Occasionally, Archicad will get disconnected from the BIM server. This can happen due to internet or VPN connection issues. When you are able to reconnect to the internet, network, and/or VPN, you may need to reconnect your local data. To do this, make sure the teamwork pallet is open in your workspace, and check the file connection status at the top of the pallet:
when ARCHICAD crashes, be sure to recover immediately, or the crash recovery could be lost. Crash recovery is reliable if you follow these steps:
If you open from the teamwork menu, instead of the recent files list, the crash recovery is usually lost. If open ARCHICAD back with another instance of ARCHICAD open, you will most likely not get the “recent files” list, and may lose the crash recovery and any work done since the last send and receive.
For more on teamwork tips, see the following links:
This happens to all of us from time to time. You are in window, door, skylight, curtain wall, or Cadimage Covering settings, working through a long list of changes and edits, only to realize… YOU FORGOT TO RESERVE!!!! Fortunately, there is a way around it! You can save the set of changes as a favorite, cancel out, then reserve and apply.
A couple additional tips:
This is a common error in our daily teamwork operations, and an easy one to prevent. It is not always easy to fix, depending on how many people are in the project.
This error happens when one team member has a portion of a file reserved, and another team member modifies a subpart to that. Two examples of this are the embedded library and the attributes.
If one team member reserves the entire embedded library, and another team member loads an image or object to the embedded library, this can block the user who made the modifications from sending and receiving changes. Also, with regards to attributes, if one team member has an attribute type reserved, the other team member creates a new attribute, they will not be able to send their changes until the first team member releases that attribute type.
This gets complicated, however, if multiple attribute types are reserved, and modified, all by different users. At this point, ARCHICAD is caught in a catch 22 situation. User A can not release attributes, because Users B/C/D have modified those attributes. Users B/C/D can not send their modifications, because User A has the attributes reserved. When things get this tangled, we normally have to save someones local data to .pln, force quit, and kick them out of the file, so that other users can send and receive. This is definitely a worse case scenario, and should only be done if release all (by all team members) and send and receive does not work.
Now for prevention of this teamwork error. These are measures you can take to prevent this from happening in your projects:
It is critical to keep your local data clean and current. The first step in doing this is to periodically leave the projects you are working in. This forces your local data to rebuild from the server data on the next open/join. This has all been outlined in our BIM manual under the Collaboration section. It is also outlined in part here and here. For more information on ARCHICAD errors and possible solutions, check out this article.
So lets assume you have a local data error that will not allow you to send or receive. The solution is:
As a bonus tip, you can set your work environment to schedule the local data clean up reminders under Local Data Manager > Options. This should be set to send a reminder every 30 days minimum, for projects older than 30 days. Always delete local data when prompted! Unless you are opening from a crash recovery, there is no need to ignore local data clean up warnings.
In 2017, we need to make it a goal to Send and Receive often (every hour at least); lets pay attention to the Teamwork protocols in our BIM manual and avoid lost work!
Since most of our projects involve multiple buildings on a single site, we often rely on hotlink modules to place those buildings onto a site in separate Teamwork files. This means the site plan needs to be placed from one teamwork file to another.
This process is actually very simple to do. All that is required is to open both Teamwork files and use the organizer to link a view from one project to the layout of the other. With the file containing the layout book, search for the other open t/w file in the left hand column of the organizer. Lastly, you only need to click import to bring the view from one file to a layout of another.
Now comes the real issue, that is to update the views. In the past, we have run into the issue of this warning:
To effectively update drawings from a separate projects view map, start with the drawing settings. The drawing should be set to manual, or you will receive repeated update warnings and, in the best case scenario, a slow update for any externally linked drawings.
After extensive tests and trial and error, I have found the most reliable way to update a drawing. Follow these steps and it shouldn’t fail to update:
Follow these steps exactly, and you will find it much less frustrating to update your external drawings.
If you don’t have the teamwork palette included in your work environment, you should. It is great to see who else is in the project, make reservations, release, reserve all, release all, send/receive… but one of the unsung features of the palette is the messaging and assigning feature. By simply clicking the “message” icon 
on the palette you can send a message to any team member:
This message can include a screen capture view created directly from the above dialogue. The teamwork palette also allows you to assign elements to a team member for review. This has been very useful to me, when I needed to ask a question to a busy team member.
The last thing you can do with messages is assign a task. You can request a team member s/r, release all, leave the teamwork project, receive changes, etc. This is very helpful to avoid the “hey can you send and receive” comments or “can you release all”, that get thrown around regularly and disrupt other users.
This is certainly not the only way to communicate, but it is a lot less disruptive than continually asking questions on mundane or non-urgent details.
The WWA BIM manual has a list of teamwork and ARCHICAD best practices. I want to reiterate some of those hear and give a little explanation of why we need to be aware of these practices.
We all have experienced a number of warnings, most commonly associated with teamwork operations. Here is a short list of some of the most recent I have encountered. If you have any additions to make please comment or send me a screen shot of your warnings or errors.
The WWA BIM manual work environment section describes what is permitted to be customized and what should remain as an ARCHICAD Default. As a reference, your work environment settings should look something like this:
User Preference Schemes, Company Standard Schemes, and Command Layout Schemes should be set to ARCHICAD defaults. Tool Schemes can be customized, but in most cases it is best to use the ARCHICAD default to avoid missing any new tools from software updates.
All of this is just to lead me into reenforcing our BIM manual general practices section on teamwork. This section states:
It is important to remember to release all as described in the BIM manual. This will prevent other users from needing to force you out of the project to access some elements you left reserved at the end of the day, which leads to local data and BIM server connection problems, and potentially lost work.
All this ties together in the Company Standard Schemes > Data Safety & Integrity portion of the work environment. The default work environment has a setting to release all when you close or leave the project.
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