16 replies to this topic

[Michael Roman]

We have hired a new designer who will be starting on the job in a month. 

The problem that I can see is that I work from my home office and he will be working out of our company headquarters about an hour away and we will need to share our project files.

I know that Softplan will allow you to keyshare projects.  Has anyone used this on a regular basis with success?  Does anyone have any other suggestions?

I have discussed this with our IT department and they seem to feel that key sharing is the way to go.

Any thoughts, suggestions or experiences would be greatly appreciated.

Thank You in advance!

 

[Yvon Gonthier]

Wouldn't the Softplan Cloud be a solution?

[Keith Almond]

We've shared a couple of projects ...

 

GENERALLY it works well. However anything with a PLANSET TITLE BLOCK won't show title blocks as they are ONLY STORED LOCALLY. I have no idea why anyone at Softplan thought that was a good idea.

[Michael Roman]

Thanks for the info so far!

The key sharing feature does use Softplan Cloud.  I have tried it on a couple of projects where I did some 3D rendering for a company that used Softplan.

It worked OK for the 3D, but I did notice that the plansets where not right as they were missing the title blocks.

 

Do either of you know a better option?  We had talked about setting up a network drive for the project files on the company server and then I would have to map the network drive on my computer.  Not sure how that would work or if that would solve any of the planset issues.

[Keith Almond]

Softplan's Planset Title blocks are stored locally, with the Softplan program. Running Softplan from a Network installation may cure it, but just having project files on the network won't.

 

The only "cure" I've come across is saving the relevant Title blocks into the relevant project files, and then directing the planset to use the local files. That way they do transfer with the cloud save. Don't know why it's not standard!

 

You may also find you have some issues with some textures. Again, they are only saved locally.

[Don Gibbons]

I use the cloud all the time to share projects. Make sure the titleblocks that are in use are the same on each computer and there's no problem. It sounds like you need to make a set of titleblocks with your name in one set and his name in another and both of you need to have each set.

[Keith Almond]

I use the cloud all the time to share projects. Make sure the titleblocks that are in use are the same on each computer and there's no problem. It sounds like you need to make a set of titleblocks with your name in one set and his name in another and both of you need to have each set.

 

Not only the same, but in EXACTLY the same named location on both computers.

[Don Gibbons]

Yes, the default 'Title Block' folder works easiest.

[Michael Roman]

That is pretty much what I had planned.  We would keep the title blocks in the default folder and they would be identical across both machines.

Glad to hear that I am on the right track with this.

Having this forum is a great way to find out answers from the people who use the software everyday.

Thanks for the help!

[Mark Petri]

I use Dropbox for all SP drawings. The cloud is too sketchy for us. But, we also rarely work on the same project and will check with each other before opening a project we both potentially might work on. I've found with experimenting with the SP Cloud that if two people are working on a project at the same time, the drawings will get duplicated and it becomes a huge mess.

 

I've also heard of larger companies keeping all libraries, title blocks, common files on a server, so everyone is on the same system essentially. That may be more advantageous if wanting to keep total consistency. You might be able to do the same using Dropbox or another cloud service. I am not too worried about a little divergence from having the exact same everything for us, so we have not done that. But all projects are very accessible from anywhere via Dropbox. I could even come to your house, load SP and go to my Dropbox account and grab drawings to work on. I don't have to worry about sharing with every key as it is not dependent on a specific key.

 

I sometimes wonder if I put everything on Dropbox (whole program and libraries) if it would work on any computer that can handle it as long as I have my key? That might be nice!

[Robert Browne]

I put the Title Block in the project, and use that in the Plan Set. i.e. When making plan Set show the Title in the project, not Title Block folder...

[Tom Rogers]

So I have a builder that does not have the + subscription and I am sharing files with him via Google drive.  Does anyone know if I need to keep updating all the existing .dat files and such everytime I make changes.  Or if I just upload the .spp and .spd files will that be good enough and not corrupt anything? 

[Dave Pazyniak]

I often have issues with custom blocks I generate for a model not displaying when my client opens the model.  As mentioned, new textures also do not transfer.  Seems like anything I add to my local library has issues when opened on another location's machine.

 

Dave

[Will Weyant]

I know this is an old thread, but I use pCloud. It uploads all files and I can get it from anywhere. I do not seem to have any issues. I paid a one time fee of 175.00 for life for 500GB of storage.

[Brian Berzinskis]

I don't know what size companies you guys work for or if they are your own but here I have a server here at the office with a couple of RAID hard drives that backs up the files to a remote server at my house with the same setup. That way I can edit files but here at the office and at my house with the automated transfer over the internet and backup.

[Will Weyant]

Hi Brian,

I used to do that with my own servers too, plus a web server and a mail server.  It go to the point that I was too much to administer. LOL Now I pay for the service, a lot easier. LOL 

 

All of the servers were linux based, which I am better at then windoze. LOL

[Paul James]

I use Dropbox- 4 users. Works really great- really fast. We use the standard business version- tons of space- plus you can recover deleted files forever (I think). The file recovery has saved me a couple times-  a mistake by syncing system defaults with another user- it somehow started deleting all the symbols and content- gigabytes- freaked out- but was able to restore no problem. That was totally my mess up- so don't think that's a downside.

I have the whole Softplan folder on there- symbols, speed notes, etc. We use the program from our local drives, but everything else is synced up as we update things. We manually update system options as I update them- that's easy.

We had it on a company server, but when they added another office and moved it to there- a few miles away- it caused an unworkable delay.