Thread: Document Management

  1. #1
    Mayor of Awesometown Govtcheez's Avatar
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    Document Management

    I work for a company that does contract work for a local utility. Because it's a contract, our client retains ownership of the drawings we're working on for them. As a result of this, it's up to them which drawings they want to hand off to us for revision; they'll sometimes hold it back if they don't think we need this specific drawing or if some other firm is doing work on it right then. That's where I come in - my job is basically to track what we've requested, what we've received, and other issues with what we've ordered.

    This can become a huge pain in the ass for one person to deal with (we're currently dealing with about 11K drawings, and we're only about a third of the way through the project), so my boss and I are looking into some EDM software to make life a little easier around here. We've also noticed that most of them also contain workflow managers, security settings (so people aren't working on old revs or something like that), and some other automated tools that are big plusses for what we're doing here.

    I know that the people on this board are pretty young, by and large, but I know we also have quite a few people that are actually out in the working world and may have dealt with these things. What (if anything) do you guys use to control project documents at your companies? We're currently looking at Documentum, AutoEDMS, Projectwise, and Cyco, if anyone has any more specific info on those.

  2. #2
    & the hat of GPL slaying Thantos's Avatar
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    Come on Govt break out the compiler and whip up your own

  3. #3
    Mayor of Awesometown Govtcheez's Avatar
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    If I had either the time or the skill to do it, I still probably wouldn't

  4. #4
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    One of our physics professors whom I am friends with uses some special expensive software to keep track of several hundred lattice experiments...she has to record the date of the experiment, the temperature of the experiment, and whether or not it has been sent to our computing cluster (costs $$$ to buy time on that). This is her grad work. If you really want, I might be able to ask her what she uses.

  5. #5
    Mayor of Awesometown Govtcheez's Avatar
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    Sure, I guess. I doubt it's the same thing, though.

  6. #6
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    I've been in and out all day, I went to check shortly after posting, and sure enough she's left early for the holiday. I'm sorry about that, hope you find what you need.

  7. #7
    5|-|1+|-|34|) ober's Avatar
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    Nothing like that here. I have been asked to create a searchable repository for drawings for our new lab, but they have yet to give me any drawings to put in it. I have a rough search engine built tho. They just put in the document name, a category, and maybe some small information about it and put it in a folder. I then give them the ability to search through it to find what they're looking for and that tells them where to get the document. I could probably even serve links to the documents.

    And all that is done with PHP and MS SQL. It's pretty simple, but I already had a template finished for it when I started. And like I said, I have yet to implement it.

    edit: and I'm guessing it wouldn't be complicated enough for what you're trying to do.

  8. #8
    Mayor of Awesometown Govtcheez's Avatar
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    > and I'm guessing it wouldn't be complicated enough for what you're trying to do.

    Yeah, probably not. the way our network is set up right now, it's pretty easy to find where drawings are; the originals from the client are in the "originals" directory, and working copies are in the "working" directory. The client has a pretty clear naming standard in place, so actually finding the drawings isn't a huge issue. It's more difficult to keep track of what we don't have and still need (which is what that Access DB I made does). Additionally, most of these programs also have security options on top of what Windows already provides (which isn't much).

    As a bonus, Cyco has a module which automatically creates a Bill of Materials and AutoEDMS and Documentum both automatically create project transmittals.

  9. #9
    Its not rocket science vasanth's Avatar
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    govt why not use Concurrent Versions System which will allow ppl to automatically get the latest version (or thr version they want) from the server.. simaltaneously work on the same files... etc etc.... There are quite a few open source ones whichw ork with any kind of files.... i think this can solveyour problem...

  10. #10
    Mayor of Awesometown Govtcheez's Avatar
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    > simaltaneously work on the same files...

    I really, really don't want this to happen.

    I'll look into the idea though, vasanth, thanks.

  11. #11
    Its not rocket science vasanth's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Govtcheez
    > simaltaneously work on the same files...

    I really, really don't want this to happen.

    I'll look into the idea though, vasanth, thanks.
    well thats one of the features.. which if needed you can configure the server not to allow it....

  12. #12
    Mayor of Awesometown Govtcheez's Avatar
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    That's pretty much what I figured, which is why I'm still going to look at it.

  13. #13
    Just one more wrong move. -KEN-'s Avatar
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    I've heard people say that Subversion is a "nicer CVS" - don't really know, personally. Just something to consider if you're considering CVS.

    Although I really know if you want a CVS-like solution. It sounds like you might need a little bit more than what it has to offer.

  14. #14
    Its not rocket science vasanth's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by -KEN-
    I've heard people say that Subversion is a "nicer CVS" - don't really know, personally. Just something to consider if you're considering CVS.

    Although I really know if you want a CVS-like solution. It sounds like you might need a little bit more than what it has to offer.
    yea subversion is really good.... We use it for all our major projects and its really easy to manage any documents, images, source filesm design docs etc etc...

  15. #15
    In The Light
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    Howdy,
    We handle about 200k drawings and documents a year, our Doc Control staff is 3 people. They use some comercial data base type app for Document Control. I'll find out on Monday and let you know.

    M.R.
    I don't like you very much. Please post a lot less.
    Cheez
    *and then*
    No, I know you were joking. My point still stands.

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