What AutoCAD file/document mgr you use?

[bnorris]

I am researching various offerings to provide document management for our vast library of AutoCAD drawings, images, documents and metadata. We need the ability to check-in and check-out drawings, manage revisioning, search, preview, and relate drawings to documents, images, and tables of metadata. Lastly, the system should be reasonably easy for a single IT person to setup in a reasonable amount of time.

We currently use an older, and client-based version of Cyco's AutoManager Workflow. It is unacceptably slow and unreliable. I am considering moving to AutoManager meridian.

I am an IT person, not an engineer or drafter, so I am not very familiar with this area.

Can anyone recommend a document management solution that fits these criteria and tell me about your experience with it?

 

[smcadman]

Columbus is one I used for awhile, but whenever we upgraded computers, I didn't reinstall it. Nonetheless, it is free (or was) and it is a 28 meg file so I wouldn't recommend downloading without high-speed internet.

http://www.oasys-software.com/product/dm/columbus/

Flores

 

[pdybeck]

Check out PDM/Works by SolidWorks. It manages AutoCAD data fantastically. The set up is pretty simple for the PDM World. Your IT staff would love that part - mine did. Only 1 or 2 days of involvement on their part. Revisioning is really easy. You have the ability to bulk load documents into the vault with the new version and simultaneously pull attributes from your blocks in the DWGs and map them to file properties or metadata that are then searchable. It also integrates somewhat within AutoCAD - although not as nice as it does with SolidWorks. You have the ability to tie other documents to any other documents - references. You can rename files in the vault and it automatically updates the links to other files. It records a history of what was done to each file by who, when, and if disciplined, why? It has been around for about 8 years or so and costs around $900 for a standalone seat - what you would need if you didn't have SolidWorks. It also has a Web Portal (for a one time fee of $5,000) that allows unlimited users to acces the vault, view and print drawings (using eDrawings by SolidWorks), copy out if permitted, all using internet explorer - no other software needed (extremely IT friendly). Performance is very stable and pretty fast, even for large amounts of data. I have heard of companies with well over 10,000 files in their vault. You also have the ability to archive revisions of files when they tend to build up. The best is that PDM/Works is a SolidWorks product and you know they will be around and constantly making it better for you. I am an engineer and didn't want to use a product that was difficult, expensive, and time consuming. We have SolidWorks, AutoCAD, and other data to mangage and PDM/Works is great for us. Check it out on

http://www.solidworks.com

The pessimist says the glass is half empty. The optimist says the glass is half full. The engineer says the glass is twice as big as it needs to be.

 

[RiBeneke]

I have played around with Columbus for a while, and find that what it does, it does well. The basic ver is free, an upgraded version is about $150 per seat.
What it does :
1) provides a very flexible pseudo file directory that coexists perfectly with Win Explorer. This enables users to group documents from many machines, servers, sites etc according to project or client etc.
2) Has good file viewers for AutoCAD, MS Word and hundreds of other apps.
3) Has a good file issue facility.
4) Has modules that run inside AutoCAD and MS Word to automatically extract title, author, revision etc to simple text directories.
What it does not do :
1) Report format is a rather primitive quote-separated text file, so you need to write your own filters to make use of the reported data.
2) Intentionally has no security or check-in/check-out facilities, and assumes these will be handled by the OS and specialist apps / procedures.

 

[bnorris]

Thank you for your help!

I've identified a few that would probably work for us.

Has anyone had any experience with Cyco Software's Auto-Manager Meridian?

How about Kamel software's Weblook 2000?