Trimble Business Center

We're starting to slowly build our upcoming new jobs in Works Manager and has already came across some hurdles. I'm wondering if anybody else are having these issues and how to prevent them.

First, there is no spot for a site map/project map on Works Manager in TBC. Either had to do it in Job Site Manager or manually upload a .dxf file on the browser. 

Second, I know that the idea of Works Manager is to use .vcl as the main file format for both Siteworks and Earthworks. But with everything tied into TCC right now, this file format is broken down unto the original files (dxf, ttm, etc.). This process is causing a conflict onto data manager. 

Lastly, the Earthwork system on our machines seems to have issues reading the .vcl file (for example missing lineworks, cut off surface model, etc). To prevent this, we end up re-publishing the design to create a .dsz file and never have issues then. 

Hoping to get some ideas from everyone, especially the Works Manager users. 

I figured out what could be causing the conflict between vcl and the other file formats on the data collectors. Not all our TSC7 are updated to the latest Sitework version, therefore, the updated ones was able to read vcl and not the outdated ones.  Also we still have some TSC3's in the company so vcl won't definitely be compatible to it. 

I still need some inputs on the other items on the list. 

Karen Anne

Site Map Issue - This is a known shortfall and I am sure will be resolved in a future release

VCL File Issue - When you publish a Design to Works Manager it is stored in Works Manager as a VCL, however when it delivers data to the field for the controllers it should take care of the conversion to the appropriate file types as supported by the controller / machine system. i.e. a GCS900 system can only use a SVD/SVL file, an SCS900 / early version Siteworks controller needs a DXF / TTM or a DXF/PRO file and a new Siteworks or new Earthworks machine can take the VCL file directly and then convert it to what it needs as and when it gets selected. So on an Earthworks machine, it will do the conversion of the VCL to a DSZ file, and a Siteworks system will use the VCL natively. 

This all happens in the background when you assign a machine or controller to the Project.

I would say that SCS Data Manager does not figure at all in the Works Manager work process - I would give that up if you are moving to Works Manager or stick with SCS Data Manager until such a time that Works Manager provides you with all the tools that you need. Mixing and matching does not work today - the work process offered for Works Manager is TBC - Works Manager - Field in two directions, trying to add in SCS Data Manager just complicates things and will cause things to fail.

If Earthworks is missing things, that is a defect that will require the data and a communication via SITECH to Trimble Support to resolve. The Works Manager team do look at the forum posts and I hope that someone can jump in here to take a look at your issue - I will Share the post with them so they can follow up with you on this.

Alan

Thanks Alan.

I figured it's going to be tricky trying to work with both Works Manager and SCS Data Manager and I'm slowly seeing the conflicts.

We have been working with our SITECH rep on getting moving onto Earthworks system and Works Manager.

And we have already expressed the issues we are having.

I was wondering if anybody else are seeing these issues as well and if it could be caused by data preparation. If not, is there a way around it other than keeping it to dsz file format?

Thanks for reaching out Karen. 

1. Site map is not yet supported in WorksManager. We will get it supported in the near future.
2. When you publish a design from TBC, WorksManager ships the design in different formats based on what the devices can accept. For instance, WorksManager ships
   1. vcl design by default to all Earthworks devices
   2. vcl design to Siteworks devices, if the firmware supports it; ttm/ dxf design formats if firmware does not support vcl
   3. svd/ svl format for legacy machine control devices (CB4x0) that run GCS900
   4. ttm/ dxf format for legacy data collector devices (TSC3, TSC2 etc.) that run SCS900
3. Regret inconvenience. Please raise a support ticket with details. We will have a look at it.

Hope this helps

Our project is a 10 km road upgrade, including rail sections, side roads and Cain rail relocation.

We are in the early stages and have already 41 designs on Worksmanager, which currently are used by 9 x GCS900, 2 x Earthworks and 6 x Siteworks systems. 

We are using Worksmanager only and Publish everything from TBC. Our goal was to just publish it once and be done, but unfortunately the system doesn't live up to our expectations yet.

The first hurdle here is that TBC won't show you existing designs from Worksmanager to choose from and create a new version with new data. Right now you always have to use the original TBC project for that, which is a mess. If we get a new revision from the designers we want to import it into a fresh project in order not to mix old and new data. We then would like to create a new design version (same name but incremented Version number) on Worksmanager out of this new TBC project, not possible. We have to work around this by exporting a VCL from the new TBC project, import it into an upload project, create the new version on Worksmanager, delete the VCL from the Upload project. An absolute crap.

You can't manually create a design on Worksmanager for machine and tablet at the same time using the same name. 

You can't push designs specifically just to certain devices. The machines on the northern end don't need the models from 10 km away. (I could start playing around with multiple projects and separate geo fences now that we can load a DXF for those. But that's not an option since the Siteworks systems for the Supervisors are used everywhere and they'd have to synchronize all the time.)

The VCL format on the new Earthworks is a nightmare. You'll have to actively break dependencies in the TBC project before publishing to Worksmanager. Otherwise everything you used to create that model ends up in the VCL and on the EW machine. I've seen models that are 800 kb for GCS900 but 65 MB on the EW machine. Ridiculous.

With all our models on the EW machine the idle circle is on the screen literally for minutes (I've stopped it and have a video) before you can choose something in the project menu.

EW seems to not support all VCL data. We have models that completely crash EW.

And we've seen the following errors.

the model will not load and it can't be used

the model will actually load and can be used

I've reached out to our local SITECH and they have forwarded it to Trimble but it's already 2 weeks now and I haven't heard back yet.

Luckily we only have 2 EW machines on site now since I had to set both to manual USB synch for now, and we bring designs one by one. But still, our goal was to never have to drive with a USB stick to a machine again. So far that is a fail.

We have absolutely no problems with GCS900 and Siteworks. GCS900 gets nice small SVL/SVD data packages as always and our Panasonic FZ-M1 for Siteworks cope well even with the largest VCL files.

There is one drawback with VCL on Siteworks though. If you publish a design as "Road surface" it won't show you a cross section view. If you create it the old way in TBC and upload the .pro file it will show you the cross section.

new Worksmanager .VCL format

old school .pro design

I think Trimble is working on publishing to specific devices and when that comes it will be a big problem solver for big projects.

For VCL design we used it when it got supported 9  months ago but was scrapped because of the problems you are mentioning here. But again if it is new it does not need to be best, currently our 20-30 Earthworks machines are running SVD/SVL (export from TBC) that gets converted to DSZ in Worksmanager directly with no hassle and glitches.

If you have one type of system on site, in your case obviously EW only, that is a good way to go. I'm tempted to do that as well, but we have a mixed fleet of machines and tablets. I'd have to do everything twice in Worksmanager to create a design, archive designs. At least I could create them with the same name, I've just tested it, but I would end up with twice the amount of designs on Worksmanager as before. And since Worksmanager doesn't even allow you to simply sort the design list by device type or name this list is rather messy. Ok, at least you can filter it to narrow it down.

I don't understand why Trimble always has to invent the wheel all over again, and why it takes months to implement even the simplest things. Do they ever visit large construction sites in production phase to see how annoying and time consuming some of those shortcomings are?

For our survey staff we use Trimble Access with Trimble Connect (SX10, IFC solid models, Sitevision etc.). And if you look at the Trimble Connect WebUI, it's all there. Sorting lists as you please, renaming files, a proper "Logbook", who did what and when, proper access right control, you can look at the models in the browser.

It seams to me like recently every Trimble upgrade is two steps forward, 10 steps back, innit right?

If you do have VCL files that Earthworks is having trouble with, please send them in (+ what version of EW software you using) to construction support so we can identify the issue and improve it in future releases.

We have one CAT Next Gen Hex running 2.1.0 and one Trimble EW installation running 2.1.3.

Currently I test the designs in the 2.0.0 simulator to avoid having to drive to the machine multiple times. I've requested a newer one, not sure if there actually is one. No response regards this for more than 2 weeks now.

2.0.0 Simulator and the Versions on the machines so far show the same behavior.

This is run through our local SITECH and they have forwarded everything to Trimble. A Grant Morgan from Trimble has full access to our Organization. I've also compiled a list of designs that worked and didn't. We are getting close to 3 weeks now that I haven't heard back.

Due to the lack of information from Trimble we've now decided to not use VCL anymore. I'm in the process of converting most of our models. Some will be replaced by new data soon anyway.

For that I created a GCS900 - 12.8 and a Siteworks device in my "C:\Trimble Synchronizer Data" folder.

I then use the SVD/SVL/DXF/TTM/PRO files to manually create the designs on Worksmanager.

Additional benefit is that I can check the visual appearance of the models in the Simulators first before actually deploying it to the machines. Saves me multiple attempts on Worksmanager if something is missing or the colors don't look good.

Also, that way I get .pro files for the XSection view in Siteworks.

For GCS900 all will stay the same.

On Earthworks it should make things easier for the operators. Usually they already have issues to select the right model out of 40 in the first place. With VCL they might struggle with selecting from multiple surfaces and alignments within that file. Another unnecessary hurdle gone.

Will try to set our Earthworks machines back to Autosynch and hope the systems will work faster and won't crash anymore. Fingers crossed.

As for the machine files for EW system, I end up re-publishing the design to a library to create a .dsz file and load that file format in the same folder as where my .vcl was in TCC. 

I have a work around for the site map issue, if you set up a local folder as a library, create the site map in job site, publish it, then copy and paste the .smz into the Office Data folder on the TCC Explorer. Shout out to TCC Explorer for being the most useful tool ever created, the web interface file management system is awful.

Second that. For Siteworks/GCS900 you wouldn't even really need Worksmanager if you set the system up properly with 2-way synch. Deploying designs selective and automatically to certain devices from within TBC was possible with that system years ago. With Worksmanager we might finally get that back in the next couple of weeks. 

If they would fix the right click menu not showing right in Windows 10 it would even be better. And I never got used to the new Web-UI, I still only use the legacy one. So much more options there.

Yeah fixing the right click function would be amazing, but at least the windows default hotkeys work on it as it runs in windows explorer Ctrl+C and Ctrl+V are very worn on my keyboard