Someone please calm me down, thanksà 4

[Cutiee]

I got blamed for something I didn’t do at work! Ok here is the story.

Our company makes metering skids, every project we do, we have a folder for it, and so we can save all the relevant drawings and documents in the folder.

Last week a set of drawings for one particular job (I didn’t even work on that job) got deleted or moved, well we don’t know which, but they just somehow disappeared from the project folder (weird enough, it’s the second time it has happened!). The drawings are panel drawings, I never really need to look at panel drawings, but as an E&I engineer I have access to those folders too.

IT was unable to find who deleted or moved those drawings, they just blamed on me, the “proof” they say they have is the folders I have on my desktop, I have a habit of CREATING new folders for each job I do, so I can save bits, pieces info or draft in it for my own reference, apparently I’m the only one who has folders on my desktop, so IT just automatically assumed that I’m the one who MOVED all the folders from project folder to my desktop, even though I didn’t even work on the project that lost panel drawings.

This guy who works at IT sent out emails to all managers and managing director about his accusation, and asks for me to take responsibility.

I feel very upset and angry, I want to cry I don’t know what to do, I can’t concentrate on my work right now. I explained everything to my line manager, and he said he would talk to IT, but he said no one could really tell whether I moved or created those folders on my desktop although the name and content are completely different from the missing folders!

The IT guy worked in the company for years and years, and basically IT department can’t run without him, and I only worked here less than a year, and certainly I have no proof that I created the folder, and I didn't move them then changed the title and content (just why the heck would I do that?!)… Everybody believes him except some colleagues who work with me everyday that know me well.


Cuttie

 

[Taqwus]

Well after reading this post I felt obligated to post here since I am in IT/Mechanical Engineering/Drafting also. For the most part it is not IT's fault it is usually the users/management fault
1. What happened is someone hit ctrl+x instead of ctrl+c and cut the folder out instead of copying it somewheres. I actually see it all the time.
2. The commment about giving universal rights to folders for everyone...Umm how else are you going to be able to save your work. Management has to give a certain ammount of trust to the people working on those files that they will not delete them or else nothing would be able to be saved
3. If you guys want more backups management will have to have over some cash to get the systems set up (not very likely to happen)
4. As for working on your desktop that is a major no-no. At no times will your work every get backed up and also if you change your document what happens when engineer Y needs access to that file and gets the older version.
5. Changing access so only people who are working on the folder can access it is very complicated to set up also whenever a security permission would get changed the users affected would have to stop what they are doing log on and log off. Also this is likely never to work since thte management would never keep IT up to date or hire a specific person whose job was to do this full time
6. As for tracking the person who deleted it. They would have to enable auditing on all objects and this would add a chunk of overhead that would slow the server down. By default it is turned off
7. To teh guy who got his laptop wiped. That is standard policy. Most pc's will get sent back just with the basic load unless there is documentation on that pc as to what programs should be on it. If you installed the software without letting IT know then it is your fault. Also this usually causes liscening problems
The reason you were singled out is it probably looked like you cut and pasted by accident and if they had it happen a few times already they are going made, I know I did when that happens where I work at
Mainly people need to stop blaming IT for mistakes regular users make.

 

[SomptingGuy]

Err, checkout, modify, checkin. There are plenty of CM solutions out there. Some free even.

- Steve

 

[apsix]

"people need to stop blaming IT for mistakes regular users make."
Yea, there's plenty of other things to blame IT for

 

[CorBlimeyLimey]

1. What happened is someone hit ctrl+x instead of ctrl+c and cut the folder out instead of copying it somewheres.

Would you please look into your crystal ball and tell me where I left my car keys this morning? To suggest that is what happened is one thing ... to categorically state that is what happened is just plain arrogance.

3. If you guys want more backups management will have to have over some cash to get the systems set up (not very likely to happen)

Hardware for backups is very inexpensive these days. For IT to not create regular backups is inexcusable. If a company cannot afford a couple hundred bucks to protect their assets, perhaps they should be looking at a different business plan ... and the IT guys should probably be looking for a better company to work for.

4. As for working on your desktop that is a major no-no.

Check out the many PDM softwares available. Most of them allow and in fact encourage/force a local download. Working across most networks is just too slow.

At no times will your work every get backed up ...

Why not? It is a very simple task to reach out and make backups from networked PCs or to have a backup utility installed on each PC.

To answer #5 ... again check out the many PDM softwares available; they handle this with relative ease.

Mainly people need to stop blaming IT for mistakes regular users make.

And the IT people need to stop using regular users as scapegoats for their mistakes and shortcomings.


BTW, I am the IT guy for my company as well as a regular user, and I make sure come Hell or high water that regular and frequent backups are made. That way when idiots use ctrl+x instead of ctrl+c, data is not lost.

 

[KENAT]

Taqwas, I guess a lot of it depends how serious you are taking the value of your accumulated data.

If you don't value it and don't want to make some kind of investment to safeguard it then most of what you put is entirely true.

You're right that some of the issues aren't IT's fault per se, they're managements fault for not telling them to do something about it & giving them budget.

Sompting, from experience some of the free ones have 'hidden' costs;-). Also seriously, a lot of places rely on basically MS file systems, with as you called them earlier 'flakey' backups and in many cases without even restricting access to folders with released documents in them.

KENAT,

Have you reminded yourself of faq731-376 recently, or taken a look at

http://eng-tips.com/market.cfm?

 

[SomptingGuy]

KENAT,

We use ClearCase. It's industrial strength and not "free". I agree with your implied statement that "you get what you pay for". I had to put this case forward a couple of years ago when our bean-counters were circling. We have many, many years of history of all of our products and documentation, including check out/in and branch/merge comments for every transaction.

- Steve

 

[ewh]

You tell 'em, CBL.
It is pretty arogant to state unequivocally that using a ctrl key is what happened. It's good to know that everyone is using those shortcuts, 'cause here we find out that it is the only way this can happen.

When the people fear their government, there is tyranny; when the government fears the people, there is liberty. - [small]Thomas Jefferson [/small]

 

[Cutiee]

thanks for the replies, whenever i copy stuff, i always check the place i copied from after copying, just to make sure i didn't make any mistakes.

x

Cuttie

 

[Taqwus]

Well I have never been good at the quote thing. But here goes
The reason I said it was the control key is I have seen it time and time again. Also I have made that mistake before. If I had to list the top reasons for data to go missing the control+x would be tops next followed by control and a move or control being used to select multiple items and having one other item selected not supposed to be selected. Lastly I would have to attribute the data spontaneously disappearing to either gremlins or spontaneous realighnment of the magnetic fields on certian sectors of the hard drive
As for the cost. Most companies are not going to fork over 2000 t0 4000$ for the cost of a backup (hardware + software) and from what I have witnessed most companies think that backups are useless till something happens. When I use to work server support I would have at least 4 people a week call in with hard drive crashes and they had no competent backup.
As for working on the desktop. The main reason you do not want to work locally is you have no redundancy. If a program forces you to work locally there are ways around that by remoting into the pc that is running the software or mounting a network share as a local drive
The reason why your pc is not backed up is that you would need licenses for the software for each computer you go out to and grab data from. In a company with over 150+ at say 100$ per seat per year that quickly adds up. Also the network overhead sometimes can be real high. Our daily backups are close to 70gb at last I had seen. We ended up having to upgrade the backbone layer to gigabit switches and was able to drop our backup time down from 14 hours to 6 hours and we could drop it lower if I didnt have to back up computers at remote sites(which have to go first in the backup scheme to keep some bandwitch available)
Also not all companies use PDM's. Honestly most if not all the companies I have worked/consulted for rely on the folder permissions from windows to control access. The only one I know that had one was when me and another tech set up a wikipedia up to keep track of common problems and was used to keep knoledge in a central place
As for backups in general I wish some agency would come out with a standard for them. One of the main things I hated about the computer field is there is no real set of standards.
As for the blame I still stick to what I said but feel I should have added an addendum
Most of the IT problems are user created or stem from managements "Acceptable Risk"

 

[drawoh]

Taqwus,

Right now, the backup device on my home computer is the 6GB hard drive it came with. I have a newer, bigger hard drive I use for actual work. I back up every night. Once a week, I burn a DVD.

A big corporation would need more than this, especially if 3D CAD is in-house, but what does it cost to have an engineer run around the office like a chicken with his head cut off, all because he deleted the wrong file?

People who don't make mistakes, don't make anything else.

There are lots of ways to mess up files. On the system I administered, I was determined to keep everyone working in the central directory on the sole copy of the file. If I was asked to recover from backup, I did so quickly and politely, because I knew that if I did not cooperate, each person would set up his own file procedure and there would be chaos.

Another way to mess up files is to mess up modifications. This can usually be fixed on AutoCAD. On SolidWorks, or Microsoft Word or Excel, or in a text editor, you are in trouble. This is usually the reason I have to recover stuff from backup.

If you are running SolidWorks on your local C[ ]drive, as recommended, you can use WINZIP to back up to your network drive. Presumably, the network drive is backed up. When you mess up, you can extract the files yourself, without pestering the system administrator.

JHG

 

[HgTX]

If you keep people working in particular directories (even designated directories within their own hard drives) there is no reason to have to buy new seats for the software when backups are made. You don't need to back up the program software, just the files it creates. (Not to mention that many software licensing agreements do in fact include a "backup copy" provision.)

Hg

Eng-Tips policies: faq731-376

 

[jmw]

The number of licences does not equal the number of employees.

If 10 people use VB but not all at the same time then 6 licences may be sufficient, perhaps only 4.

Each network machine has its own server directory so there is no question of the files not being backed up with everything else; the exception in our office were those people who had notebooks and who used the briefcase folder approach.




JMW

http://www.ViscoAnalyser.com

 

[ctopher]

It's not always IT's fault. Just because I work with CAD, I was turned over to IT because of a re-org! Go figure...
I hate it!

I see all of the stumbling blocks between IT and engineering. We're told that we support them, but then we are also told we are limited. Why? Because most employee's in IT don't know what the hell they are doing!

I have seen folders on servers full of drawings get deleted or moved because IT said it was time to 'clean house' or move folders from 'dev' to 'prod'. Then all of the users lose their links!

I get calls all of the time from CAD users that they no longer have licenses. I have to go thru the red-tape to get them back...and I'm on the team that handles licenses!!

Sorry for the rant...

Chris
SolidWorks/PDMWorks 08 3.1
AutoCAD 08
ctopher's home (updated Aug 5, 2008)
ctopher's blog
SolidWorks Legion

 

[drawoh]

HgTX,

Whenever I install an operating system, I keep the install CDs and DVDs, and I document what I do. If everything blows up, I can redo the install. At work this has the additional advantage that another administrator can do the re-install, if necessary.

All I back up is data.

I have never installed anything in Windows more recent than Windows[ ]3.11.

JHG