Architecture & EngineeringServing Dallas-Fort Worth

Revit stopped synchronizing the night before the deadline. What can you recover?

We build and test recovery plans that include the central model, its references and the files your issued set depends on.

When the software vendor blames the workstation, we get on the phone with them.

Ask one IT question

A drawing is not an ordinary office file

The studio of a small architecture and engineering practice: an adjustable drafting table with a hand drawing taped to it and a parallel rule, immediately beside a dual-monitor workstation on a desk, with a large-format plotter out of focus behind.

The model opened fine this morning. Now Sync with Central will not finish, two people have changes sitting in separate local copies, and tomorrow's issue set is inside them.

The central model, its references and the last recoverable copy all have to sit inside the same recovery plan. When they do not, an ordinary file-sharing problem turns into a deadline problem.

Put a workshared Revit central model in an ordinary OneDrive, SharePoint, Dropbox, or Google Drive folder and two sync engines end up reaching for the same file. Autodesk documents three worksharing methods, and each one is built for a different network.

Local network

File-based worksharing

The central model lives on a LAN file server. This is the method Autodesk documents for a local network.

Wide-area network

Revit Server

Autodesk's documented method when the firm works across a wide-area network rather than one office.

Cloud

Revit Cloud Worksharing

Autodesk's documented method for cloud collaboration, with the entitlement assigned to each person using it.

Stretch file-based worksharing across a home VPN and synchronization can slow or fail. That is not the LAN workflow Autodesk describes.

A drawing can depend on a good deal more than its DWG file, depending on what the project uses:

DWG can depend on
  • External references
  • Sheet sets
  • Plot styles
  • Fonts
  • Linked data
  • Data shortcuts

A Civil 3D project can also use data shortcuts pointing at source drawings that hold surfaces, alignments and pipe networks. If a restore leaves out that folder structure or its source files, a drawing can open with missing references or unusable data shortcuts.

We work for you.

Our managed IT has no long-term contract. There is no separate onboarding fee either.

We resell nothing and take no vendor commissions. Nobody pays us to recommend their product.

Within our scope, we document what your business controls. That means the domains and the administrative accounts. The documentation is yours whenever you want a copy, including when you leave.

Two people can end up editing different copies of the same DWG

AutoCAD does not manage check-out or locking for SharePoint or OneDrive. If two users open locally synced copies of the same DWG, their saves can create version conflicts without an AutoCAD locking warning.

Forma Data Management with Desktop Connector can provide file locking and version control for supported AutoCAD workflows. Revit Cloud Worksharing and Collaboration for Civil 3D require the appropriate Forma Design Collaboration entitlement, and those entitlements must be assigned to the people who use them.

A workstation spec that ignores the software is a guess

Autodesk's guidance for Revit is specific, and it does not match a generic office-PC spec sheet.

Single-core clock speed

Autodesk recommends a high single-core clock for Revit, and notes Revit also uses multiple cores for many tasks.

RAM

Requirements rise with model size. The number that was right for last year's project may not be right for this one.

Storage speed

Faster storage can improve how long a model takes to load and to save.

GPU and VRAM

Running Enscape, Twinmotion, Lumion, VR or path tracing moves the target again, and the number comes from the exact version, the project size and the output you need.

A workstation tower on the floor beside a desk in an architecture studio, with a drafting table, rolled drawings, a study model and a large-format plotter beyond it.

A workstation can be well reviewed and still be the wrong machine for what the firm actually runs.

We can help specify and manage workstations against what the firm's actual software requires, not a generic office-PC standard.

Version history is not backup

With Autodesk Desktop Connector, deleting a file or folder can delete it from both the connector and the cloud if the deletion is confirmed. Browser export can also be a poor whole-project recovery plan, because Autodesk limits each selection by file count, total size and supported file type.

A recovery plan should identify and test what the project actually depends on, rather than assuming the visible project folder is complete:

  • Referenced drawings
  • Civil 3D data shortcuts
  • Templates
  • Fonts
  • Plot styles
  • Issued sets
  • Central-model backup folders
  • Specific administrative access

We keep backups isolated from what they protect and test restores rather than trusting a green light. If ransomware can reach a workstation, file server, or synced cloud data, an isolated recovery copy can keep the same event from taking the backup with it.

Record retention is not the same for architects and engineers

Texas treats these as two different questions. One is a duty to keep a document. The other is a deadline for claims, and it applies to architects and engineers alike. They are measured from different dates.

A retention duty

TBAE Rule §1.103(c)

Requires the sealing architect to maintain the sealed, signed, and dated original construction document, or a copy with a clearly visible and legible seal, signature, and date, for at least ten years from the document's signature date.

The current TBPELS engineering rules do not state the same blanket ten-year document-maintenance requirement.

Not a retention rule

Civil Practice and Remedies Code §16.008

Sets a ten-year deadline for specified claims against architects and engineers, ordinarily measured from substantial completion of the improvement or the beginning of equipment operation. It is a limit on claims, not an instruction about keeping documents.

A governmental entity ordinarily has eight years, with exceptions, and presenting a written claim inside the period extends it. Not measured from a document's signature date, and it applies to architects and engineers both.

Contracts, owner requirements, and other applicable law can create different or longer obligations. We do not set the firm's retention policy. If the firm identifies what it must keep, we can build and test the technical recovery plan around that decision.

Ask one IT question

Pick the thing about your firm's IT that has been nagging at you and send it over. You will get a straight answer, at no charge, with nothing to sit through afterward. If the honest answer is that somebody has to look at it, we will say so.

Send one question

Email it or pick up the phone. No form to fill in first and no meeting to sit through.

Get a straight answer

At no charge. If it can be answered honestly from the outside, we answer it. If it cannot, we say that instead.

Decide what happens next

Nothing follows automatically. If a closer look would help, we will tell you, and it is still your call.

Before you send it

We already have somebody doing our IT

Ask anyway. If your person has it handled, that is what you will hear, and it will have cost you one email. We are not trying to talk you out of somebody who is doing the job.

What is this going to cost

The answer to a question costs nothing. Anything past that is scoped and priced in writing first, and you approve it before anyone touches a system.

We are in the middle of a contract with someone

Nothing here asks you to break an agreement. A straight answer to one question is not a switch, and plenty of people ask us something years before anything changes.

The free answer, and any separate review

  • An answer to a question, not troubleshooting, system access or ongoing support.
  • Some questions cannot be answered honestly from the outside.
  • If a closer look would help, we may offer a read-only review as a separate engagement, with a written summary of what we found and what we would do about it.
  • Before anyone touches a system, both sides confirm in writing the scope, the sample, who authorizes the access, the date and any fee.
  • Asking does not book a review, and printed material does not reserve an appointment.
  • Reviews are subject to availability. One per firm.

A review is a point-in-time sample of the systems named in the written scope. Items outside that scope are not evaluated and have not passed.

Ask one question before the next deadline

If the central model stopped synchronizing tonight, what would you restore, and how long would it take? Send us that.

Call (817) 265-5000 or email [email protected].

Ask one IT question