Technical Support

Recently a question popped up at AUGI stating the "Worksharing Does Not Work". Several people replied and then the original poster casually mentioned that maybe Dropbox wasn't passing the data back and forth quickly enough. I replied with:

Funny how something major like using Dropbox isn't mentioned at the outset If you'd included that tidbit that would have changed the conversation considerably. When people ask for help in a forum it really helps to provide lots of clues, it's a bit like a detective novel. We need clues to figure out who did it.

YES it takes quite awhile for a files (larger the longer) to upload to Dropbox and then replicate elsewhere. If you plan to do real work using Dropbox you'd better be careful. It is very easy to borrow something that another person has already borrowed because of the latency between upload and replication. When that happens whoever was second or third will lose, lose everything they did because Revit will not let you synchronize your work at all. Your "invalid Schema" error is indicating that the file was not intact when Revit tried to open it. This will happen if the file isn't completely replicated or uploaded.

Dropbox does not know anything about the relationships between our files or that Revit is attempting to communicate between central and local files. It just copies bit for bit from here to there and there. This means that it is all together too easy for Dropbox to kill the relationship unwittingly.

If you can be certain that no two users are actively working on the project concurrently then there is much less risk. That would be something like a "follow the sun" workflow where someone in Europe works on the file until someone in the USA joins as the European's day winds down and the American stops works as the Australian begins and so on. Concurrent workers with files on Dropbox is a love story heading for heartbreak.

If you find yourself asking a question in a forum or sending me an email be sure to offer lots of clues. When we take our car to the mechanic they usually ask for clues. They aren't likely to tell you, "No, don't tell me what's wrong, let me guess!" Ditto for your doctor. You know the old joke, "Hey Doc, it hurts when I do this!" "Well don't do that!" Reworked it's, "Hey Doc, it hurts when I use Dropbox for worksharing!" "Well don't use Dropbox for worksharing!" :)

Revit and Drop Box

In the context of Revit and Worksharing (central and local files) and using Drop Box.

Suggestion #1 - Please don't
Suggestion #2 - If you ignore suggestion #1 please be careful and don't get mad when things go badly.

I wrote about an experiment using Drop Box with Revit back in June 2010. Though it technically worked, in my opinion it isn't suitable for a real project with people working concurrently. Why? Because Revit makes element borrowing so easy that someone will inevitably borrow something subtle like a tag or text or a view setting and then not be able to synchronize any of their work.

Companies like Riverbed exist, and it's taken a lot of effort at Autodesk to develop Revit Server, because data integrity (Bits and Bytes/data transfer/latency) between Central and Local files (element permissions) is not trivial. Drop Box (I really like it btw) is really just copying files from one place to many places. It does it quickly but not quick enough for concurrent activity...not all the time, every time, never fail. It does nothing to manage Revit permissions and that's what will burn you, borrowing something at the same time as another person. It comes down to what sort of gambler you are. Comfortable with losing 10,20...30 minutes works?

There is hope...IF you are extremely competent with Revit...AND...the kind of person whose pen and pencils are arranged in a very specific order on your desk and can tell if someone touched your work area in some barely perceptible way...AND...the other person(s) you are going to try this with is your twin in this way...you might be able to pull it off. Might help if you are going about it as if you are playing Halo (WoW or COD) online and communicating (via a headset) with the other person continuously as you work.

It works great to share a project file if you and your teammate are "following the sun", you start working on it when they've finished for the day. The real danger is concurrency, doing stuff at the same time and the very real risk of borrowing the same thing at the same time.

I know there are people that have done this and have had success. There are exceptions to every "rule". There is a thread at RevitForum.org and post this morning at The Revit Kid advocating it works. What I'm most concerned about is people diving into a real project and having a go, then dealing with hours of work that can't be reconciled because they weren't prepared enough for the worst.

As I wrote at the beginning, if you ignore #1, don't be upset with #2. You've been warned. Be careful out there!

Dropbox and Project Sharing

I was trading messages with Martin Taurer today regarding WAFS (wide area file services). His firm has been exploring the use of Globalscape's WAFS product that I mentioned in a post recently. While we were both in Sydney attending the Revit Technology Conference Phil Read frequently extolled the virtues of Dropbox.

He (Martin) mentioned that it seemed to him that Dropbox is doing much the same thing as Globalscape's product which prompted a test. The results working with three users were interesting.

• Paths to central file must be identical (may need to use dos command "subst" to map a location)
• Initial synchronization of files took quite awhile
• Subsequent synchronization was quite fast
• Worked quite well while adding new elements
• It was possible to select and borrow the same element at the same time (BAD) First person to Synchronize won, the other "lost".
• The user permission files (eperms) don't update quickly enough at times

Conclusion? For a few power users who are very diligent it is a very inexpensive solution (free 2gb account). For users that are following the sun and not working at the same time it would be an excellent way to permit sharing and working using the same central file. Globalscape's solution seems to have solved preventing users from editing the same element at the same time and for that they can demand their fee.

Try it out but just be careful and test thoroughly to make sure it works for your conditions.

[Added 6/7/10] A friend wrote to say that WAFS is a bad idea whether Dropbox or Globalscape. His comment was, "good luck getting support from Autodesk using that setup". Perhaps he's correct at the moment. But Riverbed devices weren't a proven concept at first, Revit on a MAC using Parallels wasn't supported, running Revit on Win7 beta wasn't... nothing that is a stretch initially is a good idea until it becomes the norm (assuming "they" develop into reliable workable processes). That said, please please do be careful before launching into production mode with either!!