TOP 5 REASONS TO LOVE BIM SERVER

TOP 5 REASONS TO LOVE BIM SERVER

From the very beginning I am in love with BIM Server. Let me explain why?

1- Remote access is a game changer! You know we have 3 offices and from time to time, our Dubai Team should support the project that Cairo Team is working on, or vice versa. We used to pay a lot for travel and accommodation of the team to go to the other branch and support them a couple of weeks. Now it's hassle free. They just connect tot he server and work on the project without traveling. The other point is our relationship with the clients. We give the client Viewer Access to the project so that they can regularly check our progress. This is such a relief and trust builder for the client. Actually I heard the same comment from many other ArchiCAD users. 

2- Easy to Setup! Even a 10 year old can make the setup. (I am not exaggerating. I have experience with small kids learning & using ArchiCAD as you remember from BIM for Kids post.:)  

3- Does not require super expensive hardware. I think this one is self explanatory:)

4- Flexible: You can access remotely....

you can create a travel pack....

you can set different access rights for different users...

you can assign project specific roles to the users....

you can represent users with any color you want...

 you can see only the objects reserved by you, 

you can can can can and can.... 

5-Internal Messaging System is  great tool for arranging lunch! Apart from it's functionality it brings fun to the office. As you remember during one of our implementations we were deciding on  lunch with the help of BIM Server's internal messaging:))) 

Enjoy your Monday Syndrome :)

Diyane Koseoglu

www.bimes.com

The BIM Server Blues

Have you seen Graphisoft's recent marketing material?

The BIM Blues!!!

You can watch the latest one from here:

I loved it!

Marketing should not be only about the product! It should also reflect the "personality" of the company as well and BIM Blues does it very well!

In my opinion, it shows Graphisoft
- is good at whatever they do
- has an artistic side
- team is fun
- enjoy what they do

What else can you want from your marketing team?:))

Diyane Koseoglu
www.bimes.com

BIM for IT Team

Image from adamr

IT team! They are "the team" I always respect a lot and try to have good relations with since they know everything that I do not:))

However the client visit I had yesterday was exactly the opposite case.

Let me tell you the story in more detail.

Our client is a very strong BIM Server user! They deal with large projects and large teams so BIM Server is the technology they can not live without. Since it is so vital for them every architect and engineer in the BIM team knows BIM Server inside out.

Don't tell me "Ohh it's so simple! What can they know more than "Send&Receive? "

Well, restoring the BIM Server with all users, rolling back the projects, migrating the server to a different computer are not complicated commands for them.

But these are the architects and engineers not the IT guys.

To be honest, we made a mistake with them during the BIM Implementation. We did not manadate the IT team to attend the trainings, especially the BIM Server training.

What is the consequence of this mistake?

Image from Victor Habbick

 Whenever IT guys touch any computer  of the BIM Team, they "destroy" something:)) But they really do destroy.

Image from Ambro

So now, the BIM guys do not want anyone from IT to enter their room even. They even told me the two computers that they never let IT to touch are working perfectly. The rest? No comment:))

Actually the problem is IT has no idea about the consequences of their modifications on BIM Server. They claim what they did was a tiny little innocent change.

What is the lesson learnt from yesterday's visit?

BIM Server Training for IT!

We will start working on a 1-Day course tailored for IT. The course will cover license sharing, basic trouble shooting and BIM Server.

 Image from digitalarts

Hopefully this will bring peace to IT and BIM team's relationship:))

PS: Jothi's latest video about how to restore your BIM Server including users, projects, libraries and access rights in Windows OS is now available.

Diyane Koseoglu
Jothi Shanmugam
www.bimes.com

How to restore your BIM Server including users, projects, libraries and access rights in WIN OS

Good Morning Everyone!

Jothi continues his BIM Server Back Up series with the WIN version of last week's video!

How to restore your BIM Server including users, projects, libraries and access rights in WIN OS...

Enjoy!

Diyane Koseoglu

Jothi Shanmugam

www.bimes.com

How to restore your BIM Server including users, projects, libraries and access rights in Mac OSX

After a long long time, we have a technical post about ArchiCAD and BIM Server.

In this video, Jothi explains how to restore your BIM Server including users, projects, libraries and access rights in Mac OSX. It's quite easy and a real time saver.

Enjoy!

Diyane Koseoglu
Jothi Shanmugam

www.bimes.com

Diyane's Top 10 ArchiCAD Features - # 2

# 2 - BIM Server

I hesitated  a lot about placing BIM Server to Number 2 or 1.

It ended up getting the Silver Medal:)

Why BIM Server made it's place to TOP 2?

 1- During the development of BIM Server, I had the opportunity to see the development team, the amount of work put into it's development, the cautiousness for the safety of data. I think it had the longest beta testing period ever. Users were dying to get the BIM Server as soon as possible but Graphisoft refused to release it until they are 100% sure that it works perfectly.  

2- IT IS FAST!

3- IT IS PROBLEM FREE! Believe me or not, we are providing more technical support on the Network Dongle sharing then BIM Server:))

4- IT IS USER FRIENDLY!  This is very important. You spend 6-8 hours of your time on this software and you would hate your life it wasn't user friendly. 

5- Internal Messaging System! Off this is one of my favorites. In one of our early implementations we were using it even for deciding what to eat:))

In 2009, when Graphisoft released it, I was expecting  the competition to come up with a similiar solution which utilizes Delta Server technology within 2-3 years.

It's 2012 and still no one is even close to Graphisoft's BIM Server!

Enjoy using the cutting edge technologies of Graphisoft:))

Diyane Koseoglu
www.bimes.com

Backup your BIM Server in one go!

Good Morning Everyone!

Today's post is again about ArchiCAD and BIM Server and how to backup it in one go.

This time it is a pre-disaster planning rather than a post-disaster planning scenario:)

Jothi explains how to back up your complete BIM Server (including all the projects, users, access right etc) in one go. You can use this method when you are moving the BIM Server from one computer to another or just changing the location.


I hope you will enjoy it:)

Diyane Koseoglu
Jothi Shanmugam
www.bimes.com

Very Big Problem!

I returned from my meeting and while saying hi to everyone I noticed the strange look on Jothi's face.

DK:
"Jothi, is everything OK?"

JS:
"No! Big problem, Diyane, very big problem!"

Oupps! Jothi is normally a very calm person and this was the first time I heard such a sentence from him.

He said our biggest client in the UAE moved their office and IT guys deleted the former user account and created a new one but they forgot to backup the BIM Server. Instead they copied some files which the BIM Server does not have access!

Yes, definitely a BIG problem!

I can freak out with small things such as being late for a meeting but when it comes to really BIG stuff I am usually very very calm.

As you can imagine this time, I was very calm as well:))

I calmly said "Don't worry Jothi! I am sure there is a way to access to those files. Please explain me exaclty what they have done."

This is usually the best way to solve a problem.

While summarizing the problem, he will either find a solution himself or somebody in the office will hear and come up with a genius solution:)

In our case it was both! Jothi solved half of it and Daniel helped with the remaining half.

All these happened last Thursday afternoon and every single person in the office was supposed to travel during the weekend and it would be only me and our office admin who would be left in the office.

Obviously it will be my "pleasure" to fix the problem on site since no one else is in town from the technical team:))

This means I have to learn all these tiny little tricks Daniel and Jothi has just discovered!

Aiaiai!

I took my notebook, sit next to Jothi and start listening!

Oh my god!

I didn't understand anything in the first run! This means many people will have the same experience!

"Jothi, let's make a favor to the ArchiCAD world. Record this as a tutorial please so that we can share. I am sure there will be people who would experience similar problems and this video will save their lives:)" I said.

Of course it saved me from taking pages of notes as well:)))

Here comes the video... I hope you will enjoy it.

PS: I visited our client's office on Saturday and fixed the problem with the help of this video:)) Thanks Jothi:))

Diyane Koseoglu
www.bimes.com

How to reserve my previous elements after re-joining to BIM project?

Hi Everyone!

Today we have an ArchiCAD Tip for BIM Server users.

In the Middle East, the size of the projects are not comparable with the rest of the world. 40-50 thousand m2 projects are quite common and part of our lives.

This makes the use of BIM Server extremely crucial and majority of our clients are using it actively in all their projects.

Of course we are receiving a lot of questions on how to use BIM Server in a more efficient way.

Today's tip is the answer to the most common question.

Q:
"Once I leave the teamwork project, all my elements are released automatically. When I re-join to the project, how to reserve my previous elements?"

A:
"It's time to learn "Selections" palette:)

Our implementation specialist created a 2 minutes video explaining this.
Enjoy...

Diyane Koseoglu
Jothi Shanmugam
www.bimes.com