Need to distribute file across work network!

gord

gord

gord

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Hello all,

I'm looking to distribute a quick parts document across our work network so that everyone seamlessly has the same file version to use in their document creation.

However, I'm struggling to find a foolproof way of achieving this. Solutions we have been thinking about include dropbox and a network share with a login script to copy the file over.

Thing is, people off site make the login script unreliable and dropbox doesnt seem capable of syncing a file to specific folder.

Does anyone else have any ideas? Any help is much appreciated.

Thanks
 
I have just written something very similar for something I am doing. It use a web server and make a quick call to get the file version number. If the local one is up to date I then do nothing, otherwise I download the new file. What OS are your clients using and how large is the file?
 
All on Windows, from XP to 7. Less than 1MB.

I've just downloaded a bit of software that syncs a folder on our ftp to my machine, but I think its overkill. Did you write your own script?
 
If you have one copy of a file on a network share that you want multiple people to edit, only one person will be able to make an edit at a time. If someone else opens it while it is already open, it will be opened in read only mode.

It is not possible to edit the same file at the same time. Even with advanced DMS software.

I would just stick it on a network share and give people permission who need to edit it. Then create/add to the login script to map a network drive to the location of the document share. Or you could copy down (with login script) a shortcut to their desktop that shortcuts them to the location on the network.
 
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I need to remove the user from doing anything really to make this worthwhile. Most people won't be able to edit it at all.

My logon script would automatically copy the file to the right location on their drive without them doing anything. This is a quickparts template after all, and people won't understand copying it to their appdata folders. The problem with the logon script is a lot of our people are off all over the world and so the logon script won't always work, to my understanding.

This is why I'm looking for solutions using FTP or an online service to sync the file to users machines. A one time setup on users machines is acceptable.
 
You could host the file on a work FTP share/website/whatever and have the logon script copy it from there. As long as someone has Internet access it wouldn't matter where they are.

DropBox probably wouldn't be all that useful as you can only make one folder sync. Unless you create a DropBox folder, then have your script copy the specific file from the DB folder to where it needs to go.
 
So does a logon script always run? Because surely it's contained on our netlogon, and if that's not found then the script won't run?

Or are you talking about a local logon script for each laptop?
 
They won't always be away. They should be checking their emails every day, so they need connectivity. I'm evaluating a bit of sync software that has quite a good scheduler built in.
 
gord said:
All on Windows, from XP to 7. Less than 1MB.

I've just downloaded a bit of software that syncs a folder on our ftp to my machine, but I think its overkill. Did you write your own script?
Click to expand...


I did it myself as it is part of a much larger application and has to keep track of around 300k files.
 
namnoc said:
I did it myself as it is part of a much larger application and has to keep track of around 300k files.
Click to expand...

Could you shed any light as to my problem and where I should be starting with writing my own script? I assume you can't share you're script. I only need to track the 1 file.
 
Is this an option..

Logon script..
del "c:\file.txt"
copy "\\server\share\file.txt" "c:\file.txt"
if not exist c:\file.txt goto download
goto end
:download
download http://www.server.co.uk/file.txt to c:\file.txt
:end

-Not sure how to download a file using command prompt, can't be that hard

I assume you've used 'goto' before? You can set a bat file to jump from one section to another, so it skips out things based on the 'if' rules

http://ss64.com/nt/goto.html
 
I think that's as close as I'm going to get to an elegant solution. Trying to work around the fact the user may not have internet connectivity at logon is becoming a pain. The only real way it appears to solve that is have some real time file monitoring going on.

While the software I am trialling does do that it would be a pain to deploy and manage.

I have fairly limited bat script skills, but nothing a few Google's wouldn't sort out.
 
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