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Hey folks, After evaluating X17’s new Project Management system in real-world use, I’ve pulled together a summary of how it works, where it shines, and where it’s falling short—along with a few serious risks for anyone relying on it for production work. This is a summary of a longer, more detailed critique I’ve written (with scenarios, risk cases, and proposed improvements). I’ll post that here or submit it directly to Chief if there’s interest. This isn’t a rant—it’s meant to help prevent avoidable problems and encourage practical feedback from those using the system daily. What It’s Supposed to Do: Chief now groups your plans, layouts, and assets into a single project file (.caproj) stored in your Documents folder. Chief manages the structure and linking. This is meant to: • Keep everything organized • Eliminate broken plan-layout links • Simplify project sharing and exports That’s the goal. But it’s not quite working as intended yet. What’s Not Working (and Why It Matters): 1. Layouts lose their links to plans when imported. You have to reconnect them manually every time. Risk: Incorrect or mismatched plans can get printed or submitted—potentially triggering permit rejection, construction errors, or liability for the designer. 2. Duplicate files are accepted without warning or distinction. Chief allows files with the same name to coexist in the project—even if they contain different content. Risk: Users can unknowingly work on the wrong version, or issue a file that appears correct but contains outdated or unapproved content—risking rework, confusion, or legal exposure. 3. No metadata or file history is visible. No tracking of who made changes or when. Risk: Teams have no way to verify the status or history of a file, leading to loss of accountability, inability to verify approvals, or untraceable errors in submitted documents. 4. There’s no clean way to share or extract a subset of a project—like multiple design options. You can export/import individual files, but not a bundle that retains internal structure or references. Risk: Collaborators can’t isolate just the pieces they need, and reviewers may receive extraneous or obsolete content—introducing major clarity issues and potential misinterpretation of the design intent. 5. If a team member is unavailable, their work is locked away. Project containers live in hidden folders. No export = no access. Risk: Deadlines can be missed, approvals delayed, or teams left unable to submit or revise work without access to another user’s machine—an operational and contractual risk. Why It Matters: These aren’t just workflow annoyances. If a designer delivers incorrect plans, or can’t deliver at all, the blame lands squarely on the designer—not the software. These failure points can trigger missed deadlines, rejected permits, lost revenue, or worse—career and legal consequences tied to what should have been a manageable design flow. What Would Make It Better: • Prompts on import for duplicate filenames • File tagging (draft, issued, archived) • Metadata tracking: author, modified date, version • Support grouped import/export of project subsets, like multiple design options, with links and structure intact • Persistent plan-layout linking across exports/imports • Shared-access fallback or override for unavailable team members Happy to share the full document if folks are interested. It goes deeper into each point, shows examples of where these issues crop up, and offers practical suggestions. Thanks for reading. Hope this helps someone avoid trouble.

i think because CA is going to the cloud, this is just a temporary limitation.. If you are worried about HD failure, then I would suggest backing up CA's backup, or just do the entire CA directory where it stores everything. For file sharing I would suggest keeping to non PM mode if you use a shared replicated drive.

Going back to the original poster @Michael_Gia was wanting to bring attention to. I have been messing with the Project Manager for a number of weeks now and I am liking it a lot. However, it seems there could be a better backup system that makes storing and sharing files easier. Please check it out and let me know you thoughts...

@KacyRSC Rene is correct on only dealing with a plan file if you want, but I am also working with the Project Manager and really like it a lot. However, the very thing you are looking to do is what I am trying to bring attention to... Check it out and support this and/or offer some ideas.

Check this post out and reply to get some momentum... It is actually very nice, but needs this backup system...

The one thing I just found out is that if you have a folder added to a Project, that folder remains with the Exported Project. When you import that Project later into the PM, it already has the same folder applied. That is very nice!

He hasn't been on the HD forum since May 14th..

I was wondering why he didn't chime in anymore. He decided to quit CA? I heard he is on the home designer forum

Can anyone tell me where the default setting for wall bridging is located? Whether it's auto generating or I add it manually it always defaults to 38mm, I need 45mm, but I cannot find where the default setting is hiding.

has anyone gotten this to work? what about on a deck? my joists are building in at 20' long and i want to split them to max 12' boards etc.

This new system is very confusing.

It looks like you've selected all "LED 6" lights in your plan, including ones that already have an emissive material. The Adjust Area Light Material dialog will only adjust materials that are already emissive. You can sort the Adjust Lights dialog by room and select only the LED lights in the kitchen and adjust those. You can also use the Adjust Material Definition tool on one of the bulbs in the kitchen and add emissivity (as long as all the LEDs in the kitchen use the same material).

Does this mean they're already emissive?

I was wondering why he didn't chime in anymore. He decided to quit CA?

I’d recommend getting in touch with a good reputable renovation service, they can usually take your layout and materials and turn things around pretty quickly. I’ve seen how much easier things go when pros handle the design side, especially when time’s tight.

A distribution region can only have one object. There are a few ways I can think of that might work. First, you can always create a copies of a distribution region, set a new object, and overlay them on top of the first one. This may only work if your pavers are the same size though since you don't have separate x and y spacing for the pattern. Depending on the pattern you are trying to model, this could work out. The other thing you could do is make an architectural block with the different pavers already arranged in the pattern you want. This could work out really good if your block ends up being basically square shaped so the spacing works out good. In either case, you may have problems around the edges because I don't think there is any way to make the program clip the objects to fit your shape. This means you might have some pavers sticking out past the edges and some gaps in other cases. And as a last resort, you could always build the pavers individually and use the transform/replicate tool to lay them out in the pattern you want. Could even make custom poly solids for the cut off edge blocks if you wanted it to look perfect. Could always put them all into an architectural block when done so they won't get accidently moved.

Try changing the bulb material on the LED lights to be emissive. In the Adjust Lights dialog, none of the LED lights in the kitchen can be set to "Use Area Light(s)", which means they don't have an emissive material and won't glow. Those lights appear to be casting light, but since they aren't glowing, they appear off.

They are square and rectangular stones of various sizes.

I was thinking about the same principle for a retaining wall made of boulders. I'd like variation in boulder colors so how do I go about doing that? For your case, I don't think you'll find an easy way. Multiple dist. regions will result in stone overlap. You could attempt to create 1 symbol made up of the various stone sizes but it will probably prove to be difficult to create a symbol that tiles nicely. One thought is to create a symbol by using a cad detail from a cad fill pattern of a random edged stone. Then convert the polylines to a 3d symbols for terrain use and paint them using various materials. Another option might be to find a similar looking texture image that can be edited to be transparent between the pavers. What do your patio stones look like?

@WhistlerBuilderWe addressed some issues that were causing problems with migrating from earlier versions to X17, and these fixes should be in the next update. However, its difficult to know whether the particular issue you are experiencing has been addressed. If you haven't already, please contact our tech support team. They may be able to get your migration running when you call, or they may walk you through getting some debugging information (logs, etc.) to us so that we can address the issue.

Daren, Having previously used Google Drive for project sharing, I can provide a solution that worked for my team. While we were working in the same office, I don't see why this wouldn't work for remote purposes. Setup a shared google drive between two google accounts > Download the google drive for desktop app > configure the desktop app to stream files, and show the shared drive in your file browser > when you open a new project, save it to your shared drive. Any edits one of you makes will be saved to the shared drive. Just be sure you aren't both working on it at the same time, and backup a version locally just to be safe. FYI this setup worked great for us for X16 however I have not tested this with X17 and the new Project Management structure. Hope this helps!

I have a bunch of patio stones from a former garden path which I'd like to re-purpose as pavers for a small patio (the white area below). There are 3-4 different sizes of stones and I'm trying to figure out a way to have Chief create a layout pattern in a distribution region. So far, I have not been able to select more than 1 item. Does anyone know of a workaround for what I'm trying to do or am I just asking to much of the software?

Lane, I lose my custom tool bar occasionally and the check mark shown in the pic to show in 'Plan' was missing. It's happened a handful of time just randomly. Hope that helps.

Can you post a link to the plan?

Have a plan where the ceiling LED lights cannot be turned on. The other rooms are okay (see adjacent room in pic) and the under cab rope lights are on, just the recessed ceiling. I have them all added to a light set and turned on. Any ideas what the issue could be?