unclear "Europe" setting. So far I haven't run into any issues as mentioned though but I don't want to get stuck in a solution that turns out to be a problem down the road. Would be very interesting to see a presentation on the subject with reports and experiences from the current options.

I would be happy to discuss Box off list.  I cannot put anything into writing on a public forum.

[shorter]

4 hours ago, Christiaan said:

Dropbox has also been our favourite but we have a major client who's IT department has decided that Dropbox is a security risk, so nobody at their offices can access it. On the other hand they can access OneDrive. I have no idea why Dropbox is considered a security risk while OneDrive is not.

 

There was once upon a time a security breach so they now consider Dropbox a risk despite using Vodafone's mobile network, no doubt, or Huawai phones?

 

On that basis the entire UK electoral system should be avoided.

[shorter]

4 hours ago, Christiaan said:

We've had an issue for 5 months now where we've been unable to access the OneDrives/Sharepoints of our existing clients, except with personal email addresses. Microsoft Support have proven wholly incapable of solving the problem. I spent a month of wasted time being made to trouble-shoot. Then they did the same to our clients.

 

It's a backend software engineering issue (the type of problem Dropbox would solve in a jiffy), but they steadfastly maintain this idea that it's a configuration problem. Never have I experienced such incompetence in a tech company. It has reminded me why, all those years ago, I went bought a Mac and never looked back.

 

The problem appears to be that our client's 365 accounts ("tenants" in MS parlance) are unable to forget an old account of ours.

 

We upgraded to 365 when our MS Teams trial ran out, instead of moving to the free version. But before upgrading to 365 we had two accounts. One that we were using for MS Teams and another that we were using for OneDrive file-sharing. The file-sharing account had our domain associated with it, but we wanted to upgrade the MS Teams account because that had all our chat history. Once we upgraded we deleted the other account and re-associated our domain with the newly upgraded account. This seems to have triggered the problem.

 

It's this deleted account that our client's tenants are unable to forget about. So now, when we are sent an invite to file-sharing, we get a message that our email address/account can't be found on our client's directory.

 

We have had similar problems.

[Paul Snell]

Hello friends! We have transferred everything over to OneDrive over Christmas and now have the same problem as the original poster. OneDrive seems to make copies of the shared project and breaks the connection between the user file and the master project file. Was this issue solved or a workaround developed?

[Paul Snell]

Sry for the horrible formatting

[lisagravy]

@Paul Snell We're managing it by saving the shared master (Project) file on the Sharepoint system, and any user files on personal OneDrive folder locations. This seems to work much better than having all the user files in the same Sharepoint location, however you do have to be careful and make sure you provide enough time for the files to sync via cloud before you quit / shut down your machine, and the same when starting up. 

[shorter]

I thought the whole point was to have one location for the 'master' or 'central' model to use revit parlance, and another, usually a local e.g. desktop (really bad idea but hey, when in rome) location for user files?