Instructions on opened files when ProjectWise goes down

This is highly dependent on the software you're working with and how it's integrating with projectwise.

ProjectWise works by copying files locally, opening the application and that application then works on the file off the local hard drive. This means if ProjectWise goes down you won't lose any work since it's all local. You can continue working and saving your file locally.

If, however, during operation with a file from projectwise your application interacts with projectwise servers then when the servers go down those operations may hang the computer while waiting for a timeout. For example, if MicroStation is configured to poll the server for reference file updates and the server is unavailable there will be a long delay while MicroStation times out that check.However you still shouldn't lose any works.

If, during the outage, they finish their work they will be unable to check in any modified files. They'll have to wait until the system is back online and then check in changed files.

I would advise against users going into their working directories and modifying files directly while projectwise is down. This is a good way to lose work after the system is back up. If you modified a local file you did not have checked out, then check out the file when the system is online you may overwrite your local file losing the work.

Thanks Kevin for your time and sharing your knowledge. I have a question on the part why ProjectWise loses its work when a user goes directly in the local directory and makes changes there. How is it different from the scenario when the user continues to work on the same opened file and waits to check in until ProjectWise is back online. 

it depends on how your projectwise is configured to work. The scenario where work loss can occur is:

a) user opens a file from the working directory that they do NOT have checked out from ProjectWise (since projectwise is down they can't check it out)

b) do work in that file

c) ProjectWise comes online. They then open ProjectWise and check-out the file they were working on. If the option "use up to date local copy on check out" is OFF, then the local file will be overwritten with the file from ProjectWise server and lose the work they've done.

If they really want to work on a file that is in their working directory I would suggest moving that file on to the desktop, working on it there. WHen ProjectWise comes back online they can either import the file over the top of the existing file, or they can check out the file, then copy the file from the desktop back to the working directory (overwriting the file from the server) and then do a check-in or update server.

Working directly from the working directory has a lot of issues for cadd files. References outside the immediate directory won't work because the reference paths are projectwise paths and won't resolve correctly without projectwise. Also references added while working directly from the working directory won't be projectwise paths and won't work for other users once the changes are added back to projectwise.

Thanks. This is useful information.