Someone please calm me down, thanksà
Someone please calm me down, thanksà
(OP)
I got blamed for something I didn't do at work! Ok here is the story.
Our company makes metering skids, every project we do, we have a folder for it, and so we can save all the relevant drawings and documents in the folder.
Last week a set of drawings for one particular job (I didn't even work on that job) got deleted or moved, well we don't know which, but they just somehow disappeared from the project folder (weird enough, it's the second time it has happened!). The drawings are panel drawings, I never really need to look at panel drawings, but as an E&I engineer I have access to those folders too.
IT was unable to find who deleted or moved those drawings, they just blamed on me, the "proof" they say they have is the folders I have on my desktop, I have a habit of CREATING new folders for each job I do, so I can save bits, pieces info or draft in it for my own reference, apparently I'm the only one who has folders on my desktop, so IT just automatically assumed that I'm the one who MOVED all the folders from project folder to my desktop, even though I didn't even work on the project that lost panel drawings.
This guy who works at IT sent out emails to all managers and managing director about his accusation, and asks for me to take responsibility.
I feel very upset and angry, I want to cry :( I don't know what to do, I can't concentrate on my work right now. I explained everything to my line manager, and he said he would talk to IT, but he said no one could really tell whether I moved or created those folders on my desktop although the name and content are completely different from the missing folders!
The IT guy worked in the company for years and years, and basically IT department can't run without him, and I only worked here less than a year, and certainly I have no proof that I created the folder, and I didn't move them then changed the title and content (just why the heck would I do that?!)... Everybody believes him except some colleagues who work with me everyday that know me well.
Our company makes metering skids, every project we do, we have a folder for it, and so we can save all the relevant drawings and documents in the folder.
Last week a set of drawings for one particular job (I didn't even work on that job) got deleted or moved, well we don't know which, but they just somehow disappeared from the project folder (weird enough, it's the second time it has happened!). The drawings are panel drawings, I never really need to look at panel drawings, but as an E&I engineer I have access to those folders too.
IT was unable to find who deleted or moved those drawings, they just blamed on me, the "proof" they say they have is the folders I have on my desktop, I have a habit of CREATING new folders for each job I do, so I can save bits, pieces info or draft in it for my own reference, apparently I'm the only one who has folders on my desktop, so IT just automatically assumed that I'm the one who MOVED all the folders from project folder to my desktop, even though I didn't even work on the project that lost panel drawings.
This guy who works at IT sent out emails to all managers and managing director about his accusation, and asks for me to take responsibility.
I feel very upset and angry, I want to cry :( I don't know what to do, I can't concentrate on my work right now. I explained everything to my line manager, and he said he would talk to IT, but he said no one could really tell whether I moved or created those folders on my desktop although the name and content are completely different from the missing folders!
The IT guy worked in the company for years and years, and basically IT department can't run without him, and I only worked here less than a year, and certainly I have no proof that I created the folder, and I didn't move them then changed the title and content (just why the heck would I do that?!)... Everybody believes him except some colleagues who work with me everyday that know me well.
Cuttie





RE: Someone please calm me down, thanksà
Whilst it's reasonable to assume that folders on your desktop are for your own amusement only, anything in "the system" should be regularly backed up.
Is Mr IT just covering his own
arseposition?- Steve
RE: Someone please calm me down, thanksà
yeah i think he's trying to cover his a$$, i wanna go over to his office, give him a big slap, but that's not very lady :(
Cuttie
RE: Someone please calm me down, thanksà
In my experience, the sh1t only really hits the fan when directors' emails get lost.
- Steve
RE: Someone please calm me down, thanksà
RE: Someone please calm me down, thanksà
Now correct me if I'm wrong but there are actually two problems here, one is IT and the mysterious failed back-ups and the other is document control.
I would expect that in any project there will be one engineer responsible for document control and that should mean he is responsible for a master set of documents which only he can change (or delete) though everyone should presumably be able to access them copy them and even edit them on their own machine.
There ought to be a procedure laid down somewhere?
It is entirely reasonable that engineers should be able to access and amend any and all documents except the master approved versions. All changes should be properly recorded and approved and then the master folder updated accordingly.
Now, IT has three problems.... how come they don't have a back-up, how come they don't know who deleted the relevant documents and how come they haven't managed the permissions better. In a public folder there will be a number of people with read only access but very few with write permission.
Of course, the relevant drawings would not have been created in the master folder but created by an engineer on his own machine. It is most likely that he ought to have a complete set of his own original documents upto and including a copy of the final approved version in the master folder.
My experience has been that when connected to the office server I would have disc space on the server that was exclusively my own. With a laptop that is when "briefcase files" become very useful synchronising the appropriate files and folders as an when necessary.
Now I would expect that IT should have backed up not only the original folders which are in the public (all users) area but also the various engineer's own drive spaces and the missing folders ought to be in pone or the other area.
In any event, whatever the system now, it sounds like it is due for an overhaul.
More than overdue, if this has happened before why can it happen again? This type of event can be malicious, it can be inadvertent but it can only happen if the system allows it to happen.
JMW
www.ViscoAnalyser.com
RE: Someone please calm me down, thanksà
If there is no acknowledged "master" (drawing, source code, etc), forking is inevitable. Similarly, document change history is impossible to track.
- Steve
RE: Someone please calm me down, thanksà
Your IT guy is a putz. Post his phone number so I can call him and tell him myself. (Just kidding, but I would love to.) If your company's IT system is dependent on a single putz, then the whole company is a giant putz culture.
Your habit of creating draft folders fr draft documents actually makes perfect sense to me.
RE: Someone please calm me down, thanksà
Don't calm down, simply focus everyone on the real problem.
The danger is that a reaction would be to forbid the various engineers from creating working folders.... nonsense, the problem is the security of the master folders.
Of course, a direct attack on the IT guy should be avoided or on anyone else as such, it is this system that is at fault, not you.
You could defend your position or alternatively, take a look at the procedures (I assume there is no official procedure document) and propose to your boss what a sensible system should be and how it should be documented. You can enlists the help/involvement of the other engineers ("Hey guys, I just got a bollocking for something I didn't do and it seems to me that without a proper procedure that can happen to any of us so here's what I've been thinking...."
State that there should be a published standard procedure (and make sure that your practice suits the procedure or visa versa).
Make sure you "own" this idea. If its a good one some brown-noser will rip it off otherwise.
PS I made the mistake of criticising IT once.
Never again.
Not only did I get blitzed by management, when next my laptop had a problem and had to go to IT they simply re-formated my hard disk without bothering to back up anything, not my desktop or anything.
It would have been a simple matter to run Aida32 or Belarc advisor or any similar program to list all my software and settings so I could re-construct it, but they didn't.
My desktop has about a hundred icons usually, I got it back with the Windows OS basic icons (and they didn't re-install games... the s***s).
For months afterwards, whenever I needed a particular program I'd find it missing and then have to go looking for the original installation disc or search the internet.
JMW
www.ViscoAnalyser.com
RE: Someone please calm me down, thanksà
The favour trading market does not work with IT. You have nothing they want. If you do somehow manage to bank a favour, don't blow it by criticising them.
On the subject of working/local folders, the situation maps fairly well onto how we work here (engineering software development). The "master" for each program is on a central server, in a version control system. There are three possible categories for any particular file/folder/etc:
1) On the server, declared the master. Visible to all.
2) On the server, but on a working branch. Visible to some.
3) Local. Only visible to the developer.
It is the job of the program manager to merge changes from (2) back into (1). This forces a review as it is effectively a handover of responsibility. (1) and (2) are guarateed backed up every day. (3) is never backed up.
Developers that come to me asking if I can restore their local files get a stock answer: "Anything you do not wish to lose or cannot be simply recreated should be checked in."
It important enough to us that we use 3rd party software to manage all this.
- Steve
RE: Someone please calm me down, thanksà
RE: Someone please calm me down, thanksà
RE: Someone please calm me down, thanksà
A long time ago, I administered the UNIX servers and workstations for the engineering department I was in. I set up a central directory for everybody's working files, and I set up what I called a Document Management system, using C shell scripts. I have several thoughts about your predicament.
- Missing files are easily recovered from backup.
- Most backup recoveries are due to someone, including me, doing something stupid.
- I am fascinated that your systsem administrator is usable to make his backup work, but has a logging system that tells him that you deleted the files.
My working principal was that I wanted people to work directly on the files in the central directories. If people copy out, you get multiple copies, and a mess. If somebody screws something up, I helpfully recover the old file from yesterday's backup.As noted above, you need PDM software.
JHG
RE: Someone please calm me down, thanksà
melone, I just right clicked on desktop and made a new folder, no copy, no cut
Thanks again, guys :) have a nice evening, home time for me now
Cuttie
RE: Someone please calm me down, thanksà
"Art without engineering is dreaming; Engineering without art is calculating."
Have you read FAQ731-376: Eng-Tips.com Forum Policies to make the best use of these Forums?
RE: Someone please calm me down, thanksà
Doesn't it mean that "IT" is not doing his/her job properly ???
If the back-up system is not proper and the server crashes ???
HVAC68
RE: Someone please calm me down, thanksà
I have seen data get deleted or moved by them because they either don't care or don't know.
To them, a file is a file and a folder is a folder. They don't care who they belong to or why they exist.
I have also seen them automagically delete videos and PowerPoint files to make space.
They should be doing backups every night and full backups every week.
Have them reinstate the backups.
They can also prove through the server who last had access, they are just trying to cover their own a** or a friends!
Chris
SolidWorks/PDMWorks 08 3.1
AutoCAD 06/08
ctopher's home (updated Jul 13, 2008)
ctopher's blog
RE: Someone please calm me down, thanksà
- by allowing universal write access to important files.
- by not _testing_ his alleged backup system, every day.
- by not _acting_, the _first_ time the backup didn't work.
- by not having multiple layers of backups.
But, IT guys are a protected species; you can't survive attacking them.
On the other hand, the attack on you seems unwarranted and unprofessional.. and quite aberrant behavior for an IT guy, if it was unprovoked.
Mike Halloran
Pembroke Pines, FL, USA
RE: Someone please calm me down, thanksà
V
RE: Someone please calm me down, thanksà
EJL
RE: Someone please calm me down, thanksà
RE: Someone please calm me down, thanksà
Luck is a difficult thing to verify and therefore should be tested often. - Me
RE: Someone please calm me down, thanksà
They are desperate to blame someone and "take action", (I don't know if the IT guy made them believe that IT couldn't backup is no biggie).
IT doesn't want to change the system, I asked why can't they change the system, or make the files only be accessible to the ones who need to work on it, the answer I got was "too complicated and might be inconvenient for some"...
lots of people believed I'm the one who deleted all drawings, I don't know if I should go around explain to everyone, I still feel quite upset, although I shouldn't
:(
Cuttie
RE: Someone please calm me down, thanksà
"Art without engineering is dreaming; Engineering without art is calculating."
Have you read FAQ731-376: Eng-Tips.com Forum Policies to make the best use of these Forums?
RE: Someone please calm me down, thanksà
These are accessable via "Previous versions folders". Set to 6 weeks back. Everything after that is saved to a removable disk (Tape drive backup I believe). Our released files can only be accessed by our engineering admin, so all of our ECN's, etc go through her to enter them into our MRP server and save the pdf's.
And this is all done with our IT guy now offsite and only physically comes in 1 week a month.
Your IT guy is definetly pointing the finger, and seems incompitent. I'd recommend outlining a "fix" that completely absolves yourself from the mess, and turns the blame to your IT department. Send it to your superiors and the IT guy, and approach your superiors about it. If you don't / sit on it then it's your neck in the noose.
By fix, I mean get a new IT department. Don't write that though! You really need to push the change from higher up, not at the IT guy who's trying to hang you out to dry.
James Spisich
Design Engineer, CSWP
RE: Someone please calm me down, thanksà
I totally understand your feeling. You didn't do it, right? So I assume that they don't have any evidence to blame you. Then they shouldn't send out an email like that.
I suggest you reply to everybody on the email and strongly express your feeling. Asking for retracting his original email is reasonable to me too.
I got a fight with our IT once before. I changed my laptop couple years ago and turned in my old computer. .5 year later, I found that the old computer and new computer are both under my account. I contacted IT and they claimed that I didn't turn in the battery, so they have been waiting for that. It is bullshit, I am pretty sure I did. Even if I didn't, they should have reminded me. But they never did. So I guess the guy just had the old computer for his kids at home or something. I called the company property manager and other people and sumbited ticket for this issue. Then the issue got dismissed.
I happen to know computer real well, so I don't really need IT most of time unless I simply don't have access to certain things.
RE: Someone please calm me down, thanksà
Perhaps try to impress upon the powers that be the impact of a full scale file system failure. See what they say then about the importance of a verified, restorable backup.
RE: Someone please calm me down, thanksà
There may be more going on behind the scenes than you think. IT guy may be under fire from management for this, hence the witch hunt.
IT guy is there for you, not the other way around. He's support staff. As necessary and useful as he may be, without people like you his job has no purpose.
Best of luck.
RE: Someone please calm me down, thanksà
Too many support staff forget that. Ours (both IT and admin) think they're here to keep us from getting away with whatever the hell it is they imagine we're getting away with.
Hg
Eng-Tips policies: FAQ731-376: Eng-Tips.com Forum Policies
RE: Someone please calm me down, thanksà
Because of IT guy's email, all managers and managing director think that I'm the one who deleted it, I mean just why the heck would I do it?! It won't benefit me in any ways! He even told them to take action on me.
What upset me most is, the guy who spent hours and hours did the drawings thinks I'm the one who deleted his drawings. I haven't got a chance to speak with him, will try to speak with him tomorrow.
Whoever did it, did it purposely with a bad intension... :( but just how to find out?!
Cuttie
RE: Someone please calm me down, thanksà
If they say it can't be done, or they refuse...it's I.T. that deleted the files or a friend of theirs.
Chris
SolidWorks/PDMWorks 08 3.1
AutoCAD 06/08
ctopher's home (updated Jul 13, 2008)
ctopher's blog
RE: Someone please calm me down, thanksà
If this were my problem, I'd march into my boss' office tomorrow morning (or perhaps my director's office) and present my concerns and plans for a better future. The past is the past. Clearly the policies of the past aren't suitable. Just make sure your approach is positive (how to improve things) and don't point any fingers.
- Steve
RE: Someone please calm me down, thanksà
Am I alone thinking our several got potential risk like Cuttie's situation? No. But why it is not changed yet? Because it is not easy to change people's mind. Technically it is very easy even with Windows server.
Many people here have suggested to come up with positive improvement. I disagree. It is not cuttie's job. She got blamed unreasonally, and she got to defend herself. Changing it or not in the future is another thing and is up to IT and management.
Salmon
RE: Someone please calm me down, thanksà
If you are going into the server, and bringing files to your desktop to work on, then you are not actually moving the file to your desktop, you are just copying the files.
Given that, then you would be the only one in the company that might have a copy of files that are on the server.
Am I missing something here?
RE: Someone please calm me down, thanksà
Something along the lines of;
"Despite the rumours and unsubstantiated allegations , it wasn't me. I'm not even working on that project. It should be a simple matter to retrieve it from the back-up." (acting as if you don't know about the backup problem)
Warning; management may take a dim view on this sort of response.
And, it's only natural to feel upset and angry in your situation.
RE: Someone please calm me down, thanksà
The IT guy well sorted of apologised, he emailed all managers, said he didn't mean to blame me, he just wanted to make a point that someone (unfortunately it happened to be my desktop screenshot) could have done that...
Have a nice day, all
Cuttie
RE: Someone please calm me down, thanksà
the whole thing is rather confusing
anyway, thanks again xxx
Cuttie
RE: Someone please calm me down, thanksà
You could go after him with a knife (blunt or sharp) or maybe exploit his nerves a bit.
But there is a deeper problem here. This kind of sloppy "what's so important about back-ups?" attitude suggests you've just touched the tip of the iceberg. What else is there in IT waiting to trip you up? How good is security? how good are some of those resources you have? what other aspects of the company are full of holes? How about QA? Finance and accounting?
In any event, and just as a security measure, you need to get your CV out and up to date. Who knows when everything will go belly up or if you will be targeted for the scapegoat on the next disaster.
JMW
www.ViscoAnalyser.com
RE: Someone please calm me down, thanksà
However, at most one days work is lost.
If what your IT guy says is true then again, at most one days work was lost.
If more work than that was lost then your IT guy is fibbing.
KENAT, probably the least qualified checker you'll ever meet...
RE: Someone please calm me down, thanksà
Our DDC Administrator recently moved a released directory without realizing it. When we came in the next morning there was chaos, as no one could find what they had been working with the previous day. We called our IT guy in to restore the backup, but he poked around first, doing a server search for a file that we knew had existed in the directory. He found it, located in a directory folder immediately below where the missing directory folder had been. It appears that the DDC administrator had highlighted the folder, changed her mind but kept her finger on the button too long as she proceeded to move to the next folder. It resulted in the released directory being moved into that next folder. How she didn't notice what was happening still hasn't been figured out, but everything was sucessfully restored to its proper location. She DID NOT receive a dressing down, as it was figured she had learned her lesson. Our IT guy was very understanding.
As KENAT posted, the worse that should happen is the loss of a single days work. If not, management should be made aware that if proper backups are not being made, ALL of the data on the server can easily be permanently lost if the server hard drive should give out. I have seen it happen, and it wasn't cheap to restore that data; most of it was totally lost. Of course, we have since rectified that situation.
When the people fear their government, there is tyranny; when the government fears the people, there is liberty. - Thomas Jefferson
RE: Someone please calm me down, thanksà
RE: Someone please calm me down, thanksà
Do some companies really base their computer records on nothing more than M$ filesystems, with (flaky) daily backups on top?
It should never be possible to accidentally move stuff around (and lose it).
What happens when a bridge collapses or a plane crashes and the investigators want to review the calcs and/or drawings involved?
- Steve
RE: Someone please calm me down, thanksà
When the people fear their government, there is tyranny; when the government fears the people, there is liberty. - Thomas Jefferson
RE: Someone please calm me down, thanksà
I worked in one "company" where it was possible for someone to go postal and walk off with the server & backup tapes without anyone stopping them. This would have put the place out of business.
I worked in another place where they at least put the server & tapes behind a locked door.
RE: Someone please calm me down, thanksà
Trust me, it happens...I have personally witnessed it happening. Then they pretend it was not their fault.
Chris
SolidWorks/PDMWorks 08 3.1
AutoCAD 08
ctopher's home (updated Aug 5, 2008)
ctopher's blog
SolidWorks Legion
RE: Someone please calm me down, thanksà
My current place backs up every night and swaps the tapes to an off site location, I think once a week. I can't remember how long till those tapes are over written.
Our released drawings are in write restricted folders and some project folders have limited permissions to restrit access etc. but basically untill a drawing's released it's a free for all.
We don't have many safety critical calculations (no bridges or aeroplanes) but other than drawings the rest of the design stuff is very adhoc.
I was part of a team trying to get a PDM/PLM system in place but it got no where.
In fact, it sounds that in some respects Cuttie may be more organized than us.
(Now that the PLM is out my Director thinks we should look at formallizing at least our folder structure etc. if we hadn't spent 2+ years on PDM/PLM we'd have already done that, now we're too busy after layoffs. Speaking of which what am I doing wasting my time here, I'm off.)
KENAT, probably the least qualified checker you'll ever meet...
RE: Someone please calm me down, thanksà
That and design and checking and CAD file management and creating standards... I really ought not be here either.
When the people fear their government, there is tyranny; when the government fears the people, there is liberty. - Thomas Jefferson
RE: Someone please calm me down, thanksà
Cuttie, just to try and encourage you. We had somone here who jacked up a bunch of data by independantly downloading a newer version of our CAD system (despite having been told it was already being looked at) opening up a bunch of project critical files and forcing them to the new version which wasn't backward compatible. We lost something like 2 man days worth of work or something and it took several days to even restore to that point as the tapes had just been sent off site and had to be returned.
Not only did he not get reprimanded at the time, but he survived the layoffs a couple of months later. He did eventually get let go at the next lay offs 6 months or so later but that was part of a 10% reduction.
KENAT, probably the least qualified checker you'll ever meet...
RE: Someone please calm me down, thanksà
Sometimes Management gets a down on someone so badly they won't let them go during redundancies. In the case of one guy, as his manager told me in an unguarded moment, they'd rather keep him and go through the disciplinary procedures so they could fire his **s and send him out with nothing whereas making him redundant would means giving him redundancy money.
In another instance, the company finally had had enough with a long term employee but dismissing them from their job was going to be expensive. They decided to offer the person a new position with much better pay but on a 3 month trial period i.e. a new contract.
Yes, you guessed it, they planned to sack them at the end of the 3 months. It would have worked, too, except the manager took a day off at the wrong time and when he did carry out the sacking it was a day over the 3 months and they got cleaned out.
Management may know nothing about running a company but when it comes to personal grudges and fixing someone's wagon they can be smart as foxes.
JMW
www.ViscoAnalyser.com
RE: Someone please calm me down, thanksà
When the people fear their government, there is tyranny; when the government fears the people, there is liberty. - Thomas Jefferson
RE: Someone please calm me down, thanksà
According to IT "the drawings that have got deleted were created on the same day, since we only back up everyday at 7pm, the missing drawings couldn't be backed up"
Sounds like someone is lying....
Yeah IT searched everywhere, couldn't find the drawings
And also I was told off for my habit of creating new folders for each job I do on my desktop, apparently it's the company rule (suggested by IT) that no one should work on their desktop, but the actual project server/folder.
I think the whole thing (me being blamed) is over, me and the IT guy; we just don't talk to each other anymore, well for now, seems a bit childish, but feels fine for me :)
Thanks for the replies xxx
Cuttie
RE: Someone please calm me down, thanksà
Chris
SolidWorks/PDMWorks 08 3.1
AutoCAD 08
ctopher's home (updated Aug 5, 2008)
ctopher's blog
SolidWorks Legion
RE: Someone please calm me down, thanksà
Only infrequently does IT request that we clean them up due to server space running low.
When I first started at this company, is was still quite small and had the old "Drafting and Document Control" mindset, as opposed to "Data and Document Control" and were more concerned with controlling the actual paper drawings than they were the files which created them. This led to most engineers doing all of their work on their own computers, saving the files there when completed, and only passing the approved printed drawings to DDC. In those relatively rare instances where the files were actually passed on to DDC, to get access to them you had to sign out a CD with the files on them. Since I was hired to operate a relational CAD system, I had to put a halt to those practices, with good reason.
We are still struggling with old school mindsets, but we are making progress.
When the people fear their government, there is tyranny; when the government fears the people, there is liberty. - Thomas Jefferson
RE: Someone please calm me down, thanksà
We also have P "Personal Drives" on the server that only we and the IT folks have access to. However most work is done in another system folder, either related to the project or ECO. We also each have X "transfer" drives, these are used for sharing/transferring data (to avoid email attatchments) and anything more than 2 weeks old in them is deleted each weekend.
Anyway, hope it pans out for you and maybe you'll learn something from this (not working on you local drive most of the time).
KENAT, probably the least qualified checker you'll ever meet...
RE: Someone please calm me down, thanksà
Cuttie
RE: Someone please calm me down, thanksà
You know, with the scale of the problem as it is I'm surprised nothing more serious hasn't happened or maybe it has and it's been well covered up.
This is going to happen a few more times yet if no one actually addresses he problem. An aggressive response by you means that next time the IT guy will choose a softer target for the next scapegoat.
It also sounds like if you don't put together some form of proposal no one will. Of course, one day it may be your work that gets deleted and you are going to like that even less than you like being blamed for someone else's "mistake". There ought to be enough good ideas from the folks here for you to put together a pretty good proposal as having been "benchmarked" against what other companies do.
JMW
www.ViscoAnalyser.com
RE: Someone please calm me down, thanksà
RE: Someone please calm me down, thanksà
that's why he got told off my manager and later by the managing director " If someone is maliciously and deliberately ignoring this for no good reason then it would be a disciplinary offence, but I see no evidence of this and it is wrong to single out any individual at this moment."
so its all clear now i had nothing to do with the data loss, well i hope its all clear
x
Cuttie
RE: Someone please calm me down, thanksà
Are you fully exonerated?
From the wording you quote it sounds like the Scottish result of "not proven" (We are mostly used to guilty or not guilty verdicts but Scottish law allows for this third option.)
IT seems to be saying "we can't prove it."
If they can't prove who did it or why then basically they can't prove who didn't do it. The earlier accusation stands as unproven but isn't it also impossible to prove your innocence? In other words IT threw some mud and yours is still the name in the frame.
JMW
www.ViscoAnalyser.com
RE: Someone please calm me down, thanksà
As some said I would do a very public question:
"This already happened 2 times in the last XXX months. What is our IT department proposal to avoid happening again? Also, what is our IT department proposal to avoid that back-ups" do not loose documents?"
RE: Someone please calm me down, thanksà
1. What happened is someone hit ctrl+x instead of ctrl+c and cut the folder out instead of copying it somewheres. I actually see it all the time.
2. The commment about giving universal rights to folders for everyone...Umm how else are you going to be able to save your work. Management has to give a certain ammount of trust to the people working on those files that they will not delete them or else nothing would be able to be saved
3. If you guys want more backups management will have to have over some cash to get the systems set up (not very likely to happen)
4. As for working on your desktop that is a major no-no. At no times will your work every get backed up and also if you change your document what happens when engineer Y needs access to that file and gets the older version.
5. Changing access so only people who are working on the folder can access it is very complicated to set up also whenever a security permission would get changed the users affected would have to stop what they are doing log on and log off. Also this is likely never to work since thte management would never keep IT up to date or hire a specific person whose job was to do this full time
6. As for tracking the person who deleted it. They would have to enable auditing on all objects and this would add a chunk of overhead that would slow the server down. By default it is turned off
7. To teh guy who got his laptop wiped. That is standard policy. Most pc's will get sent back just with the basic load unless there is documentation on that pc as to what programs should be on it. If you installed the software without letting IT know then it is your fault. Also this usually causes liscening problems
The reason you were singled out is it probably looked like you cut and pasted by accident and if they had it happen a few times already they are going made, I know I did when that happens where I work at
Mainly people need to stop blaming IT for mistakes regular users make.
RE: Someone please calm me down, thanksà
- Steve
RE: Someone please calm me down, thanksà
Yea, there's plenty of other things to blame IT for:)
RE: Someone please calm me down, thanksà
Hardware for backups is very inexpensive these days. For IT to not create regular backups is inexcusable. If a company cannot afford a couple hundred bucks to protect their assets, perhaps they should be looking at a different business plan ... and the IT guys should probably be looking for a better company to work for.
Check out the many PDM softwares available. Most of them allow and in fact encourage/force a local download. Working across most networks is just too slow.
Why not? It is a very simple task to reach out and make backups from networked PCs or to have a backup utility installed on each PC.
To answer #5 ... again check out the many PDM softwares available; they handle this with relative ease.
And the IT people need to stop using regular users as scapegoats for their mistakes and shortcomings.
BTW, I am the IT guy for my company as well as a regular user, and I make sure come Hell or high water that regular and frequent backups are made. That way when idiots use ctrl+x instead of ctrl+c, data is not lost.
RE: Someone please calm me down, thanksà
If you don't value it and don't want to make some kind of investment to safeguard it then most of what you put is entirely true.
You're right that some of the issues aren't IT's fault per se, they're managements fault for not telling them to do something about it & giving them budget.
Sompting, from experience some of the free ones have 'hidden' costs
KENAT,
Have you reminded yourself of FAQ731-376: Eng-Tips.com Forum Policies recently, or taken a look at http://eng-tips.com/market.cfm?
RE: Someone please calm me down, thanksà
We use ClearCase. It's industrial strength and not "free". I agree with your implied statement that "you get what you pay for". I had to put this case forward a couple of years ago when our bean-counters were circling. We have many, many years of history of all of our products and documentation, including check out/in and branch/merge comments for every transaction.
- Steve
RE: Someone please calm me down, thanksà
It is pretty arogant to state unequivocally that using a ctrl key is what happened. It's good to know that everyone is using those shortcuts, 'cause here we find out that it is the only way this can happen.
When the people fear their government, there is tyranny; when the government fears the people, there is liberty. - Thomas Jefferson
RE: Someone please calm me down, thanksà
:) x
Cuttie
RE: Someone please calm me down, thanksà
The reason I said it was the control key is I have seen it time and time again. Also I have made that mistake before. If I had to list the top reasons for data to go missing the control+x would be tops next followed by control and a move or control being used to select multiple items and having one other item selected not supposed to be selected. Lastly I would have to attribute the data spontaneously disappearing to either gremlins or spontaneous realighnment of the magnetic fields on certian sectors of the hard drive
As for the cost. Most companies are not going to fork over 2000 t0 4000$ for the cost of a backup (hardware + software) and from what I have witnessed most companies think that backups are useless till something happens. When I use to work server support I would have at least 4 people a week call in with hard drive crashes and they had no competent backup.
As for working on the desktop. The main reason you do not want to work locally is you have no redundancy. If a program forces you to work locally there are ways around that by remoting into the pc that is running the software or mounting a network share as a local drive
The reason why your pc is not backed up is that you would need licenses for the software for each computer you go out to and grab data from. In a company with over 150+ at say 100$ per seat per year that quickly adds up. Also the network overhead sometimes can be real high. Our daily backups are close to 70gb at last I had seen. We ended up having to upgrade the backbone layer to gigabit switches and was able to drop our backup time down from 14 hours to 6 hours and we could drop it lower if I didnt have to back up computers at remote sites(which have to go first in the backup scheme to keep some bandwitch available)
Also not all companies use PDM's. Honestly most if not all the companies I have worked/consulted for rely on the folder permissions from windows to control access. The only one I know that had one was when me and another tech set up a wikipedia up to keep track of common problems and was used to keep knoledge in a central place
As for backups in general I wish some agency would come out with a standard for them. One of the main things I hated about the computer field is there is no real set of standards.
As for the blame I still stick to what I said but feel I should have added an addendum
Most of the IT problems are user created or stem from managements "Acceptable Risk"
RE: Someone please calm me down, thanksà
Right now, the backup device on my home computer is the 6GB hard drive it came with. I have a newer, bigger hard drive I use for actual work. I back up every night. Once a week, I burn a DVD.
A big corporation would need more than this, especially if 3D CAD is in-house, but what does it cost to have an engineer run around the office like a chicken with his head cut off, all because he deleted the wrong file?
People who don't make mistakes, don't make anything else.
There are lots of ways to mess up files. On the system I administered, I was determined to keep everyone working in the central directory on the sole copy of the file. If I was asked to recover from backup, I did so quickly and politely, because I knew that if I did not cooperate, each person would set up his own file procedure and there would be chaos.
Another way to mess up files is to mess up modifications. This can usually be fixed on AutoCAD. On SolidWorks, or Microsoft Word or Excel, or in a text editor, you are in trouble. This is usually the reason I have to recover stuff from backup.
If you are running SolidWorks on your local C drive, as recommended, you can use WINZIP to back up to your network drive. Presumably, the network drive is backed up. When you mess up, you can extract the files yourself, without pestering the system administrator.
JHG
RE: Someone please calm me down, thanksà
Hg
Eng-Tips policies: FAQ731-376: Eng-Tips.com Forum Policies
RE: Someone please calm me down, thanksà
If 10 people use VB but not all at the same time then 6 licences may be sufficient, perhaps only 4.
Each network machine has its own server directory so there is no question of the files not being backed up with everything else; the exception in our office were those people who had notebooks and who used the briefcase folder approach.
JMW
www.ViscoAnalyser.com
RE: Someone please calm me down, thanksà
I hate it!
I see all of the stumbling blocks between IT and engineering. We're told that we support them, but then we are also told we are limited. Why? Because most employee's in IT don't know what the hell they are doing!
I have seen folders on servers full of drawings get deleted or moved because IT said it was time to 'clean house' or move folders from 'dev' to 'prod'. Then all of the users lose their links!
I get calls all of the time from CAD users that they no longer have licenses. I have to go thru the red-tape to get them back...and I'm on the team that handles licenses!!
Sorry for the rant...
Chris
SolidWorks/PDMWorks 08 3.1
AutoCAD 08
ctopher's home (updated Aug 5, 2008)
ctopher's blog
SolidWorks Legion
RE: Someone please calm me down, thanksà
Whenever I install an operating system, I keep the install CDs and DVDs, and I document what I do. If everything blows up, I can redo the install. At work this has the additional advantage that another administrator can do the re-install, if necessary.
All I back up is data.
I have never installed anything in Windows more recent than Windows 3.11.
JHG