Best Practices & FAQ's > FAQs > CADtools Ustn Working offline

Introduction

These notes are intended to enable Arup staff to take an Arup PC, which has been setup with CADtools Microstation, and use it in an environment where it is no longer connected to the network. i.e Taking a laptop to site.

it is not intended to cover use of CADtools with home user licences, or use of non-Arup PC's.

XM (and later) products

Any Microstation XM based products (or later versions) do not require licence checkouts. The products will continue to work so long as you connect to the network once every 30 days, and run the application.

Setting up offline access to networked files

In order for CADtools Microstation to continue working offline, you will need to retain access to some network folders, typically either on P: drive and possibly also your J: drive job area. This can be achieved by using Windows 'Offline Files' feature.

These setup steps only need to be done once per PC.

Check that 'Offline Files' is enabled.

In Windows Explorer got to 'Tools > Folder Options' then the Offline Files tab

Make a note of where your P: and J: drive are hosted.

In the example below, they are

•\\global.arup.com\australasia\syd\Programs

•\\global.arup.com\australasia\syd\Projects

Note, many UK servers use "Prodos" instead of "Programs"

Make some folders available offline

•Open Windows Explorer and navigate to P:\Program Files\Oasys\CADtools_uSTN\

•Right click the following folders, and select the 'Make Available offline' option.

•Apps

•Common

•Local

•Projects

•V8.9 (This folder is for using XM offline. If you intend to use another version offline, a similarly named folder must be made available offline, e.g v8.5 for v8 2004 or v8.11 for v8i)

•Also make the folder P:\Program Files\Oasys\DomainSettings\ available offline

Run through the 'Offline Files wizard' and select the box 'Automatically synchronise offline files when I log off my computer'. Optionally, you may enable the 'Create Offline Files folder on my desktop' option.

Confirm that you want the selected folder, plus it's sub-folders to be made available offline.

You may also wish to do the same for the project folders that you wish to access while out of the office.

Note: If you select a sub folder of your project that just includes the CAD drawings, you may also need to make the "Settings" folder offline as well.

Ensure these folders ‘synchronise’ to the PC when you log off

Their contents will be copied to an "Offline Files" directory, and a shortcut to that folder will be on the desktop, if you selected that option.

Access the files when you are offline

Once you log into the PC when it is disconnected from the network, the files will be available, but the usual network drives will not be shown. You will need to repeat these steps each time you log into the PC whilst disconnected.

Simply Map the network drive as follows:

•Open Windows Explorer, select 'Tools > Map network Drive'

•Select P: from the top drop down, and provide the network location of your P: drive in the bottom drop down.

•Don't check the 'reconnect at logon' option

•repeat for J: drive if you made that available offline

If you didn't make J: available offline, and you have simply copied the CAD files to a folder on the PC, you may need to adjust the paths in the relevant project PCF file to ensure the files are correctly found.

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