From the course: AutoCAD P&ID Essential Training: Administrator

Reorganize DWG files in Windows Explorer - AutoCAD P&ID Tutorial

From the course: AutoCAD P&ID Essential Training: Administrator

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Reorganize DWG files in Windows Explorer

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- [Instructor] Since the P&ID is the only document in a project that's considered live for the entire life cycle of the facility, it's not uncommon for the P&ID files to be reorganized during an expansion or a maintenance project. Adding a new process train, the addition of new equipment, or upgrading the existing equipment all creates instances where file reorganization may be required. As an administrator, it will be up to you to make sure that all the files are moved and organized without losing any project data. Let's take some existing files and relocate them to another place in the project. So let's open Windows Explorer, and we're in Exercise Files Chapter 3, and take a look at the folder structure that we have here. So what we're going to do is we're going to create a new folder. We're going to make an assumption in this case that we're creating a duplicate plant on the same site. We'll call it an expansion. So we're going to create Plant A and Plant B. The contents of Plant A should be identical to Plant B other than the naming. We'll have to tag our equipment and our drawings so that they'll look different. So let's start by creating a new folder, and we're going to call this folder Plant A. So I'm going to take Area 100 and Area 200, and I'm going to move them into Plant A. I'm going to create a new folder. We're going to call this one Area 300. We'll take 0303, drop it into Area 300, and then we'll move that one inside Plant A. So let's take a look and see. We have Plant A, we have the three different areas, and the drawings are contained in each one. Let's go to Project Manager, and we're going to repath those so that the drawings we have in Project Manager reflect the changes that we've just made in Windows. So I'm going to come up to the top, and I'm going to create a new folder, and we're going to call this Plant A. So we're going to merge this. We've already created this in Windows, so we'll merge that with the existing folder. And let's keep an eye on our file paths. So I'm going to pull this out just a little bit. And it's important that you keep an eye to make sure that you've got things located in the right place. So check out your folder Plant A. Make sure that it's in the right location corresponding with Windows. And then we're going to take this Area 100, and we're going to drag it inside. We're going to take Area 200 and drag that inside too. And let's go ahead and create a new folder, call that Area 300. We'll merge that with the existing folder. And we'll take this drawing and we'll drop it inside. Now, although when we look at this, it looks like everything's in the right location, I want you to check something out, though. We have Plant A, and we have the corresponding folder. Now look at our Area 100. We don't have Plant A in here. It's still in the old location. So we have to repath this folder. So we're going to right-click, and we're going to look at the properties, and under here, we're going to Store new project files in. We're going to browse out. We're going to select Plant A, Area 100. And hit OK. Now we can check our file and see indeed that Plant A folder has been added to that path. Let's do the same with 200. We're going to go back to Area 200. And we have Plant A. And we'll do the same for 300. And we have Plant A. So now we have to go down even further, and we have to look for our drawings now. So if we locate this file, we're going to right-click. We're going to locate the drawing. Desktop, Exercise Files, Chapter 3, P&ID Drawings, Plant A, Area 100, 0301 P&ID. And you'll see the question mark's gone. We're going to repeat that for the other drawings. We're going to locate. Desktop, Exercise Files, Chapter 3, P&ID, Plant A, Area 200, Drawing 2. Repeat for Drawing 3. So just check all of our drawings and folders now have the Plant A included. So what we have now in Project Manager now matches with what we have in Windows. So I'm going to recreate this folder. I'm going to just right-click this folder. I'm going to copy this. And I'm going to paste. And we're going to rename this folder to Plant B. Going to add a space in there too. There we go. So what we're going to do is we're going to keep Area 100, 200, and 300, but we can't have duplicate drawing names, so I'm going to come in here, and I'm going to rename this one. And I'm going to call this one B. And I'm going to rename them all to B. So now we have our two trains. We have our Plant A and Plant B. So now we're going to go back to our project, going to roll these up, and I'm going to recreate these folders over here now too. So we're going to create a new folder, Plant B. Merge the existing folder. Area 100. Merge that one. And last, 300. Oh, my apologies. I renamed that one wrong. I'm just going to go back and correct that one to 2. And we'll merge that one. So now we're going to copy the drawings to the project. We're going to go into Plant B, Area 100. We're going to take our 01B. And we'll repeat that for the other drawings. And then we have them there. So, you see, it's easy enough to create these folders, but what we always have in Windows isn't necessarily copied back to Project Manager and vice versa. So by looking at this, you can understand that the changes are fairly straightforward, but it's always better to have everything structured at first. And when you do have to go back and make these changes, just make sure that you repath everything. So the P&ID files can be moved in Windows very easily, but it's critical that you update the paths in Project Manager right away, and make sure all the files are accessible to the project personnel via Project Manager.

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