Drawing controls / passowrds?

New member here so hello to everyone!

I've arrived at this forum with a question that I hope one of you experts can help with.

We are currently using AutoCAD 2010 here at work and I'm trying to create a process of drawing controls that follow a 'signing off' process to ensure quality control of the drawings.

Basically once the CAD Tech has done the drawing he will enter his name electronically on to the drawing in the 'drawn' box on the drawing border.

Then once the drawing has been 'checked' another name is entered in the 'checked' box.

Then once the drawing has been approved another name is entered in the 'approved' box.

An issue that is arising is that as time limits are sometimes tight, I find that other people are entering names in to boxes prematurely and/or falsely in order the drawing can go to printing.

I am wanting this practice to stop, so my question is.....is there any password control that can be placed on to a drawing that allows a drawing not to be printed or not to allow text to be entered in to a drawing border without the permission of the CAD Manager?

I am wanting people to freely work on the drawing and enter their names freely, but as a CAD Manager I want a final control to 'unlock' the drawing for printing.

This final control being a quality control check.

Can this be done?

You can protect a drawing using a password but for anyone to edit the drawing they will need the password. Sort of a Catch-22 scenario.

One option: Don't give your people the ability to print a drawing. Make them all send you their drawings, which you will check, then print. Do you really want to spend your time doing this?

With the amount of CAD Techs working where I am, having myself have every drawing passed over for printing would be a complete nightmare

The operating system on our network allows me to give certain read/write privilages etc. but this again would be a nightmare to 'control' on a daily basis.

I'm guessing AutoCAD nor any 3rd party software is available that can give extra drawing controls that I'm after.

Maybe there is a script somewhere that can be implemented in the the drawing border templates?

Something that leaves a layer turned on with a message 'not for printing' until an password is entered to 'unlock' the drawing for printing?

Don't count on the AutoCAD PASSWORD command to be of much use to you. Look at 3rd-party options instead.

Who should be checking and approving?

Most places I have worked Approval is a hand signature and the Approval date written by hand on the master paper copy.

You might be able to make Checked and Approved seperate XREFS in a read only folder for the Cad Techs, but read and write access for those that are permitted to check and approve. Just a thought, not sure if it works.

 

Most places I have worked Approval is a hand signature and the Approval date written by hand on the master paper copy.

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Yes, its the same here. But what is happening all too often is that 'master copies' are being produced at a later date to the 'issue copies'. ie. by-passing the need for signatures due to issue date deadlines.

So some drawings are by-passing the QM checking procedure. Something that if I don't tackle head-on I'm going to get grief from above

I could send out 100's of emails and speak to staff who are making the 'errors', but this has little effect when their bosses are telling them to deliver to deadlines.

There are a bit of 'office politics' where I work so if I could tackle this via a non-compromise password system or something similar then I would be on to a winner.

You might be able to password protect an entire drawing but to password protect individual features I think you would unable to find something off-the-shelf. Might have to hire a good programmer to come up with a workable solution.

Yeah I think you are right.

I've been looking on the internet and can't find anything.

Thanks for the help all the same.

If you're interested to use additional software to control your drawing, I think you can use Autodesk Vaults. You can give people permission to modify or see the drawings, but only managers can release the drawings as final drawings.

Cheers. I'll have to look in to this software in more detail.

Go back to the old pen and paper method with a signoff sheet.

What about a slight variation on SLW's idea? Make the title block an xref. The xrefed drawing has a password. It's easy enough to see whether someone added his name in the current drawing or in the xrefed drawing.

That is a very good idea and might work.