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PDMWorks backup

PDMWorks backup

PDMWorks backup

(OP)
I have a question regarding PDMWorks backup. When I check in a document the vault is updated and the revision is bumped. Our backup will backup the vault because its on our shared server, but what about the files that are being worked on on my local drive, our local PCs are not shared so how do they get backed up? I don't check the files in on a daily basis because its a new job in progress and I don't want their revisions bumped up? Is there a way to deal with this? I'm sure there is, I just need a little help understanding

thanks

Tom Malinski
Sr Design Engineer
OKay Industries
New Britain CT

RE: PDMWorks backup

They don't get backed up unless you do it. I always check into PDMW daily for backup. You do not have to bump the rev, just check in at the same rev.

Chris
Systems Analyst, I.S.
SolidWorks 06 4.1/PDMWorks 06
AutoCAD 06
ctopher's home (updated 06-21-06)

RE: PDMWorks backup

We check in every day and keep the same REV but bump the version. You may want to look into turning on the “Working Copy” using the + Plus. Your Admin can turn this feature on for you. Remember you will not get a history using “Working Copy”. But you do not now.
Some of your Engineers will not check in their work every night, so they put them on a common server which is backed up every night. They also do not get a history this way.

Bradley

RE: PDMWorks backup

If you don't want the revisions bumped up, you could use working copy, as Bradley said.  What we do here is we use a somewhat complicated rev scheme that incorporates both "proto" revs and "production" revs so that when we're ready for prime time, we bump things up to "production" revs.  The whole time, we still have rev history that we can backtrack to whatever point in time we need.

RE: PDMWorks backup

(OP)
Interesting what PDMAdmin said ...."The whole time, we still have rev history that we can backtrack to whatever point in time we need".... This may be the approach for me also. I shouldn't care how many prototype revs I have (one for every check-in daily) Then at some point when the project upgrades to prime-time status the Rev scheme can change also. I guess I was or still am hung up on the idea that rev changes are due to a "change" but your suggestion is that rev changes can be used to track a time period i.e. daily check in.

So PDMAdmin are you using primary revs for prototype and secondary revs for prime-time and are these tied to life cycle? I would love to see a snapshot of your vault admin screens life cycle and Revision screens

I am my own admin and am trying to figure this all out

Thanks

Tom Malinski
Sr Design Engineer
OKay Industries
New Britain CT

RE: PDMWorks backup

Hi Tom,

The PDMWorks revision scheme is pretty flexible.  You can set it all up just about whatever way makes sense for you.  Some people use a primary in conjunction with a secondary while working in "prototype" or "design" phases (e.g. A.1, A.2, etc.).  Then once something is ready for "primetime" the secondary revision goes away and the revision level is reflected by the primary value.

The thinking with this is that all of the revisions denoting the daily check-in of work are reflected by the secondary revision value.  So if I checked in A.5 yesterday and need to go back to Fridays' revision then I just grab A.4 (or whatever version I might want/need).

Another thing to keep in mind is that if you're worried about all of these minor revisions piling up then the VaultAdmin can setup the system so that folks can overwrite minor revisions.  I personally wouldn't recommend that but you could theoretically do that.  That's where the concept of a "working copy" makes a lot of sense to me.  This allows (if permission is granted by the VaultAdmin) users to check-in work on a daily basis without accumulating minor revisions on the vault.  A pretty good idea if disk space is a concern.

The last point I would like to make regarding the original question that you posed is if you have any concern about work not being backed up then have users work on a shared network drive that gets backed up by your IS department.  There is a tradeoff of speed that is gained by working locally but it's probably a better bet to make rather than having a workstation die on you where data is unrecoverable.

Hope that fills in a couple of blanks for you.

Regards,

Chris Gervais
Application Engineer
CSWP, CSWST

RE: PDMWorks backup

(OP)
Thanks everyone for your help, I will experiment with some of the suggestions here. I like Prototype A1, A2, etc and then primetime changes to B, C, etc...

tom..

Tom Malinski
Sr Design Engineer
OKay Industries
New Britain CT

RE: PDMWorks backup

Tom,
    Looks like you have the same idea we started with. The following is what we ended up with:

For an example this is how we do it:
A01-01 thru A99-99 for not controlled by documentation group.
P01-01 thru P99-99 for Prototype control.
R01-01 thru R99-99 for released.
From P01 to P02 takes an ECN and the version –01 to –02 does not take an ECN.
From R01 to R02 takes an ECN and the version –01 to –02 does not take an ECN.
Hope the helps.

Bradley

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