Understanding the "CENTRAL FILE"

     I get asked all the time about the central file. What is it? What does it do? How do I set it up? The central file is really easy understand, a lot of people teover think it and thus it becomes complicated.
    Something easy to help you understand a central file is to use a metaphor... I use a library for example.

    The "Library" is the central file, your "library card" is your local file, the book shelves in the library are the worksets, and the books on the shelves are the elements attached to that worksets.
If you own that bookshelf, no on else can use the books that are on there, but they can borrow them from you, once their done...

They simply return it back to you (return it to the shelf) by relinquishing their worksets.

Good practice: Communicate with your team about the work flow, when to save to central, and figure out what elements are going to be on what workset to help minimize any errors, and increase efficiency of your work flow.

One more thing to look into is a plug-in you can get on the Autodesk website if you're a subscription customer. It's a workset monitor that notifies you of changes in the central file, and constantly monitors whose working on what.

http://subscription.autodesk.com/sp/servlet/download/item?siteID=11564774&id=14994674

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