grichards

the issue:
dTools requires files associated with a project to be located in a single specific project folder. On individual client machines, this must be a child of the users “dTools project” folder, which must be on the users local drive (use of mapped network drives is not advised due to loss of performance and potential data corruption). Files that are not created through dTools but are associated with the project cannot be managed through dTools without copying them to the dTools project folder via the dTools interface.

User’s that wish to view dTools project files without using the dTools interface cannot access project files unless they navigate to the dTools Server copy. This is difficult due to obscure folder naming on the server and not advised due to potential data corruption. Manually copying files to an accessible location for non-dTools users leads to error prone document management.

The consequence of these two points seems to be that:

1. If a project is to be developed with dtools, any file associated with the project must be added through dTools and stored in the dTools project folder.
2. any user that is involved in the project MUST access files through the dTools interface.
3. Multiple users can access but cannot edit project files at the same time
   OR
4. Files must be stored and accessed in different locations for a single project some of which must be accessed trough dTools and others that can be accessed directly by navigating to a separate project folder.

the question:
to users:
does anyone have solutions to this type of issue? does anyone have projects requiring multiple concurrent users on the project or multiple project files that don't necessarily need to be tied to the PDM, but do need to be tied to the project? For example: we have numerous autoCad drawings, spec documents, project narrative documents, etc. all of which may need to be accessed or edited by non-dTools users or each of which may need editing done on them at the same time (i.e. the project "checked out" to multiple users).

to Dtools:
is there any plan in the near future to accommodate "multi-editor" projects or project file access to non-dTools users? It seems like there's a non-trivial document management shortcoming here.

thanks in advance for the input.

David_Haddad

Hello grichards,

I posted a request about the document management feature a month or two ago, requesting the ability to create folders to categorize project documents. To answer your question we don't have any solution to the issues you bring up. As I see it the document management functionality is very weak, but it also seemed like it was somewhat of a "freebie" add-on for managing non-D-Tools files, so I saw it as a positive. I agree it could be a lot more useful if it was further enhanced.

If at some point it becomes a a more serious document management solution, I think those who want to use it that way will need to give up any idea of people accessing the docs through other than D-Tools, otherwise it sort of defeats the purpose of a document management system.

grichards

Something i've been experimenting with to workaround this:
create an archive file (with winrar or a similiar utility) and add it to your project files. This allows you to create a folder hierarchy within the archive, but dTools only sees it as one file so you can check it in with your project.

your working files (anything you want to change) will have to be kept in the project "root", but if you want to store pdf's, specs, etc with the project and NOT clutter the project file folder, this might work as a solution.

if you find this useful or run into additional hangups please post and let me know.

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