Sharing databases for multiple users - how to synchronise among us?

[jeremyN]

Hello,
In the same company, we are 8 users of irricad (standalone) and the goal is to use the same DB, templates, symbols,.... for all users.
Moreover, most of us must be able to work with this OFFLINE when we are in the field.
So, is the software can natively manage a kind of "synchronisation" as microsoft sharepoint or google drive does?
How other companies manage this issue?

Other users tips are welcome.

thx

[jovivier]

IRRICAD has no inherent way of doing this automatically. However it is fairly common practice to have custom symbols, templates, and master databases at an accessible location and a manual method used to update the files on each PC as required.

Please note that remote databases cannot have multi-user access - the Microsoft Access database format does not support this. Additionally, as each user tends to make changes to the database depending on pipe types and sizes they might want available for a particular design these changes should not be synchronised back to a master file. Companies that keep master databases tend to have a rule that users do not add items to their local database but one 'database manger' will update the master database when required and notify the users to download it.

We may think about synchronisation options for a future version.

The IRRICAD Team

[aquacg]

Hello, is this still the only option for database sharing among multiple users?

I am also looking for a way to share database with another user and concurrently work on designs and not have to update the database location in the design each time a different user makes a change to the design.

Thanks

[Dan Crosby]

You can work simultaneously from a standard shared network drive, as long as you are very careful not to have multiple people editing the database at the the same time. Bear in mind that some database changes can be made through the Irricad interface (e.g., Riser Rules) as well as the in the Database Editor. If this is not carefully controlled, someone's changes will be overwritten.

Working from a cloud drive (e.g., Google Drive, One Drive etc.) is not recommended. Anecdotally we have seen problems with One Drive. But be aware that Microsoft themselves do not recommend sharing Access databases on One Drive.

You would also need to ensure that the central location is always available - which it potentially may not be (e.g., a laptop outside of the office environment).

All-in-all, we'd still recommend the 'central master copies manually distributed to the local machines' model Jo has described above. If all users copy the files to an identical location then you will not need to change any paths (e.g., everyone has their copy of the local files at, say, "C:\Irricad Files\Database" etc.)