Tips for running Chief in an Office Enviornment

[tchomes]

For the past 12 years, I have been working out of a home office using Chief.  I have added employees over the years, but they either work in my dual office or work remotely and we share files on OneDrive.

Now, I am moving my company to some office space so that everyone can be together in one environment and I can have the designers involved with the client meetings.

Question for those that have employees and an office:

1.  How do you recommend to setup file sharing?  Our new location has pretty good internet (300Gb/s) and wired connections, so I have thought about continuing to use One Drive or buy a dedicated server.

2.  If I use a dedicated server in the office, can I back up the files to OneDrive or another Cloud based system so that we have access to them should we work from home on Friday's or need to get to a file after hours?

3.  User Library - Is there a way to put this on a server or OneDrive so that everyone has access to the same User Library.  All of my employees create new CAD blocks or custom materials from time to time to improve efficiency.  We have them all caterogized, but it would be nice to have the same library so we don't have to remember to export the new items to each other.  Any recommendations for how this might could work in an office enviornment as well as those who work remotely?

4. We are very efficient users, so I do not want to "Slow Down" productivity waiting on easy tasks if putting the User Library on the Cloud or storing our files on the Cloud will slow down processing times on my employees local machines.

 

I am looking for advantages and disadvantages from those that have tried the above.  Hoping to gleam some "business" knowledge from other business owners.

Thank you in advance...

[Joe_Carrick]

I don't use OneDrive but I do use Dropbox and I believe they are almost identical in how they function.  Since all systems that are using the same Dropbox Folders get their files updated automatically, it works just as well in an office as it does remotely.  It's just a matter of specifying the Folder locations in Chief on each system so that they are all the same.  For actual projects, I would use network folders with file locking.

[Renerabbitt]

Use library can be a challenge. Any change to the library OneDrive will upload and lock the file, than all of the other office machines must download this update . If a machine starts CA before the new user library is synced in OneDrive it will revert back to it's previously synced user library and then if a library item is edited in the machine using the previously synced OneDrive while the other user library is uploading it will rename user library when synced etc... 

If your team plans on editing the user library it should be announced. It may be a better plan to keep the library off of the cloud and work out a distribution system of updates for the library

[Renerabbitt]

My user library is gold to me, I don't sync it with any of my calloborators. I use close to 60 custom buttons that link to items in my user library..touch my library and I'm set back a week or two

[tchomes]

Thanks for the input Rene.  I guess the main reasons I would like to share the User Library is so that when someone else works on a file, the they don't get the annoying "can't find library item" without having to backup entire plan each time.  We may touch 6-7 projects each day with minor updates, so backing up entire plan becomes laborsome.  I also like the idea of being able to share content within the office.

 

Currently, each has there own and when someone creates something cool or timesaving, then they share it.  I definitely wouldn't want to run into an issue where there are multiple libraries on the cloud because multiple people were editing it at once, which can happen with several employees.

 

Again, thanks for the advice. 

[Renerabbitt]

1 hour ago, tchomes said:

Thanks for the input Rene.  I guess the main reasons I would like to share the User Library is so that when someone else works on a file, the they don't get the annoying "can't find library item" without having to backup entire plan each time.  We may touch 6-7 projects each day with minor updates, so backing up entire plan becomes laborsome.  I also like the idea of being able to share content within the office.

 

Currently, each has there own and when someone creates something cool or timesaving, then they share it.  I definitely wouldn't want to run into an issue where there are multiple libraries on the cloud because multiple people were editing it at once, which can happen with several employees.

 

Again, thanks for the advice. 

Worst case is that you lose that sessions added library item..best practice could be that someone creating a custom library item turns off their sync til days end