Drawing History

[skipsophrenic]

Hi,

Is there any way to find out who's accessed and screwed up a drawing in my absence.?

Basically the drawing history?

[NBC]

I think you can find out who last saved the dwg file, by right clicking on it, selecting Properties, then navigating to the Statistics tab.

[skipsophrenic]

Thanks,

Got the info i needed, an engineer had decided that he would make some "Minor"
changes, unlocked a viewport panned zoomed messed drawing, didn't follow
standards - pretty much broke every rule in the book.

[ReMark]

Off with his head!

[skipsophrenic]

ReMark, right now thats how i feel, after postin this i'll be loggin off 'cos this is gonna take me at least a couple hours to fix

[NBC]

Tell your Project Manager that it is costing money to put right someone else's mess-up !
Then after that, have a word with the engineer (who doesn't know CAD) and politely instruct him how to achieve properly what he messed up.
This will hopefully, stop a reocurrence of this.
Failing that, refer to ReMark's suggestion

[Zorg]

Learn him of his mistake and educate him how not to make a very easily avoidable error



Failing that, refer to ReMark's suggestion

Failing that, burn the two halves and submerge the remains somewhere at the end of the thames.

Good luck

[skipsophrenic]

i think i'll just go quietly mad.

It's easier!

[michaeloureiro]

quick question: why is it that i keep on seeing that alot of engineers and architects don´t know how to use cad?? is there some specific reason for that? Around here if you don´t know cad you´re unemployed be it engineer or architect.

[NBC]

It may be easier for now.
But do you really want a repeat episode of this ?

[EMS_0525]

quick question: why is it that i keep on seeing that alot of engineers and architects don´t know how to use cad?? is there some specific reason for that? Around here if you don´t know cad you´re unemployed be it engineer or architect.


As far as i have seen, drafters have been taught cad for years and years, we may turn into designers and engineers, but deep down cad is in our blood. Engineers never learned cad, then they think its easy and get it and get into drawings and mess everything up... they were never taught drafting. They were taught engineering, i cant tell you how many times ive told an engineer, "You do your job, engineering, and let me do my job, drafting."

[michaeloureiro]

ems_0525, I understand that everybody has their own place, but cad is a universal tool. It seems a bit foolish to me, that an engineer doesn´t know how to use cad. go figure

[NBC]

different cultures i guess michael.
surely an engineer's time is more effectively spent on producing engineering solutions, rather than getting bogged down with cad ?

[EMS_0525]

Every place i have worked except the place im currently at the engineers did no cad work. Plus its more expensive to have engineers draft than drafters, drafters get paid less than engineers.

[michaeloureiro]

I wouldn´t say doing all the work, but surely they should know the basics, or enough as not to screw up somebody else´s work.

[EMS_0525]

Think about how much you have to know to not screw something up... its so easy to mess something up. Engineers should have cad viewers, with no ability to modifiy the dwg.

[NBC]

Engineers should have cad viewers, with no ability to modifiy the dwg.

But, like all Engineers, they don't.
They don't think they know best, they 'KNOW' best :wink:

[Patrick Hughes]

Hi,

Is there any way to find out who's accessed and screwed up a drawing in my absence.?

Basically the drawing history?

Skipso, see my sig. The program is designed to do exactly what you're looking for and maintains a second x second history of everyone that accesses the drawing.

[Patrick Hughes]

Think about how much you have to know to not screw something up... its so easy to mess something up. Engineers should have cad viewers, with no ability to modifiy the dwg.

Or read only privileges to the drawing files - that really is not that hard to do.

[EMS_0525]

then it gets messy, then the can still do stuff in it... lol... save copies and such.

[skipsophrenic]

quick question: why is it that i keep on seeing that alot of engineers and architects don´t know how to use cad?? is there some specific reason for that? Around here if you don´t know cad you´re unemployed be it engineer or architect.

Not sure about over in the states but here to be an engineer you just need the engineering qualifications.


It may be easier for now.
But do you really want a repeat episode of this ?

Nope,

I've decided that i might arrange a meeting with both cad team and engineers and re-iterate the ground rules (hope it works)

[NBC]

I've decided that i might arrange a meeting with both cad team and engineers and re-iterate the ground rules (hope it works)

Good luck with that; I've been trying to drum home the differences in quality and speed between engineers & 'caddies' producing drawings to my managers; however they don't appear to be that bothered.

They seem to be more interested in having as many people as possible to be billable to projects

[stevsmith]

It would be good if there was a program that let you highlight what drawings you are to issue to the workshop.

Basically a folder is set up on the workshop managers computer.

When the draughtsman is finished his drawings he opens a menu that would be the same kind of menu as the dwg publisher.

The draughter would then select all the drawings that are to be issued. All the drawings are then copied to the designated folder in the workshop managers folder but automatically updating them as read only.

Also a record of the date the drawings were issued for production would be handy.


I think I may have a market there. :D

[NBC]

I think the market you have there steve is called Autodesk Vault (amongst many others) ?

[Zorg]

Every place i have worked except the place im currently at the engineers did no cad work. Plus its more expensive to have engineers draft than drafters, drafters get paid less than engineers.

Aint that the truth!

[stevsmith]

I think the market you have there steve is called Autodesk Vault (amongst many others) ?

Bummer!!
Guess i'll just have to make my millions elsewhere. :D

[Tankman]

I'm not a great organizer however, hurt when drawings are changed.

Using MS Windows XP Pro SP3 I always write protect my drawing(s).
I also add comments to the properties. The comments are shown in my file listing(s).

If the drawing is opened, and edited, the user is required to save with another
name. I usually save as Rev "A", Rev "1", or whatever, etc., etc., and so on.

I don't always list revisions however, if I plot to Adobe, I can red circle or add
a red leader in Adobe pointing to the change(s).

After all said 'n done, I can delete the junque and rename the latest, and write protect again; i.e.: Rev "1" back to Rev "0".

Just my little routine, works for me.

[skipsophrenic]

UPDATE: the drawing was that messed up that i gave up and did a
redraw, (It was Quicker!!:shock:)

Now all that's left a a couple of modifications that the engineer said
was gonna do himself.

He had a problem though, couldn't do it right messed up the drawing
again. fortunately i learned from past experience and had a copy on
my hard drive "just in case"

Thank god i got paranoid when he said he was gonna finish it, now i'm
about to finish it with an un-messed version thanks to file backing up.

[EMS_0525]

tell him he finishes nothing, just causes more work and to let you do it...

[skipsophrenic]

tell him he finishes nothing, just causes more work and to let you do it...

bin there - done that

[Ryder76]

Start tracking the time you spend fixing screw ups. When you have enough data - go to the project manager a show them in black and white how much it is costing them in dollars to continue to allow unqualified people to do drafting. They certainly wouldn't let a secretary do design work, screw it up and waste their budget. Given enough money lost they will make changes.

The second thing is I would make the engineer fix his own screw up. He will learn from it. Either he will learn to do it right or he will learn to leave it alone because the price of his possible screw up will be too painful and high for him and his budget to ever touch a drawing.

I feel your pain. Those kind of co-workers should be shot at dawn.

[JoeC]

Start tracking the time you spend fixing screw ups. When you have enough data - go to the project manager a show them in black and white how much it is costing them in dollars to continue to allow unqualified people to do drafting. They certainly wouldn't let a secretary do design work, screw it up and waste their budget. Given enough money lost they will make changes.

The second thing is I would make the engineer fix his own screw up. He will learn from it. Either he will learn to do it right or he will learn to leave it alone because the price of his possible screw up will be too painful and high for him and his budget to ever touch a drawing.

I feel your pain. Those kind of co-workers should be shot at dawn.


OR - Just send the "screwer-upper" out on the jobsite to deal with the customer or contractors. He (or she) :wink: will think twice next time before making hasty, minor changes!

[rkent]

Hi,

Is there any way to find out who's accessed and screwed up a drawing in my absence.?

Basically the drawing history?

Years ago I had a boss that thought it was a good idea to have interns working over night to continue on our drawings. I simply copied my files every night and every morning copied over the top of the intern's mess. No one ever noticed or said a thing about it.

[EMS_0525]

Years ago I had a boss that thought it was a good idea to have interns working over night to continue on our drawings. I simply copied my files every night and every morning copied over the top of the intern's mess. No one ever noticed or said a thing about it.

Thats funny.

[Tankman]

Thats funny.

Sounds logical?

Skipso needs to take less time off work! :twisted: