Understanding Sharing Drawings in a Collaborative Environment

In a collaborative environment, multiple users can work and access drawings from any device, at any time.

Collaborative work is supported across the following products:

• ARES Kudo (Cloud application - Viewer and Editor)
• ARES Commander (Desktop application)
• ARES Touch (Mobile application)

The users can view or edit drawings using any of the three products according to the given permissions.

Store your projects on a Cloud Storage and use the Cloud application to share them with other users. Once drawings are shared, the users can open them in the Desktop application or Cloud application and use them according to the assigned permissions.

• The Desktop application allows creating and editing drawings from the local drive as well as from the Cloud Storage.
• The Cloud application allows opening shared drawings for viewing and editing.

Working in a Collaborative Way

Use the Desktop application to create and edit drawings and the Cloud application to share drawings and open them on different devices.

To work in a collaborative way, do the following:

• Get your projects to the Cloud

  ARES Kudo provides a default Cloud Storage service which you can use to store your drawings and share them with multiple users. In addition to the default storage, you can connect other Cloud Storage accounts to the application.

  Note: If you use other Cloud Storage services, you can connect them to ARES Kudo to allow accessing them in one central place. Once the connection is established, you can open your drawings in ARES Commander, ARES Touch, as well as in ARES Kudo.

  If you are using other Cloud Storage services, connect them in one central place. Once the connection is established, you can open your drawings in ARES Commander, ARES Touch, as well as in ARES Kudo.

• Share the drawings

  Use ARES Kudo to share the stored drawings with your colleagues, specifying also the necessary permissions. Additionally, you can make a drawing publicly available by generating a unique URL and send it to other users. The URL allows access to any user who has the link, according to user's permission. Sign In is not necessary.

• Notify your colleagues

  As your project evolves, you or your colleagues can draw new entities, make changes to the drawing, and add comments. All changes an comments are visible to other users who have permission to access the drawing. Additionally, you can notify the users who have previously opened the drawing when a new comment thread was added or new comments appear within existing discussions. According to their permission, the users can modify the drawing, reply to the comments or start another discussion.

• Work with the drawings

  Once the drawings are shared, the users can access the drawings according to the given permissions.

  • Users with editing rights can edit the drawings with ARES Kudo, ARES Commander, or ARES Touch.

    Note: As long as a user works on a drawing in edit mode, all other users can access the drawing in view-only mode, regardless of their permissions. If a user needs to edit the drawing, he must send a request to the user that is currently working with it.

  • Users with viewing rights can open the drawings in view-only mode in ARES Kudo, ARES Commander, or ARES Touch.
  • Users who received the public link can open the drawing to view it in a web browser. A Graebert Account is not necessary in this case.
  • Users who received the public link can open the drawing to view it or to edit it, according to their rights, in a web browser. A user account is not necessary in this case.

Editing Shared Drawings

By default, if the user has editing rights and there is no other editing session of the drawing, the application (ARES Kudo Editor, ARES Commander and ARES Touch) always opens the drawing in editing mode. At any moment, users can make changes in any drawing shared with them using any of the three products.

The changes the user makes in the drawing open with ARES Kudo Editor are automatically saved every 5 minutes.

Note: After 25 minutes of inactivity, the application displays a warning. After another 25 minutes, it switches the drawing to view-only mode.

If a new version of drawing is saved (by ARES Kudo Editor, ARES Commander or ARES Touch) whereas that drawing is being viewed in ARES Kudo Viewer, Viewer will notify the users about the change. They can reload the drawing in the Viewer to see the latest changes.

When two or more users have editing permissions for the same drawing, they might want to edit the drawing at the same time.

The following is applied to avoid conflicts:

• Only one user can edit one drawing at a time

  To prevent creating conflicting versions of drawings across all three products - ARES Kudo Editor, ARES Commander and ARES Touch - one drawing at a time. As long as a user works on a drawing in edit mode, all other users can access the drawing in view-only mode, regardless of their permissions.

  Users with editing permissions can open the drawing in Edit mode only after the active editing session closes. However, they can request editing permissions.

  Important: ARES Kudo does not block open drawings from editing with other CAD applications or from sharing them using Cloud Storage features. Be aware that such changes are not synchronized.

• Prevent blocking user access

  To prevent blocking user access by keeping a drawing open in editing mode without making any changes, the application switches the drawing to view-only mode after 50 minutes of inactivity. The drawing is automatically saved on the Cloud Storage and another user can edit it. The application displays a warning.

  The user can switch a viewing session to the editing mode in the following situations:

  • The user has editing permissions and there is no active editing session started by another user.

    Note: The application opens the latest version of the drawing, which includes changes made by other colleagues while the user was accessing the drawing in view-only mode.

  • The user opens the same drawing in Edit mode as well as in view-only mode (for example, on another device). In this case, he can switch the viewing session to the editing mode.

    Note: Unsaved changes are lost.

• Request to edit a file

  At any moment, users may want to make changes in any drawing shared with them with edit permissions. If an active editing session is already opened for a drawing, all other users with edit permissions can open the drawing in view-only mode. However, they can request to edit the drawing. The user who is currently editing the drawing receives a notification and approves or denies the request. As soon as the active editing session closes, users get a notification and can switch to the editing mode.

To request permission to edit the file:

1. The drawing opens in view-only mode.

2. Click Get editor rights .

   A message informs you that another user is currently working on the drawing.

3. Click Request.
4. If the user who is editing the drawing approves your request, you will get a message.
5. Click Yes to switch to Edit mode.