We have a project in CDs with 6 people on it, all very Revit capable. The other day we had a review and the drawings one member was responsible for were incomplete or missing.
Later, that person revealed to me in confidentiality that he had completed the drawings but they went missing from the central file the day before the review. This person has been recommended to us by our network and is a very hardworking member of the team, so I have no doubt in his abilities and work ethic.
What I have noticed though is that he is a bit unpopular with the rest of the team (he is a new hire) and I suspect someone else might have erased his drawings to make him look bad in our eyes. The thought that a team member would do that to another team member is infuriating, because we have worked very hard to attract the best talent and put together a good team. This could potentially damage our business.
How would you investigate a case of potential sabotage within the team? Are there applications that allow you to see who edits/deletes stuff from the central model at any time? Are these applications reliable? (I know for example it's possible to log in Revit using any alias you want)
citizen
Nov 4, 18 5:17 pm
Wow, that's quite a case of office intrigue. I have no idea how you manage to ferret out the offender, if indeed that's what happened. I wonder if other explanations are possible...
donutsfordough
Nov 4, 18 5:23 pm
If there's only six people, it shouldn't matter how many aliases are used if you suspect intentional wrong-doing. Worksharing display should show the last editor.
But Occam's Razor suggests that perhaps it's some issue with six people including one newcomer not saving properly instead of malicious intent. But that doesn't eliminate the others, rather going from a more reasoned place than automatically jumping to alternate scenarios.
Non Sequitur
Nov 4, 18 5:29 pm
My vote is for incompetence and or human error rather than conspiracy.
( o Y o )
Nov 4, 18 5:45 pm
Not having secure daily backups is a critical fault.
Destruction of company property is a serious criminal offense.
Assuming that any one person's story is true is an exercise in stupidity.
If this happened to me I'd give "the team" 24 hours to reconstruct the missing documents. After the work has been redone I'd fire the lot if nobody had come forward to admit to "an accident" or a deliberate act.
I'd begin interviewing replacement staff immediately.
Non Sequitur
Nov 4, 18 6:38 pm
Ricky, most offices don’t have IT guys sitting around for this. At best, a BIM manager of sorts should be able to pull the last backups from each local copy of the central file and pin point when and if a certain major element was removed. Reverting the the last backup should be enough if the missing drawings were discovered in the morning and the docs get backed up overnight.
Non Sequitur
Nov 4, 18 7:10 pm
Ricky, maybe at 100+ staff, there is enough to cover that position, but in my experience, most office don't. Also, IT for the hardware and software licenses is different that IT for project files. Again, this is all typical stuff you'd know if you ever got to work in an office.
Non Sequitur
Nov 4, 18 8:31 pm
"if I was employed" Says enough.
Miles Jaffe
Nov 4, 18 10:28 pm
Apparently not.
Non Sequitur
Nov 4, 18 11:37 pm
underpaid slave? Is that all you see Balkins? I ain't no "slave" and I can confidently point to my city's skyline and say I had a respectable part in shaping it. What have you done lately?
Non Sequitur
Nov 5, 18 5:55 am
Ricky, I guess your memory is short. I used the same double negative last week and you replied just the same. 8-)
BulgarBlogger
Nov 4, 18 5:52 pm
oh please - like you're so important that someone needs to sabotage your project. it is most likely some computer glitch or someone being incompetent about saving their work correctly.
apkouv
Nov 4, 18 5:54 pm
I insist that this is not a case of incompetence. The guy who got his drawings lost is not some fresh grad, but a Revit specialist who served at some really good places before joining us. He gives technical solutions that other people cannot give. How far back does Revit backup go?
Non Sequitur
Nov 4, 18 6:42 pm
My backs ups are 20 saves deep with daily backups off main server and off site. I also keep separate backups of major milestones. It is highly likely that this person simply worked on their local copy, detached from central then, one day, failed to read the warning when revit rekindled local to central relationship. Again, this is human error and happens often when people don’t pay attention, believe their are “expert”, and or work too quickly.
apkouv
Nov 4, 18 5:58 pm
I am not experienced in Revit, I am in project management.
BulgarBlogger
Nov 4, 18 6:10 pm
what in the world are you doing managing if you don't know anything about how your employees are doing their jobs? you cannot manage what you cannot measure...
Non Sequitur
Nov 4, 18 6:43 pm
That explains a lot. See my explanation above. I’ve seen parts of drawing sets vanish just because someone “tried” something.
Steeplechase
Nov 4, 18 6:46 pm
I worked on a project that seemed to spontaneously self-destruct a couple times.
curtkram
Nov 4, 18 6:49 pm
he had a local copy didn't he? i would think the information might be there?
I've had work mysteriously disappear likely due to sync errors. at least that's the excuse i'm going with. i am not a revit expert, but i am more proficient than some people who claim to be expert.
curtkram
Nov 4, 18 6:51 pm
also, i believe there is a ghost in the machine. revit has a soul, and it's an evil soul. some of this stuff is just too weird to put down to human error, and some problems can only be solved with whiskey.
deus ex machina!
randomised
Nov 5, 18 5:22 am
Been there (not with the sabotage), although not with Revit but ArchiCAD, working in one massive BIM model as a team project. Things slow down immensely when all are working in the same file and saves occur around the same time and need to be integrated properly into the BIM model. Lots of time was wasted, just waiting for the synching and updating to finish, with the occasional crash or loss of work because the damn thing got stuck.
So, people started working in their own individual files and only uploaded the parts that they worked on, basically in a more traditional way. Which was also problematic because you couldn't see the latest status of things when going through the model. All in all, plenty of opportunity for Murphy's Law next to the active sabotage.
I never witnessed or experienced active, deliberate sabotage myself but since people are weird creatures and when their position is threatened...Did one of the team members get a negative review recently or is their contract up for renewal/extension and do they feel threatened by the new guy coming in, doing a better job than they are? I had people intentionally not share photoshop brushes or libraries of 3D/2D elements to make themselves look better, but that's about it.
randomised
Nov 5, 18 6:08 am
Or...maybe it's simply a team effort to sabotage the project manager.
Miles Jaffe
Nov 5, 18 8:50 am
Rashomon.
randomised
Nov 5, 18 9:07 am
:-)
Zbig
Nov 5, 18 8:29 am
Always open your project from the Central File. A pop up shows up with the stupid title "Cannot Create Local File". The text on the box is
You are trying to create a new local file C:\Location of your local files\Project Name_User Name.rvt but a file with this name already exists. What do you want to do?
> Overwrite existing file
> Append timestamp to existing filename
Once a day in the morning you choose the bottom option. This creates a local file with a time appendage to the name. That ensures that you have daily local files that you can use to restore a seriously corrupted file, or in this case, to restore the victim's work.
Non Sequitur
Nov 5, 18 8:34 am
This is correct and I mentioned something like this, although with less detail, above.
SneakyPete
Nov 5, 18 11:37 am
It also means that on larger projects you fill up your hard drive in less than a month.
Non Sequitur
Nov 5, 18 11:42 am
It can fill up quickly, but why keep more than a few copies? Purge at the end of the week and keep only the last save or two. Not difficult if your staff has discipline.
SneakyPete
Nov 5, 18 11:55 am
If the project is workshared, there are backups on the server already. And frankly, there's not much excuse for not carving a portion of your budget out for
individual PC backup plans.
Peter Normand
Nov 5, 18 11:06 am
It may be possible to recover the lost work with the local backup from the new guys local files. It probably was an error Revit can be finicky.
SneakyPete
Nov 5, 18 11:38 am
Workshared files have backups. Google how to restore them. Save the restored file as its own file, then open both the orphaned file and the active local file in the same Revit session. Copy and paste the missing info. Boom, done.
thisisnotmyname
Nov 5, 18 12:39 pm
If nothing else, develop a reasonable protocol for team members to back up their work and then make sure they follow it.
In our office, I have observed that it is pretty common for staff people to do a poor job backing up their work and following our filing protocols.
millieshaw
Nov 5, 18 12:58 pm
Things would have been easier, if you have set the hidden cameras in your office and nobody knew about them.
Weird thing happened to me, kinda similar. I was working on a file by myself, not a central model. I was working from home, on vpn. I would pull the file off my company server, work on it all day and upload at the end of day. Monday I returned to work after 14 days. Went to print a check set for my client and I noticed all my annotations on my RCP were missing. Check the floor plan and all my wall tags are missing. Check varies other sheets an notice that random text is missing all over the place. I am really not sure what happened, but I was able to piece it all back together using backups. I had to go back a week and pull a previous version off the server. I actually have no idea what happened. I couldn't have "select all" text & "delete" because it wasn't all deleted, and it also doesn't account for my wall tags disappearing either.
zonker
Apr 6, 20 11:50 am
This sort of thing happens now and then, it's a sync issue with teams over 4 people, sooner or later, someone gets behind the 8 ball and doesn't sync in a timely fashion, and stuff gets lost. Also, make sure no one loads the central file and inadvertently works in it
We have a problem at my office:
We have a project in CDs with 6 people on it, all very Revit capable. The other day we had a review and the drawings one member was responsible for were incomplete or missing.
Later, that person revealed to me in confidentiality that he had completed the drawings but they went missing from the central file the day before the review. This person has been recommended to us by our network and is a very hardworking member of the team, so I have no doubt in his abilities and work ethic.
What I have noticed though is that he is a bit unpopular with the rest of the team (he is a new hire) and I suspect someone else might have erased his drawings to make him look bad in our eyes. The thought that a team member would do that to another team member is infuriating, because we have worked very hard to attract the best talent and put together a good team. This could potentially damage our business.
How would you investigate a case of potential sabotage within the team? Are there applications that allow you to see who edits/deletes stuff from the central model at any time? Are these applications reliable? (I know for example it's possible to log in Revit using any alias you want)
Wow, that's quite a case of office intrigue. I have no idea how you manage to ferret out the offender, if indeed that's what happened. I wonder if other explanations are possible...
If there's only six people, it shouldn't matter how many aliases are used if you suspect intentional wrong-doing. Worksharing display should show the last editor.
But Occam's Razor suggests that perhaps it's some issue with six people including one newcomer not saving properly instead of malicious intent. But that doesn't eliminate the others, rather going from a more reasoned place than automatically jumping to alternate scenarios.
My vote is for incompetence and or human error rather than conspiracy.
Not having secure daily backups is a critical fault.
Destruction of company property is a serious criminal offense.
Assuming that any one person's story is true is an exercise in stupidity.
If this happened to me I'd give "the team" 24 hours to reconstruct the missing documents. After the work has been redone I'd fire the lot if nobody had come forward to admit to "an accident" or a deliberate act.
I'd begin interviewing replacement staff immediately.
Ricky, most offices don’t have IT guys sitting around for this. At best, a BIM manager of sorts should be able to pull the last backups from each local copy of the central file and pin point when and if a certain major element was removed. Reverting the the last backup should be enough if the missing drawings were discovered in the morning and the docs get backed up overnight.
Ricky, maybe at 100+ staff, there is enough to cover that position, but in my experience, most office don't. Also, IT for the hardware and software licenses is different that IT for project files. Again, this is all typical stuff you'd know if you ever got to work in an office.
"if I was employed" Says enough.
Apparently not.
underpaid slave? Is that all you see Balkins? I ain't no "slave" and I can confidently point to my city's skyline and say I had a respectable part in shaping it. What have you done lately?
Ricky, I guess your memory is short. I used the same double negative last week and you replied just the same. 8-)
oh please - like you're so important that someone needs to sabotage your project. it is most likely some computer glitch or someone being incompetent about saving their work correctly.
I insist that this is not a case of incompetence. The guy who got his drawings lost is not some fresh grad, but a Revit specialist who served at some really good places before joining us. He gives technical solutions that other people cannot give. How far back does Revit backup go?
My backs ups are 20 saves deep with daily backups off main server and off site. I also keep separate backups of major milestones. It is highly likely that this person simply worked on their local copy, detached from central then, one day, failed to read the warning when revit rekindled local to central relationship. Again, this is human error and happens often when people don’t pay attention, believe their are “expert”, and or work too quickly.
I am not experienced in Revit, I am in project management.
what in the world are you doing managing if you don't know anything about how your employees are doing their jobs? you cannot manage what you cannot measure...
That explains a lot. See my explanation above. I’ve seen parts of drawing sets vanish just because someone “tried” something.
I worked on a project that seemed to spontaneously self-destruct a couple times.
he had a local copy didn't he? i would think the information might be there?
I've had work mysteriously disappear likely due to sync errors. at least that's the excuse i'm going with. i am not a revit expert, but i am more proficient than some people who claim to be expert.
also, i believe there is a ghost in the machine. revit has a soul, and it's an evil soul. some of this stuff is just too weird to put down to human error, and some problems can only be solved with whiskey.
deus ex machina!
Been there (not with the sabotage), although not with Revit but ArchiCAD, working in one massive BIM model as a team project. Things slow down immensely when all are working in the same file and saves occur around the same time and need to be integrated properly into the BIM model. Lots of time was wasted, just waiting for the synching and updating to finish, with the occasional crash or loss of work because the damn thing got stuck.
So, people started working in their own individual files and only uploaded the parts that they worked on, basically in a more traditional way. Which was also problematic because you couldn't see the latest status of things when going through the model. All in all, plenty of opportunity for Murphy's Law next to the active sabotage.
I never witnessed or experienced active, deliberate sabotage myself but since people are weird creatures and when their position is threatened...Did one of the team members get a negative review recently or is their contract up for renewal/extension and do they feel threatened by the new guy coming in, doing a better job than they are? I had people intentionally not share photoshop brushes or libraries of 3D/2D elements to make themselves look better, but that's about it.
Or...maybe it's simply a team effort to sabotage the project manager.
Rashomon.
:-)
Always open your project from the Central File. A pop up shows up with the stupid title "Cannot Create Local File". The text on the box is
You are trying to create a new local file C:\Location of your local files\Project Name_User Name.rvt but a file with this name already exists. What do you want to do?
> Overwrite existing file
> Append timestamp to existing filename
Once a day in the morning you choose the bottom option. This creates a local file with a time appendage to the name. That ensures that you have daily local files that you can use to restore a seriously corrupted file, or in this case, to restore the victim's work.
This is correct and I mentioned something like this, although with less detail, above.
It also means that on larger projects you fill up your hard drive in less than a month.
It can fill up quickly, but why keep more than a few copies? Purge at the end of the week and keep only the last save or two. Not difficult if your staff has discipline.
If the project is workshared, there are backups on the server already. And frankly, there's not much excuse for not carving a portion of your budget out for individual PC backup plans.
It may be possible to recover the lost work with the local backup from the new guys local files. It probably was an error Revit can be finicky.
Workshared files have backups. Google how to restore them. Save the restored file as its own file, then open both the orphaned file and the active local file in the same Revit session. Copy and paste the missing info. Boom, done.
If nothing else, develop a reasonable protocol for team members to back up their work and then make sure they follow it.
In our office, I have observed that it is pretty common for staff people to do a poor job backing up their work and following our filing protocols.
Things would have been easier, if you have set the hidden cameras in your office and nobody knew about them.
Who done it?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
Weird thing happened to me, kinda similar. I was working on a file by myself, not a central model. I was working from home, on vpn. I would pull the file off my company server, work on it all day and upload at the end of day. Monday I returned to work after 14 days. Went to print a check set for my client and I noticed all my annotations on my RCP were missing. Check the floor plan and all my wall tags are missing. Check varies other sheets an notice that random text is missing all over the place. I am really not sure what happened, but I was able to piece it all back together using backups. I had to go back a week and pull a previous version off the server. I actually have no idea what happened. I couldn't have "select all" text & "delete" because it wasn't all deleted, and it also doesn't account for my wall tags disappearing either.
This sort of thing happens now and then, it's a sync issue with teams over 4 people, sooner or later, someone gets behind the 8 ball and doesn't sync in a timely fashion, and stuff gets lost. Also, make sure no one loads the central file and inadvertently works in it