Trimble Business Center

I am setting up the procedures to export design models to a large number of machines spread over a number of sites.

To try and simplify things, we will have 5 sites, containing approx. 20 sub areas which will contain multiple designs and material layers. The machines are going to be using SGS900 and Trimble Earthworks. Currently we are going to be sharing the data via TCC.

Our procedure so far is to create one MASTER project for each site. Within this master project we will control the background mapping and avoidance zones.

We will then create a TBC project for each sub area that will use the site described in the MASTER project and contain all of the relevant designs and machine allocation.

Using the MASTER project approach will allow us to make changes to the avoidance zones which will be copied across to all sub areas and designs.

During testing, this all appears to work well, I can make a change to the MASTER project, such as a change in avoidance zone and when I synchronise, all the sub projects are updated in TCC.

BUT when I then open one of the sub projects in TBC, Project Explorer identifies that the site is out of sync and highlighted in red. To remedy the out of sync warning I can update the site details - but these details are empty - so when I then synchronise the data the site information is replaced with the empty details in TCC. The work around is to ignore the out of sync warning in my sub projects.

Is this correct?

Maybe I have misunderstood the process? Hopefully someone can correct me, I am sure that this only the first of many questions to come?

Ed

I will take a look at this on Monday to see if I can recreate what you are seeing here and what is causing that  I know your setup so should not take me long .... Famous last words

Alan

Thanks Alan,

I just get stuck in a loop. If I make a change to a map or avoidance zone in the MASTER project, my sub projects then throw up an out of sync warning, as you would expect. But if I resolve these, I can only chose to resolve by selecting the <project controller> so the correct number of features cant sync with my MASTER project. But to resolve the sync message the background mapping and avoidance zones are overwritten from the sub project. Then if I go back to my MASTER project, this is now out of sync and I need to resolve. But if I resolve this, my sub projects are then out of sync again and I am stuck in a loop. I think I need to be able to sync my sub projects with what is stored in my Project Library? Maybe it is the order that I am doing things?

I have tried setting up a new blank project and adding design data - doing it this way the site data or avoidance zones have no objects - and when I resolve the sync issue I have no avoidance zones or background mapping.

If I do a save as from the master project, this includes the correct number of objects. But if I make a change in the MASTER project the number of objects doesn't update in the sub project. Either way I work seems to throw up out of sync warnings, either in my MASTER project or sub project - at no point can I get all the projects to resolve.

I need to establish the correct order of doing things but nothing I try seems to get everything in sync? Hopefully it is the order that I am doing things, at the moment I am failing as my method cant accommodate changes.

It is being caused by the way that we set this up, the question I have

though is why you actually need to resolve the conflicts and whether in

fact you need to do that - for the following reasons

1) You start your Master Project and add the Alignment, Boundaries, Avoid

Zones, Coord System etc. You use the Field Data menu to create a Site and

that is all. At this point the Site is in your Sync Folder and it has the

Site Data only in it (Site Map, Avoid Zones and Coordinate System.

2)  Now you start an Asset Project. You add External Site to the Project.

And now you add your Asset Data and you write the Design Data for the Asset

to the Sync Folder using the Field Data menu. At this point this project

knows that there is a Site (from the added External Site) and the Designs

(that you just created). However the Master Project when you next open it

only knows about the Site and not the designs. So if you reopen the Master

Project at this stage, it will tell you that something has changed (a

conflict or a change and it will show red). If you Resolve the COnflicts at

the Design Level, then the Master Project and the Asset project is in Sync.

3) Now you start a second Asset Project. You add External Site to this

project. At this point this project is aware of the Site data and the first

Asset Design Data. Now you import the second asset data into the project

and then use field data to create designs for the second asset. Again - if

you now reopen the Master Project, it is not yet aware of the second asset

Designs, so it will tell you it is out of Sync and you resolve the

conflicts and now it knows about the second asset designs. If you reopen

the first asset project, it too knows nothing of the second asset designs,

so you resolve conflicts there also. Now all three projects are in sync

again. But at this stage the only conflict has been that there is

additional data being added to the "Site" that the project is not aware of.

The way it becomes aware of the data is because there is a controller with

that data assigned to it - remember we looked at the .ini files and it is

from those that the Project knows about additional data in the SYnc Folder

because it sits beneath the Controllers. So to be able to resolve the

conflict (the missing data) the only place it can get it from is the

controller itself.

The conflicts that are being resolved are only at the External Site level -

it is not a data inside the project problem. Provided you do not import

external design data into a project, it will stay to that External Site

level. And this is why I question why you have to resolve it - you really

dont - you can accept that there is a difference at the Design Level of a

different asset and never resolve it, or you can resolve it just to remove

the Red text in the project Explorer (which is telling you that there is a

difference.

Unless the software is telling you that you cannot export data until the

conflicts are resolved, then you can just keep going and never resolve the

conflicts.

There should be no "Loop" here - I have to check it before I can confirm

that - as you are doing things a little differently to the way that this

was designed / conceived to work (where all your Assets for one Site would

be in the same project not separate projects as you have it. I will do that

this morning and get you an answer later today.

Alan

My concern is that it appears that the site information is always out of sync.

If I resolve these at the asset level then the blank site information over writes all designs.

I could accept that you cant resolve the out of sync warning at the asset level for the sites. But today I wanted to create retrospectively Business Data Centre ttm and dxf files - for DIGGER, but I couldn't create these as my asset was out of sync. The only way to correct these was resolve the out of sync warnings, create the ttm and dxf files. Then open up the Master project and resolve the conflict here to write all the site information back to all the site files.

Did you get a chance to test it at your end?

Thanks Ed

We are looking into it- it seems that the Business Data Center switch is

causing the problems and we are tracking it down - they changed some sync

rule stuff a while back and that seems to cause an issue with this setup

that we put together for you- I hope to have an answer early next week

Alan

Looking forward to an update. Thanks

I am still testing this system and I am not sure it will work.

If I open an asset project with all the designs. Then goto Job sites and select my External site, Project Explorer and the Site Map immediately highlight that the Job Site is out of sync. OK for now - just ignore.

I then go to Create design and create my surface with associated linework. Ideally we would like to "sync this data with Business Data Centre via Office Sychronizer" so that the ttm and dxf files are created at the same time - required for 3rd party software (DIGGER). But I cant do this due to the site conflicts at within the Job Site Manager.

The work around would be to start with the MASTER project, do a save as, then bring in all the designs. But this would only work if nothing ever changed, like avoidance zones or background mapping.

I think we need the external site data to be copied from the external site information or MASTER project into the asset project when it is linked?

Any updates on this Alan? I think I will have to accept there is always going to be an out of sync warning at the site level. Then create the ttm data for Digger using individual remote exports, rather than using the Field Data tools.

Whilst this introduces an extra step, it removes the issues related to out of sync warnings with different site calibrations. If I generate the data automatically by ticking "sync this data with Business Data Centre via Office Sychronizer" the resultant calibration file that is created generates out of sync calibration warnings in every asset. The calibration files must differ.

I have an updated version of TBC (v5.3) that will be released in 2 weeks or

so - we have made a couple of minor changes to suit the setup we discussed

and it now works well with zero Red Flags - provided you do a couple of

things in the right way. I have video captured the whole process and have

written up the whole process. Those materials will be delivered to Trimble

Today and will be available to you after that - The Trimble Consulting

Services Team and the Finning Team are discussing that currently as far as

I understand.

I can get you a TBC v5.3 version to work with as needed pre release - it is

stable and functioning well today.

Alan