Difference between revisions of "Team Collaboration"
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* '''Server Boosting.'''This perk allows Nitro users to boost their favorite servers. When a user gets Nitro, they are awarded two boosts. | * '''Server Boosting.'''This perk allows Nitro users to boost their favorite servers. When a user gets Nitro, they are awarded two boosts. | ||
* '''Special Nitro Badge.'''This perk gives users a shiny Nitro user badge on user's profile. | * '''Special Nitro Badge.'''This perk gives users a shiny Nitro user badge on user's profile. | ||
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Revision as of 19:49, 7 October 2020
Contents
Collaboration During Covid-19
If your team is allowed to work remotely during the pandemic- Weekly worknights and worknight meetings are even more important. Get everyone in on a video call weekly to check in progress. Voice channels on Discord can provide a drop-in casual chat outside meetings replacement for working together in a physical shop, house, or computer lab. Having a central CAD repository/PDM system becomes even more important when working remotely. If your team didn't have one before, it's much more important now.
Covid-19 Team Collaboration Checklist
- Weekly worknights (online)
- Weekly meetings (video calls)
- Collaboration Software
- Bonus: Open Voice channels
- CAD Vault/PDM
Worknights
Having weekly worknights is key to getting team members to all focus on working on a car together. Starting the worknight with a team meeting is a great way to encourage everyone to show up on time, to have status updates, and to get everyone on the same page. Having everyone on the team see each other work together at the same time is very underrated as a motivational tool, to build trust, and have fun. Sharing the vehicle model with the entire team can help get everyone on the same page and show off the work everyone has been doing.
Collaboration Software
Many teams have started to use Slack, Microsoft Teams, discord, or other collaboration software. The benefit of the software over something private-only like facebook messenger is that team members are welcome to join, leave, and adjust notifications based on conversation topic and interest. Especially helpful for getting new members into the conversation.
Slack
Slack brought chat channels to the professional workplace.
Versions
Version |
Cost (USD) |
Features |
| Free | $0 | Access to 10,000 of your team’s most recent messages
10 integrations with other apps like Google Drive, Office 365 and many more 1:1 voice and video calls between teammates 5GB Storage per team member
|
| Standard | $8/mo
|
The full context of your organization’s message history
Timely info and actions in one place with unlimited integration Face-to-face communication with group voice and video calls of up to 15 teammates Secure collaboration with outside organizations or guests from within Slack 10 GB per team member
|
| Plus | $15/mo
|
Advanced identity management through SAML-based SSO and real-time Active Directory sync with OneLogin, Okta and Ping
Compliance requirements met with data exports for all messages
Around-the-clock teamwork and assistance with 99.99% guaranteed uptime and 24/7 support with a four-hour response time |
Slack offersSlack for Education for 85% off Standard or Plus paid plans.
Microsoft Teams
Microsoft Teams is the newest addition. The development team has added a lot of new features during 2018-2020, which has brought it up to par with the other platforms.
Pros:
- Free with Office 365 if your school has it.
Cons:
- Channels have excessive unnecessary vertical space compared to others, which makes it less like a conversation. However, if your team uses threads properly to create sub-conversations, then this issue goes away.
- No voice channels - only meetings and calls
Discord
There is a Formula Student general discord athttps://discord.gg/QNb6qX9
Originally branded more towards gamers, discord is likely already popular with gamers on your team.
Discord is free to make a server, and students may subscribe to Discord Nitro or Nitro classic to get the perks below:
Version |
Cost (USD) |
Features |
Free| style="width: 55.2px; height: 136.163px;" data-mce-style="width: 55.2px; height: 136.163px;"|$0| style="width: 608px; height: 136.163px;" data-mce-style="width: 608px; height: 136.163px;"|
|
Nitro Classic| style="width: 55.2px; height: 365px;" data-mce-style="width: 55.2px; height: 365px;"|$4.99/mo
|
Nitro| style="width: 55.2px; height: 347px;" data-mce-style="width: 55.2px; height: 347px;"|$9.99/mo
|
Pros:
- Free
- Your team probably already has some members that use it
- Has voice channels for casual drop-in conversation and impromptu discussions. You can easily see who else is working on the car at the moment, and hang out with them.
- Has integrations such as Integromat for filesharing
- Bot support
Cons:
- Gamers may need a second account on discord, so you can actually see team members names instead of gamertags, although this can be avoided with Server Nicknames
- No ability to save messages
CAD
Having a single source of truth for your CAD files is very important. Every team member should have access to the latest CAD of the entire vehicle.
GrabCAD WorkBench
Pros:
- Free
- No IT System required
Cons:
- Locking files is optional, which can result in conflicting versions.
- Encourages syncing of all local files, even if the user didn't intend to make a change to the vault version, which can cause accidental changes and unnecessary revision conflicts.
SolidWorks PDM
Pros:
- Seamless integration into SolidWorks
- Requires users to lock out files to work on them to prevent conflicting versions and accidental changes.
Cons:
- Complicated IT system required
3DEXPERIENCE
Pros:
- Dassault is providing free access for students during covid-19.
Google Drive / Dropbox
Works for smaller teams. For larger teams with many simultaneous users, being able to lock out files during editing to prevent version conflicts becomes more important. Also, having one main computer (such as a shop computer) which always has an up to date full-vehicle assembly will help to spot issues.
Pros:
- Free
- Most teams are already comfortable with these platforms for document sharing.
Cons:
- No SolidWorks integration
- No ability to lock out files
- File references can become problematic
Inventor Vault
Available for teams who use AutoDesk Inventor as their primary CAD software.
Subversion (SVN)
SVN is a version control system developed for software before git. While git is a distributed system, SVN has one central vault, which users can lock out files for editing. There are hosts for SVN servers, or you can create your own SVN server using software like SVNEdge. All the users would use software like tortoiseSVN to sync files.
Pros:
- Locking out files is optional.'
Cons:
- No SolidWorks integration (yet).
- IT knowledge required to set up own server.
Git and Github
Git is primarily used for software development. It is built upon the ability for two people to simultaneously edit a text file, and then for git to be able to merge these two files. Because of this, users are not able to "lock" so only one user can edit at a time. Unfortunately because merging is not possible with CAD files, Git is a poor option for anything other than text files.
Software Development
Git and Github
Great for software - Git is the industry standard. Central repository for files. Easy to share. Revision control. Setting up a central, team controlled git repository can be difficult. Each new member to the team should be given access to every repository for the team. Otherwise repositories become silo'ed and knowledge can be lost by graduating team members' repositories not getting shared with the younger members.
Subversion (SVN)
Subversion is a central repository either on a hosted service or on a team member's home server. It allows for a central storage location for all files, where the team leads can add students to all files at once. See tortoiseSVN for users and SVNEdge for the server.
SVN is usually only used if pre-existing architecture demands it; Git is much more common nowadays.
