Trimble Business Center

Hello,
I am working on a large residential earthwork project that has multiple different phases. I have an assistant/intern that works along side me doing simple line elevates, line join, and prints, etc.. The company that we work for has Microsoft One Drive to save these files to and are backed up. The main issue at hand that I am running into and that causes problems are: When I assign my assistant to elevating lines.. I will also be working in the same Trimble Files due to it being accessible to both of us on the Microsoft One Drive.  SO... files end up saving over files and losing extensive amount of work. What are my options? 
Thanks,
Damon Evans

------------------------------
Damon Evans
------------------------------

Hi Damon,
unfortunately you don't have many options here. I wonder that you actually can work in the same file at the same time. TBC is creating a lock file and if it finds one when you open the project it will ask you if you really want to open and if somebody else is actually working in that file then your TBC shouldn't be able to override the lock file and it will ask you to open the file in read only mode. That might be a result of the file sitting in a OneDrive folder, never tried that.

But there is no functionality for multiple users to work in the same file and TBC also unfortunately doesn't have a functionality like XRefs in Autocad. You can only import/export data. There is a VCL format under Export/Construction. That is meant to move data between projects. If you select some data for export as VCL it will automatically add all the dependencies into that file as well. I.e. if you select a corridor surface only, it will also export the alignments and all the data that was used to create that surface.

Your only option is to export the lines for your assistant as VCL, he imports them into an empty project, he is doing all the changes, and once he is done he exports them again as VCL, and you delete the old lines in your master file and you import his VCL. Or use DXF if it's just some linework.

------------------------------
Ronny Schneider
------------------------------

Original Message:
Sent: 05-13-2021 09:02
From: Damon Evans
Subject: Office Production -- Multiple Users on a design

Hello,
I am working on a large residential earthwork project that has multiple different phases. I have an assistant/intern that works along side me doing simple line elevates, line join, and prints, etc.. The company that we work for has Microsoft One Drive to save these files to and are backed up. The main issue at hand that I am running into and that causes problems are: When I assign my assistant to elevating lines.. I will also be working in the same Trimble Files due to it being accessible to both of us on the Microsoft One Drive.  SO... files end up saving over files and losing extensive amount of work. What are my options? 
Thanks,
Damon Evans

------------------------------
Damon Evans
------------------------------

I think a partial answer here is to allow reference files. It would help me if that happened. We build corridors and it would be helpful if we could reference in the completed corridors from a "master file".

------------------------------
Dave Olander
------------------------------

Original Message:
Sent: 05-13-2021 21:50
From: Ronny Schneider
Subject: Office Production -- Multiple Users on a design

Hi Damon,
unfortunately you don't have many options here. I wonder that you actually can work in the same file at the same time. TBC is creating a lock file and if it finds one when you open the project it will ask you if you really want to open and if somebody else is actually working in that file then your TBC shouldn't be able to override the lock file and it will ask you to open the file in read only mode. That might be a result of the file sitting in a OneDrive folder, never tried that.

But there is no functionality for multiple users to work in the same file and TBC also unfortunately doesn't have a functionality like XRefs in Autocad. You can only import/export data. There is a VCL format under Export/Construction. That is meant to move data between projects. If you select some data for export as VCL it will automatically add all the dependencies into that file as well. I.e. if you select a corridor surface only, it will also export the alignments and all the data that was used to create that surface.

Your only option is to export the lines for your assistant as VCL, he imports them into an empty project, he is doing all the changes, and once he is done he exports them again as VCL, and you delete the old lines in your master file and you import his VCL. Or use DXF if it's just some linework.

------------------------------
Ronny Schneider

Original Message:
Sent: 05-13-2021 09:02
From: Damon Evans
Subject: Office Production -- Multiple Users on a design

Hello,
I am working on a large residential earthwork project that has multiple different phases. I have an assistant/intern that works along side me doing simple line elevates, line join, and prints, etc.. The company that we work for has Microsoft One Drive to save these files to and are backed up. The main issue at hand that I am running into and that causes problems are: When I assign my assistant to elevating lines.. I will also be working in the same Trimble Files due to it being accessible to both of us on the Microsoft One Drive.  SO... files end up saving over files and losing extensive amount of work. What are my options? 
Thanks,
Damon Evans

------------------------------
Damon Evans
------------------------------

Absolutely, we need to be able to reference files. Like in Terramodel or AutoCad.

------------------------------
Marian Plucinski
------------------------------

Original Message:
Sent: 05-15-2021 12:26
From: Dave Olander
Subject: Office Production -- Multiple Users on a design

I think a partial answer here is to allow reference files. It would help me if that happened. We build corridors and it would be helpful if we could reference in the completed corridors from a "master file".

------------------------------
Dave Olander

Original Message:
Sent: 05-13-2021 21:50
From: Ronny Schneider
Subject: Office Production -- Multiple Users on a design

Hi Damon,
unfortunately you don't have many options here. I wonder that you actually can work in the same file at the same time. TBC is creating a lock file and if it finds one when you open the project it will ask you if you really want to open and if somebody else is actually working in that file then your TBC shouldn't be able to override the lock file and it will ask you to open the file in read only mode. That might be a result of the file sitting in a OneDrive folder, never tried that.

But there is no functionality for multiple users to work in the same file and TBC also unfortunately doesn't have a functionality like XRefs in Autocad. You can only import/export data. There is a VCL format under Export/Construction. That is meant to move data between projects. If you select some data for export as VCL it will automatically add all the dependencies into that file as well. I.e. if you select a corridor surface only, it will also export the alignments and all the data that was used to create that surface.

Your only option is to export the lines for your assistant as VCL, he imports them into an empty project, he is doing all the changes, and once he is done he exports them again as VCL, and you delete the old lines in your master file and you import his VCL. Or use DXF if it's just some linework.

------------------------------
Ronny Schneider

Original Message:
Sent: 05-13-2021 09:02
From: Damon Evans
Subject: Office Production -- Multiple Users on a design

Hello,
I am working on a large residential earthwork project that has multiple different phases. I have an assistant/intern that works along side me doing simple line elevates, line join, and prints, etc.. The company that we work for has Microsoft One Drive to save these files to and are backed up. The main issue at hand that I am running into and that causes problems are: When I assign my assistant to elevating lines.. I will also be working in the same Trimble Files due to it being accessible to both of us on the Microsoft One Drive.  SO... files end up saving over files and losing extensive amount of work. What are my options? 
Thanks,
Damon Evans

------------------------------
Damon Evans
------------------------------

I would use VCL output for the lines that you want your assistant to work on in parallel to you - I assume you wont be using those lines until they are elevated - so I would also make a selection set out of the lines that you are going to export and then export them - that way once they are all elevated you can select the lines that you exported and easily delete them when you replace them with the lines that your assistant has elevated - your assistant will export them as a VCL and you will import them into the Master Project - you will want to eliminate the original 2D lines at that point so a Selection Set will help you there.

Alan

------------------------------
Alan Sharp
alan.sharp@rockpilesolutions.com
------------------------------

Original Message:
Sent: 05-13-2021 09:02
From: Damon Evans
Subject: Office Production -- Multiple Users on a design

Hello,
I am working on a large residential earthwork project that has multiple different phases. I have an assistant/intern that works along side me doing simple line elevates, line join, and prints, etc.. The company that we work for has Microsoft One Drive to save these files to and are backed up. The main issue at hand that I am running into and that causes problems are: When I assign my assistant to elevating lines.. I will also be working in the same Trimble Files due to it being accessible to both of us on the Microsoft One Drive.  SO... files end up saving over files and losing extensive amount of work. What are my options? 
Thanks,
Damon Evans

------------------------------
Damon Evans
------------------------------