Smart Client Extension for AutoCAD

Special Situations with Document Management for Drawings

The topic, Checking Drawings In and Out of the Drawing Management System, covers the basic procedures for checking out drawings for editing and review, checking in changed drawings, creating new documents, and registering existing drawings with the Archibus Document Management for Drawings system.

However, you might encounter situations outside of the normal procedures, such as:

• A CAD Manager copies files to the Web Central Drawing Files folder directly.
• Contractors check out files but do not check them in.
• CAD Specialists use the operating system to copy files.
• CAD Specialists use the operating system to remove the read-only restriction so that they can edit files that they did not lock.

This topic covers these types of situations and how you can use the system's advanced features to resolve these issues.

Note: Document Management for Drawings is not available on SaaS deployments. See CAD and BIM on SaaS Deployments

Take Control of a Drawing by Breaking Existing Locks

You may encounter situations in which another user has the drawing locked, but you must make a change. For example, perhaps a contractor checked out the drawing weeks ago but never checked it in again or a co-worker checked out the document and then went on vacation.

In these situations, you can follow this procedure:

1. Display the Drawing List.
2. Select the drawing that you wish to edit and notice the lock icon.

3. Choose the Check Out button.
4. On the dialog, choose the Check Out for Edit option.
5. Click the Advanced button to display additional options and choose Break Existing Locks.
6. The system will break the current lock, check out the document to your local system, and automatically lock the copy of the drawing in the central location so that no one else can check out a copy and make changes.
7. Once you check out the drawing the Drawing List will show the new status. For example, other users will see the Lock icon as the status; your status will show the green check mark.
8. Now that the drawing is checked out, you can open it and make your edits. Select the drawing in the Drawing List and choose the Open button.
9. Notify the user whose lock you broke. When you have completed your changes and checked in the drawing, this user will need to check out the drawing and manually add any edits they made locally.

Using the Force Check-Out Option

Perhaps you cannot recall if you checked out the most recent version of a drawing from the Web Central Drawing Files folder and you have edited the drawing on your local machine. At this point, you do not know if you are working with the same version of the document that is in the Web Central Drawing Files folder.

In this case, you can force check out the drawing to be sure that you have the latest version. without first checking out the most recent version from the central location. You will abandon your local changes.

Follow this procedure.

1. Display the Drawing List.
2. Select the drawing that you wish to edit.

3. Choose the Check Out button.
4. On the dialog, choose the Check Out for Edit option.
5. Click the Advanced button to display additional options and choose Force Check Out.
6. The system will check out the drawing to your local system, regardless of whether the time stamp of the local copy is later than the timestamp of the copy in the Web Central Drawing Files folder.
7. The system will also automatically lock the copy of the drawing in the central location so that no one else can check out a copy and make changes.
8. Once you check out the drawing the Drawing List will show the new status. For example, other users will see the Lock icon as the status; your status will show the green check mark.
9. Now that the drawing is checked out, you can open it and make your edits. Select the drawing in the Drawing List and choose the Open button.
10. You can re-enter the changes that you made locally, and check in your changes when through.
11. Before checking out this drawing again, you may wish to first delete the local copy of the file to be absolutely certain the local version matches the server version.

Using the Force Check-In Option

The Smart Client will not check in drawing if it is older than the drawing in the Web Central Drawing Files folder. However, sometimes, you need to override this default and overwrite another user's changes.

For example, suppose when establishing the drawing set in November, the central office had checked in drawings from a remote site’s last submission (from August); checking the files automatically set the date and time stamp to November. The remote stopped working on the drawings in October and now needs to check them in. The remote site knows -- since they are the authors of those drawings -- that their own copies of the drawings are most accurate, even though the timestamp of the corresponding files in the Web Central Drawing Files folder is newer. In this situation, the remote site can use the force check-in feature to update the central file store with their current drawings so that everyone has the correct version from that time forward.

To use the force check-in feature:

1. Display the Drawing List.
2. Select the drawing that you wish to check in.

3. Choose the Check In button.
4. On the dialog, choose the Check In option (with or without the lock).
5. Click the Advanced button to display additional options and choose Force Check In.
6. The system will check in the drawing to the Web Central Drawing Files folder, regardless of the fact that they have an older time stamp than those files in the Web Central Drawing Files folder.

Merging Changes

You may have the condition in which User B has broken User A’s lock on a file, even though User A has changes that they did not check in. In this case, User A would take these steps:

1. Rename their own copy of the drawing file (such as, hq18_mine.dwg).
2. Check out User B’s changes to hq18.dwg).
3. Open both drawings and merge the changes (e.g., in hq18.dwg).
4. Save and check in the merged changes.