This is a comparison of popular systems like email, FTP, and Dropbox with an engineering coordination portal named TeamPlatform. Generic approaches to project management cannot meets the needs of
engineers the way a centralized location like TeamPlatform can, because it
is designed to cater to the needs of engineers.
I'll
look at the pros and cons of each system as they apply to coordinating
CAD designs. When we work with more than one person on projects, we need
ways to
communicate with one another, move files between us, and coordinate the
who-does-what tasks. Email remains the most popular way to coordinate
these
activities for most of us. But there may be better ways to coordinate
projects - especially for engineers.
Communicating Through Email
Electronic mail predates the Internet as universities and corporations
ran proprietary email systems as early as the 1970s. Being this "old," every
so often someone proclaims email dead; despite the rumors of its death,
email thrives. This is because it offers benefits that make it handy for
continued use:
Email is universal. Any email client works with any email system,
because all are based on the same standards, which carry names like POP
(post office protocol), SMTP (simple mail transport protocol), and IMAP
(internet message access protocol) - even modern systems like GMail and
Outlook. Access to email continues to be universal through Web browsers and
mobile clients.
Email has user-friendly benefits, like being able to drag and drop
files into messages, tracking conversations through threads, and queuing and
delaying the sending of messages. Best of all, email is essentially free.
These benefits means email gets used on just about every project I have
ever been involved with, with the exception of sending very large files.
This hints at the one of the drawbacks to email for project coordination:
the size of email attachments, which is often limited to 10MB, usually.
Email was never meant to handle binary files, and so files have to
be converted on-the-fly to 7-bit ASCII files, which bulks up files by 12%.
Email has no inline viewers of CAD formats, and so relies on external
viewers being installed manually on every computer. While conversations can
be threaded, they are not project-oriented. There are no limitations on
accessing emailed files, so there is nothing like a read-only permission.
And most irritating, email clients can be inconsistent in displaying simple
things like text and positioned images (which sometimes are displayed as a
jumble or at the wrong size), and they can be pretty bad at printing neatly.
Taking into account the limitations of email, project engineers need a
system that handles very large files, that displays files in engineering
formats without installing viewers, and that displays text and images
correctly.
Transferring Files with FTP
The primary purpose of FTP (file transfer protocol) is to send and
receive files of any size. An FTP site allows anyone to access them, given
the correct password. Because it uses a single FTP server computer, files
are centralized; project management is handled through folders. Like email,
FTP is free and universal, because any FTP client program works with any FTP
server.
But FTP has drawbacks sufficient to make it rarely used anymore. (Only
one of my clients still asks me to deposit files on their FTP site.) FTP
clients are awkward to setup and to use for normal CAD users; someone with
IT expertise must set up the FTP server software and computer for the
project.
FTP lacks versioning; engineers need to rename the newest files manually,
or else move old files into archive folders manually. There are only two
permission levels, read-only and read-write. And there definitely are no
online viewers; every file must be downloaded before it can be viewed.
While FTP allows centralization of files, project engineers need to look
for a management system that handles FTP's drawbacks in the areas of
versioning, permissions, viewing, and archiving.
Sharing Files with Dropbox
Dropbox allows access to files that are stored on a server on the
Internet (a.k.a. cloud). Indeed, Dropbox is a user-friendly version of FTP.
Because the idea is so simple, Dropbox has many competitors, such as
SugarSync, Box.net, and even services even from CAD vendors, such as
Autodesk 360 and Vectorworks Nomad.
Dropbox is nicely integrated into portable devices running Android and
iOS, and benefits from drop-and-drag on desktop clients. It handles any size
of file, up to the maximum space allocated to the account (although there is
a 300MB cap on files uploaded through the Dropbox Web site). It has these
advantages for projects:
- Password-protected access
- Project management through folders
- Initially free
But Dropbox has its drawbacks. It is free for only the first 2GB of
storage space, with options for increasing the space through referrals and
other offers. Beyond this, we pay. For instance, Dropbox for Business starts
at $795 a year for five project engineers, and can cost $31,000/year for
very large teams, albeit with unlimited storage space.
Dropbox is not universal; only Dropbox clients work with Dropbox folders
online, although Windows Explorer (and similar apps) can access files from
the desktop. I have found that Dropbox tends to lag its competitors in
important areas like security and read-only access. It definitely lacks
conversations and online viewers for CAD formats.
Dropbox is much handier than FTP, and for large files it is better than
email. But it isn't actually oriented to project use. And so engineers must
look elsewhere, especially in light of Dropbox being implicated in handing
our private data to the US government's PRISM spying program.
Project Coordination with TeamPlatform
As handy as email and Dropbox are, their limitations become apparent as
projects grow beyond a few engineers and a several dozen files. I know
firsthand the panic that arises from wondering which file is the most recent
one (overwritten, maybe), and whatever happened to that communication
(misfiled, probably).
TeamPlatform is one Web portal that provides everything engineers need on
projects. It's meant to handle 3D models as well as regular documents; it
lets us collaborate on projects; and so on. So let's take a look at how it
competes with email, FTP, and Dropbox in the areas of communications, file
sharing and archiving, file viewing, universal access, and cost.
Communications
TeamPlatform has a nicely threaded comment and
reply section that can be applied to files, pages, tasks, and entire
workspaces. We can make ad-hoc comments; or use the @mention function to
link items. Comments made at TeamPlatform are sent as summary emails to
project members.
By the way, I appreciated how easy it was to create a new account: I just
needed to click Sign In and then choose Sign In With Google;
no need to think of a new username and yet another unique password; no need
to share intimate data with Facebook.
File Sharing, Revision Tracking, and Archiving
To upload files
from our computers to TeamPlatform, we just drag-and-drop files from
computer folders to the Web browser.
After files are uploaded to TeamPlatform, it tracks changes and maintains
revisions (see figure 1). When files are sent, TeamPlatform generates
delivery confirmations automatically. We can opt to receive daily summaries
of actions taken in each workspace.
Although TeamPlatform has a dashboard to show overall progress and
status, it seemed to me that nearly every screen had its own set of
dashboard-like info tags, such as the "Updated" tag on one file and "File
Share" warning for the page.
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Figure 1: A TeamPlatform workspace
with files and actions |
File Viewing
Email and FTP display only text files natively, and
Dropbox cannot display anything on its own. In contrast, TeamPlatform
provides online previews of more than 130 file formats inside the Web
browser. The list includes STL, IGES, and STEP; native CAD formats like DWG,
SolidWorks, CATIA, NX, PTC, and Autodesk; Office formats and PDF files;
videos and photos; and 3D point cloud formats like Faro FLS and FWS.
I checked the viewer capabilities with some MCAD test files, one of which
is shown in figure 2. In 3D, we can measure distances and angles, change
measurement units and viewing angles, make a screen grab, change
transparency and contrast, and export the part as an STL file.
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Figure 2: Displaying a SolidWorks
part file in a desktop Web browser |
As I write this, the company is private beta testing a new plug-and-play
3D Viewer cloud API service that allows other Web sites to display 3D files,
like SolidWorks, CATIA, Creo, UG-NX, IGES, STEP, IFC, Parasolid, and STL.
Universal Access
Email, FTP, and Dropbox are available on just
about any computing platform today - as is TeamPlatform. Because it runs in
Web browsers, TeamPlatform works with any mobile device that can run an
HMTL5 browser.
I tested it with a Firefox Web browser on an Android tablet to find that
TeamPlatform provides a mobile version of its portal (suitable for smart
phones and their small screens; see figure 3) and makes the desktop version
available for tablets and their larger screens (Desktop View).
Figure 3: Mobile interface of
TeamPlatform on a smart phone running FireFox OS (top); viewing a
SolidWorks assembly on the smart phone (bottom)
When the tablet can handle TeamPlatform's desktop mode, then we can
redline drawings and perform all other tasks available to desktop computers
(see figure 4).
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Figure 4: Desktop interface of
TeamPlatform on an Android tablet showing redline markup tools for a
drawing in DWG format |
Portable access lets us check files and update statuses from our
Androids, iPads, and other mobile platforms - provided we have the proper
permissions. Being HTML5-compatible means TeamPlatform can be used as a file
viewer on nearly any portable device with a modern Web browser.
Cost
Email, FTP, and Dropbox are typically free at a simple
level, such as 10GB storage for GMail and 2GB for Dropbox. Even at a useful
level, TeamPlatform is free: unlimited team members, up to five workspaces,
up to five guests up, and 500MB storage.
Going beyond this level, TeamPlatform charges $25 per person per month
for unlimited projects, unlimited guests, and 50GB storage per member.
Conclusion
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Email
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FTP
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Dropbox
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TeamPlatform
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Cost
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Free
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Free
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Free for first 2GB
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$25 per month per user*
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Requires IT support
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Yes
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Universal access through
browsers, etc.
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Yes
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Yes
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Yes
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Yes
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Very large file transfers
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Yes
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Yes
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Yes
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Password protection of
files
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Yes
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Yes
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Yes
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Versioning of files
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Yes
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CAD viewers built-in
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Many
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Collaboration by threaded
comments
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Yes
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Yes
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*Basic version is free but provides only 500MB per
user.
In a comparison written by Israeli CAM engineer Daniel Dobrzynski, he
wrote that TeamPlatform is more mature than Autodesk 360 (see
www.caddigest.com/exclusive/MCAD/teamplatform/050213_teamplatform_vs_autodesk_360.htm.
He found that, for instance, while Autodesk 360 displays some 3D formats, it
cannot edit them.
In contrast, TeamPlatform handles nearly all 3D MCAD and common office
formats. It allows us to perform manipulation, such as 3D orbiting and parts
explosion, on just about any kind of platform - Windows and Mac desktops and
non-Windows portable devices. For project engineers, it provides a better
alternative to the traditional stand-bys of email, FTP, and Dropbox. For
more information, take a look at the Getting Started support page at
support.teamplatform.com/forums/22018638-6-Step-Intro-to-TeamPlatform.
[This article first appeared on CADdigest.com.]
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