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162 | ChaPTer 5 Working in a Team

Figure 5.1
The worksharing
concept

The only information that flows instantly between the local copies and the central file is
permissions. Edits to model elements or settings are not transferred among the project team
members because this would significantly decrease performance, and it would be distracting
to your workflow to see the model constantly changing on the screen. In other words, the
only way another team member knows you are editing something is by seeing that you own
the element. Even though worksets are established to break a model into manageable chunks,
permissions for a worksharing-enabled project are managed at the object level. This means
that you could have a worksharing-enabled project with only one workset. Remember, a
project file is essentially a database. As you are working on elements within the model, you’re
automatically obtaining permission to edit elements from the central database. Once permission
to modify an element is granted, no one else can make changes to that element until the changes
are reconciled with the central file. This occurs when you use the Synchronize With Central
(SWC) command on the Collaborate tab to save changes you’ve made back to the central file and
simultaneously update your local file with any other changes that have been published to the
central file by other team members.

The Library Worksharing analogy

another way to understand worksets and how they relate to object permissions is to think of a
workset as a shelf of books in a library and the model objects as individual books on the shelf. if you
are working on a paper about beavers, you can go to the library and do one of two things: check out
the entire shelf of books about animals or check out the book about beavers. Checking out an entire
shelf of books within a certain category is the same as making an entire workset editable—no one
else can do their animal research paper because you have all the animal books. You have become
the owner of that workset, and there can be only one owner per workset.

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