Cloud AutoCAD solution?

[thecomputerguy]

Client uses AutoCAD 2D and AutoCAD 3D

Clients workflow looks like this.

Engineer downloads drawings from Dropbox > Engineer modifies drawing > Engineer deletes previous (now obsolete data) > Engineer uploads modified drawing to dropbox to replace original data

Client is looking for a way to allow the engineers to modify the data remotely without doing the download, modify, delete, upload method. Client also wants to keep versions of files for retention. Client also wants files to be locked when in use as if they were accessing them from an onsite server.

I'm thinking of some sort of live mapped drive to a cloud service? Does anyone know of something like that? Are we looking at some sort of RDS provider?

 

[britechguy]

Doesn't OneDrive (business version) already do what you're asking - and I do mean all of it.

My understanding is that what's managed by Sharepoint via OneDrive is automatically kept with version history where as space runs out the oldest versions get bumped, which is generally fine, as it's only things being actively worked on where a relatively recent previous version is generally needed.

I know that if someone has a file open in one of the M365 programs, and someone else tries to open the same file, the "second in line" is told they can open read only at that time, which sounds like what would be wanted as far as locking goes.

The company I recently moved to M365 has a business process remarkably similar to the one you describe, and everything is managed for access via OneDrive with file sharing handled behind the scenes by SharePoint, and where Teams is where one sets up who has access to what files in the first place. [Teams is effectively the manager for SharePoint. Nothing is done "by hand" in SharePoint.]

 

[thecomputerguy]

Doesn't OneDrive (business version) already do what you're asking - and I do mean all of it.

My understanding is that what's managed by Sharepoint via OneDrive is automatically kept with version history where as space runs out the oldest versions get bumped, which is generally fine, as it's only things being actively worked on where a relatively recent previous version is generally needed.

I know that if someone has a file open in one of the M365 programs, and someone else tries to open the same file, the "second in line" is told they can open read only at that time, which sounds like what would be wanted as far as locking goes.

The company I recently moved to M365 has a business process remarkably similar to the one you describe, and everything is managed for access via OneDrive with file sharing handled behind the scenes by SharePoint, and where Teams is where one sets up who has access to what files in the first place. [Teams is effectively the manager for SharePoint. Nothing is done "by hand" in SharePoint.]

Yes but we aren't talking about standard MS files like word/excel

These files are proprietary and often times have supporting files accompanying the main file.

 

[britechguy]

Yes but we aren't talking about standard MS files like word/excel

To be honest, I am not certain, which is why I brought this up here. I would have to imagine that SharePoint manages file locking not only for files open in Microsoft software, but "in use" by anything. But I could be imagining entirely wrong.

My memory is that SharePoint handles file access locking not unlike RDBMSs handle record locking. Only one person can have write access at any moment in time, and if someone else attempts to grab a file for anything other than read-only access they won't get it.

There are many here that won't be relying on "the mists of memory" as I am, and I'm waiting for them to chime in to confirm/refute what I think I recall.

 

[timeshifter]

I'd be looking at a Synology NAS and use Synology Drive for the task. You'd be working with the files like they're local to your system, but they're mirrored from the NAS (much like OneDrive does it). Although, probably something that Dropbox could do, but I'd prefer to have more control of the data.

You still have to solve the problem of more than one user working on a file or folder. I think Synology Drive, Dropbox and OneDrive can handle it but I think you'll end up with extra copies created.

AutoDesk also has a platform called Vault that's like a content management system for CAD. Not sure how it plays cloud-wise. though.

 

[Sky-Knight]

What you want doesn't exist.

AutoCAD files can be made to work out of SharePoint, if and only if you configure OneDrive to keep all of the files in that repo on the local machine.

There are document management solutions for AutoCAD specifically out there, they are NOT CHEAP. AutoDesk Vault is one, Solidworks PDM is another. They are ERP level expensive, and require specialists to deploy and support. Furthermore these systems all work on the concept of DOWNLOAD the stuff, after checking it out, doing the work and on save uploading it back into the cloud.

There is no such thing as an engineering "cloud" solution, there is simply too much data. There are Cloud manageable bits, but you're still using HTTPs to move things around at the pace of slow Internet connections. The document management solutions do solve the multi-user overlapping access problems though, but they still take time based on transfer rates.