Losing drawing paths in Document manager

[Data Wrangler]

Excuse me if this has been asked before-

We do not allow engineers into our Autoplant P&ID drawings folder, as we have found out the hard way that when someone else on the network opens a drawing in a project by double clicking the paths get messed up in the project (as shown in Document manager) and thus lose the links to the database.

Does this happen to anyone else?

Is there a way to fix the path back to the drawings so that they are corrected in one operation?

Thanks in advance

Derek

[HybridAWD]

I dont know if this will help but:

if you go to the Project Administrator then select the project. Go to Database tab, then look at see where there Connection Path is located. It should be pointed to the Projects schema.mdb <--assuming this is access.

[Aplant Monkey]

I think what you are talking about is located in a couple of spots. First go to Project Admin and go the the paths section under the Project tab/Preferences, from there you can change a drawing path to the proper one as well as assign it an easier name to identify. Make sure you also go to your project.ini file to ensure that path is no longer in the .ini file. YOu will now need to go to the Doc.Reg and change the location name of that file to be the correct one that you changed it too back in the project Admin (step one above).

this happens fairly often until you start to slap the users around and make sure they access the files through the proper method. In our case ONLY vision is used to access a file. Once in awhile one of our Pipers will copy a bunch of files over to batch plot them. If they do this with any application of of Bentley open it will repath all the drawings over to whatever location they put them into to plot them. Not a fun exercise to change them all back so you have to really get control over these users. Let me know if you have any trouble.

[Data Wrangler]

Not a fun exercise to change them all back so you have to really get control over these users. Let me know if you have any trouble.
:shock:

You would come all the way down here to kick some butt?

Thanks for the offer, but I don't think management would look kindly on me if I imported enforcers...

Anyway - Thanks for the replies, all. The paths as set in the project admin. are correct, so that's not a problem. We do not use Vision - we have another document management solution, so we use Document Manager for Autoplant P&ID access.

What happens is that the path to the particular drawing (as shown in doc manager-properties-location) repaths itself to whereever the unauthorised person opened the drawing. This hoses the database connection.

Monkey- are those individual document paths stored only in the DOC_REG table?

What mechanism is used to update a database table when a drawing file is opened in plain Autocad?

The only thing I can think of is this, from the help file:


Version 16.0 New Features

Upgrades to P&ID

Database reactors have been added to the P&ID

To check the Parent/Child relationship before deletion is completed

To check for orphaned data nodes

To check that all nodes have valid database links

Maybe there's a reactor in the drawing file that really doesn't want to cut the apron strings...

Derek

[Aplant Monkey]

Derek,

if you provide me with your email address I could send you some clips of what I am talking about.

DocReg does store the file path but as a name not as a standard path. YOu need to change this in docReg so that it knows what path to look for.

[Data Wrangler]

I haven't finished the results of my playing yet - but it seems that when the drawing is 'hijacked' by an external (to the project) program, a new alias with the new path is created in the project paths list. The newaliases I looked at are versions of "P&ID_Dwgs", where X is an incremental number. Thinking down the line, the DOC_REG table would be updated with the name of the new alias.

Wouldn't an easy fix for this be an update query to update all the location fields for DWG's back to PID_DWG, which is where they should be?

Derek

[Aplant Monkey]

This method will work fine as long as you are not using any piping or equipment modules as they normally have different paths and you would need to be able to differentiate between them.

Also you will still need to open the project.ini file and erase the "bad" name location or else it will maintain a link with the bad path.

[Data Wrangler]

We only use P&ID in our I&C projects, so that's not a problem.

I will also delete the new aliases.

Derek

[Aplant Monkey]

Did you get my email yet.... I got a notice that you may not have received it yet.

[Data Wrangler]

No, I haven't - let me PM my e-mail address again.

Derek

[aarti.vij]

Hi Derek,

IF the path of the drawings is getting changed then,u need to make the changes in PROJECT.INI file.Whenever PROJECT.INI files gets corrupted only then the path of drawings gets changed


Excuse me if this has been asked before-

We do not allow engineers into our Autoplant P&ID drawings folder, as we have found out the hard way that when someone else on the network opens a drawing in a project by double clicking the paths get messed up in the project (as shown in Document manager) and thus lose the links to the database.

Does this happen to anyone else?

Is there a way to fix the path back to the drawings so that they are corrected in one operation?

Thanks in advance

Derek

[dave]

we have another document management solution

What do you use?

[dave]

I just found something similar to this. We have a project who's drawing numbers start with HD4-**** - We are ready to issue so I go into strait autocad to batch plot them. When I do, I see HD2-**** (a different project) on half the drawings. This flags me to go into the files and see what's going on. I have:

P&ID Drawings folder
P&ID Drawings1 folder
P&ID Drawings2 folder

all populated with the project drawings but only a few are the REAL drawings.

I need to physically copy the file over first, then change the paths correct? Change them in PA and DM and double check they are changed in the project.ini too?

[Data Wrangler]

What I do now is open DM and go to the DOC_REG table, then scroll thru the LOCATION field and ensure that there is only one alias for the P&IDs (typically PID_DWG). These aliases are mapped to particular locations in the project.ini file, which you are editing via the PA. I don't typically delete the additional paths that are created automatically unless I'm feeling particularly virtuous.

You are on the right track - make sure all of the good drawings are in one location with only one alias in the DOC_REG table. Delete any alternative aliases in PA. Done!

D

[dave]

Check the attachment. That is what it looks like now (before the fix)

[Data Wrangler]

I missed the data management question before... we are presently using an early version of Automanager, but it's creaking under the strain of all the documents we have in it. It also limits us to Autocad 2002.

I work for a large multinational corporation and it has been decided above my level that we are going to go to a very customised version of another document package, the customization of which has been going on for many months now, with no real implementation in sight...

D

[dave]

OK.
1. I copied the drawings from the PID_DWG1 folder to the Drawings folder.
2. I changed the path in the doc_reg table / "location" field.
3. Then I comented out (preface the line with ";;") the entries in the project.ini folder.

Everything opened, ran, and plotted great.

[PeterJ]

Dave, that is a correct procedure.
Each time you create a drawing outside the default folders (or import a document that you leave in its original location), AutoPLANT will create a new variable in project.ini that references that new loacation. The document itself is registered in the DOC_REG table. The physical location by the variable as defined in project.ini. As long as you keep a balance between the variable in DOC_REG, the physical path and the path in project.ini, you can place the documents wherever you like.
When AutoPLANT adds new variables for paths they are named pid_dwgx or REFPATHx or so.
Also note that all original paths in project.ini don't have a physical drive letter. They just point to a subfolder of the project folder (ex PID_DWG=P&ID\Drawings\). The new registered paths will be mapped from the drive letter (ex REFPATH1=D:\data_client\Prayon\project sep042006\prayon\approj\baseproject1\AT_PIPE\)

When you copy a project (with its documents) or package & unpackage it, the referenced folders that are outside the project folder will be created as a subfolder of the projectfolder. The name that will be used at that moment will be the variable-name.

When you have projects that only uses the default folders, you can move the root folder to whatever location you want. renaming the root folder is also no problem. When you re-start the document manager, it will prompt you to select the new root and everything will work as before, because all paths in project.ini are relative to the project folder.
If you have documents in folders that are referenced by a variable that points to a non-relative path (c:\ ..), even if its a subfolder of the project, you'll need to edit the project.ini of each project to correct the paths.
The paths are stored at not other location.

ps : this is valid foir p&id's, datasheets, imported documets, I1W documents. Moving Piping to other locations shouls be done with the object maintenece tool.

[aarti.vij]

Inorder to avoid duplicatin of dwgs , or to avoid creation of folders like PID_DWG 1 , PID_DWG 1..check the paths in the project.ini file.

Ensure that the path is
APCUSTDIR=%Standards%\APCUSTDIR\
This should be the only path mentioned .Otherwise it will result in creation of
duplicate drawings .We will get as many folders of duplicate drawings as many
paths would be defined below APCUSTDIR=%Standards%\APCUSTDIR\