I’m looking for suggestions on how best to handle this situation.
We have a number of tradesman that have Windows 10 computer tablets (Surface Pros) for viewing mechanical drawings. There are many different projects and each tradesman is only working on a subset of them.
To begin with we set up a Google Drive account that everyone signed into and all the projects were synced. Also, everyone could see all the projects which is not an issue.
At the head office, drawings were updated and the added to the Google Drive which was synced with all the remote users on their tablets. It works fine up to a point.
As we get more users, (who are not computer savvy), there are more problems with files being moved and or accidentally deleted. As everything is backed up, it can be restored but is a time waster.
What I would like is to be able to have each user have access to a set of folders with the drawings and files they need. It is one-way synced from our office to them.
So, each tradesman would have access to only their own project files and reduce the risk of screwing up someone else’s.
Any suggestions for software solutions would be appreciated.
Lots of possible options, but a lot depends on the nature of your use case. For example:
Do the tradesman need to be able to get the latest copies anywhere they may have an internet connection, or can they wait until the next time they are in-office to sync up?
Is there a scenario where the trademen ever need to modify and/or check back in files, or is the sync truly one-way only, always?
How big are the files? How much data (in MB/GB/whatever) need to be transferred to a tablet every time a sync occurs?
Do you need version control? Is there ever a need to look at a previous edit/version of a file?
Are you willing to host the solution on a server in your office (with all the server, application, and backup management that entails), or do you need a 3rd party hosted solution?
5a. If you are willing to run the application in-house, do you currently have VPN access set up to the office for company workers to utilize?
You basically need some kind of permissions-based file sharing, or perhaps even a full-blown permissions-based version control system.
Do the tradesman need to be able to get the latest copies anywhere they may have an internet connection, or can they wait until the next time they are in-office to sync up?
The do not come back to the office. It should be synced when they have internet access.
Is there a scenario where the trademen ever need to modify and/or check back in files, or is the sync truly one-way only, always?
It would be one way only. We control the drawings at the office. They may make markups but that is for their own use and kept on their own tablet.
3. How big are the files? How much data (in MB/GB/whatever) need to be transferred to a tablet every time a sync occurs?
Each file is around 10-15MB. Total amount of drawings for all projects is about 6GB.
Do you need version control? Is there ever a need to look at a previous edit/version of a file?
No.
Are you willing to host the solution on a server in your office (with all the server, application, and backup management that entails), or do you need a 3rd party hosted solution?
We have a server but I am more leaning toward a 3rd party hosted solution.
5a. If you are willing to run the application in-house, do you currently have VPN access set up to the office for company workers to utilize?
I have VPN set up for myself for financial but I would not want to have this extended for this type of file-sharing.
Just to make clear. Most of the time, the tradesman will be working on a construction site without internet access. With Google Drive, the files are synced to their local tablet drive and they view these local files.
The syncing is done when they are in WIFI range (either at home, hot-syncing their phone or some open wifi area).
What scr4 said: The problem isn’t Google Drive, but that (apparently) you’re using one account for everybody. Everybody needs their own, separate, Google account*. The “owner” generates the PDFs and uploads them and then shares them with everyone else, view-only, via their Google accounts. The offline sync still works as before. If somebody accidentally deletes a file, they only delete their own local copy and they can retrieve the shared version from the “Shared with me” folder at any time. They cannot delete the master copy since they have no write permissions on it.
*While you can do this with free Gmail accounts, it gets to be a bit of a hassle remembering a bunch of separate accounts. If your company can afford it, consider moving to Google Apps for Work at $5-$10/user (30GB to unlimited), which lets you consolidate all your users and Google Drive files under one centralized admin interface. You can also easily make groups (one for each team, or one for each project, etc.) and assign sharing to a group instead of individuals. All the other Google collaboration comes with it – multi-user Docs, Gmail for Work (no ads), shared calendaring, etc.
Microsoft does something similar with OneDrive/Office 365, which is a little bit easier to set up into Surface tablets (but Google Drive isn’t that hard either).
Dropbox also does this via their Teams feature. The benefit of Dropbox is that it has the best syncing (will sync over LAN, “delta sync” that sends only changed portions of files and not the whole file) but doesn’t have the other collaboration tools of the Microsoft or Google enterprise solutions.
TL;DR: As scr4 said, make multiple users and share documents/folders with them instead of using one account for everyone. For the best management, move everyone to Google Apps for Work and have all your users under your company umbrella.