We have users working at various geographically separated sites. How can we share supporting data that get updated regularly like symbol catalogs and parts databases?

Background

The short answer to this question is to keep local copies of the symbol catalogs and parts databases at each site, since accessing these items over a wide area network is known to result in poor performance.

With such a strategy, the "master" catalogs and parts database are periodically copied to the various sites, depending on how often they are updated. This is often done nightly/off hours when no user is connected to the catalog databases or parts databases that would be getting overwritten.

If multiple users create content, then a "librarian" is chosen and the creators send their content to the librarian who then updates the master catalogs and parts database. This article discusses this strategy.

Steps to Accomplish

• Creators can keep a personal catalog in which they create content, then export the content or entire catalog using Export Catalog. The librarian can then use Import Catalog to import the creators' catalogs. If no review is required, it is possible to import the catalog directly into the master catalog.
• Since individual records from the parts database cannot be exported via the Promis.e or Bentley Substation interface, users could submit part number addition/change requests to the librarian who would make the change to the master database via Parts Database Manager.
  • Alternatively, creators could add/modify part numbers using Parts Database Manager, then send the local parts database file and/or notify the librarian who could use a tool like the Import and Export Data* application to import the data into the master parts database.
    • A template spreadsheet could be created that users would fill in with new part number information and send to the librarian. The librarian would import the spreadsheet into the master parts database using Import and Export Data*. The template spreadsheet should contain column headers named to match the fields of the parts database to make mapping the fields during the import easier.
  • Since the parts database is purely a database (no drawings or other related data), it could be converted to a SQL database if not converted already, and then replicated to the various sites using SQL Server functionality.

*Import and Export Data is an application included with recent versions of SQL Server. This application can transfer data between various database formats, including Access (.mdb), Excel (.xls), and SQL Server.

An alternative to the above is to have remote users use Promis.e or Bentley Substation via Citrix and have all users connect to the master catalogs and parts database. Recent versions of Promis.e and Bentley Substation can be run on Citrix, but this requires knowledge of how to publish applications on Citrix and may require additional hardware (Citrix servers).

The master catalogs and parts databases would be copied to the sites periodically. Windows task scheduler could be used to schedule the execution of a batch file that would perform the copy.