Use Dropbox to deploy a network based AutoCAD environment

Managing an AutoCAD environment from a single source on a shared network server has several benefits. Delivering consistent standards, customizations, and more, to multiple users is the goal of a streamlined AutoCAD environment.

With recent technology trends and so much movement towards the cloud, new opportunities are becoming available. Without the expense of purchasing, building, and maintaining an enterprise network, Dropbox provides a free cloud based solution that can reach all around the globe. Dropbox is free to setup and you will instantly have plenty of storage capacity for an entire AutoCAD environment (and more).

To combine the power of Dropbox with the flexibility of AutoCAD it will require installing the desktop version of Dropbox (not just using the web based interface). Also, it is important to use the default install path for Dropbox (C:\Users\...\Dropbox). Otherwise, as you will soon see we would not be able to share content with multiple users.

Dropbox functions exactly like any other folder on your computer except that when you are connected to the Internet it will synch with your Dropbox folder in the cloud. This allows you to have access to all of your content whether you are offline or online. You can create as many subfolders in your Dropbox folder as you would like and those folders can be shared with other Dropbox users.

If Dropbox is installed in the default location as mentioned above it can be accessed through the windows system variable %UserProfileFolder%. This means we can customize our AutoCAD based user profile using "%UserProfileFolder%\Dropbox\shared folder name". This path will resolve to everyones' Dropbox folder and allow the AutoCAD profile to load properly. Note: In order for everyone to synch to the same folder the folder must be shared by the original creator.

Here is an example of a custom profile that loads an Enterprise Menu File (which of course also loads an .mnl with the same name and in the same location) from Dropbox, changes the plot style path to a location on Dropbox, and adds a support path to Dropbox.

This sets the stage to do pretty much anything you want with an AutoCAD profile. When this profile is loaded into AutoCAD the paths above resolve to each individual user's Dropbox location which is synched from the master folder that was originally shared from Dropbox (Note: only the SLD subfolder in this example is shared, not the entire Dropbox folder).

 

Using Dropbox to manage an AutoCAD environment allows a lot of possibilities. If a team is spread out across the globe Dropbox will keep them in synch. Also, it does not require an Internet connection so team members can work offline (as long as they were connected initially to receive the content from Dropbox). The next time they connect to the Internet Dropbox will automatically update their folder with any new content from the master folder in the cloud. Another point to reiterate is that everyone is always accessing content from their local C:\ drive which is quick and efficient regardless of location.

 

This post focuses on managing an AutoCAD environment within Dropbox, but of course working drawing files can be stored there too.