Project Management

Project & Model Management

A structure modeled in ProtaStructure is saved with its related settings and parameters as a “Project”.

Once you have a project open, ProtaStructure’s automatic backup system can periodically make a copy of it to prevent accidental loss of data. Open projects can be archived  at any stage - the resulting zip file being an efficient format for transferring the project to other computers. These and other project management topics are explained in detail in the following sections.

Open Project  

Each time you load ProtaStructure, the “Open Project” form is displayed, allowing you to open an existing project, or start a new project, (in which case the Settings Center form is displayed). 

The project to be opened can be selected using the project list which shows all the existing projects in the current data folder.
Projects in the list can be re-order according to alphabetically or chronologically by select "A-Z" or "Date". It can also filter by  select release version from the pull down list.
If you press the “OK” button  having selected an existing project, the selected project will be loaded to the Graphic Editor.
If you press “Delete Project”  the currently selected project will be permanently deleted.
At any time you can also open an existing project using the “Open Project” option in “File” pull down.


 
The most recently used projects are listed at the bottom of the "File" menu. Selecting a project from this list with a different data folder will set the data folder of the selected project as current for the next "Open Project" operation

New Project  

If you want to create a new project, you can click the “New Project” button on the “Open Project” form and type-in the “Project Code” that will identify the new project.

The Project Code can be up to 80 characters in length. Each project should have a different project code. These characters should be alphanumeric.

Settings Center  

When you create a new project, the Settings Control Center form is displayed. This form is used to rapidly establish default model parameters: design codes; analysis type; material properties; member design settings etc.

The “Settings Center” also provides a means of easily transferring settings and preferences from one project to another, e.g. beam detailing preferences for different drawing scales can be saved/retrieved from templates etc.
Refer to this article for details : Settings Center Overview

ProtaStructure Data File Structure

ProtaStructure stores all the files of a project in a folder called Project Folder. 

Project Folder has the same name as the Project Code, which is the Project Name.  Spaces are not permitted for Project Name. 
Project Folder is created in a parent folder called Project Data Folder, i.e. main folder one level up. 
You can have multiple Data Folder storing different Project Folders (as shown below) 

If you are a new user, for simplicity, use just one data folder for all projects.
To open a project, the Project Data Folder must be correctly chosen : 
  1. Click “Choose / Create Folder” in the Open Project dialog to change it.  
  2. By default, a folder called called ProtaData20XX will automatically be created in My Documents folder, which contains the quick start guide examples (as shown below).  
  3. ​The picture below shows that if you want to open the quick start models, you need to choose the correct Data Folder, which is the parent folder one level up. 


Do not manually rename the Project Folder in Windows Explorer.  
If you want to rename a project, use Save Project As function in ProtaStructure.
Do not delete any files inside the Project Folder – all are essential

Good practices for managing project  

  1. Always store your project in the local hard drive for optimum performance. 
  2. External hardisk and server is not ideal as files can be very large for large model.
  3. Auto-synchronising of the project folder with third party software is not recommended, e.g. dropbox, onedrive as performance may be impacted.
  4. Backup your model often manually.  Go to File > Save Project As > Same the model as another copy. 
  5. Alternatively, go to File > Archive Project to create a compact project zip file of the model files only 
  6. Automatic backup is created every hour which can be restored using Open Previous Backup in the Building Setout tab.
Refer to this article for more details : Managing Project Model via File Menu



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