Autodesk Projects and Dropbox

[deheer_j]

Hello All,

While I would love to use something like Vault for with Inventor 2015, our team does not have a Windows server to install it on and the school is not very willing to install it either. In addition, we need access to files from anywhere with an internet connection. As such, we have resigned ourselves to using Dropbox for file storage/collaboartion. We've done it for years past, and while it does not work great, it is not a wholly awful solution either. Not looking to start a 'I hate dropbox' thread here. In years past, we have not used an Inventor Project '.ipj' file to manage our search paths, etc, and I'd like to implement that this year. However, in setting up a test project, I noticed that the project path is specific to the path where *I* have Dropbox installed. What happens when a student opens the project? will it be looking for the path that is on my machine? our students do not have the laptops they will use yet, so I can not just simply test this... so I'm looking to the community for wisdom.

Questions:
1) is there a way to setup a project using only relative paths. for instance, the base project is located in .\CAD with a search path including something like ..\KOP and ..\Field?
2) do other teams, using Dropbox (or similar), also use Inventor Projects? If so, how do you set them up?
3) any pointers for a newb to Inventor Projects as I attempt to plow ahead?
4) does anyone know if the latest update to PTC's Windchill will support Inventor 2015?
5) does inventor has a Multi-User environment like SolidWorks?
6) how to other teams, who run Vault, get around the 'access from anywhere' problem? I really liked the web hosted Windchill (we used CREO last year), but the school teaches Inventor, so we are switching back...

Enough questions for now...

Jeff
DERT 2040