The use of SAVEWORK on Export and Import

In order for the AVEVA Bocad Steel Interface, and more specifically the AVEVA Bocad Steel program, to be able to detect model changes, the interface needs to manage modification dates and times. These values are stored in the database as text strings, based on the last recorded Dabacon model modification date and time. For us to then save these dates and times we need to lock the changes in with a SAVEWORK. This implies some significant time difference between setting a text string attribute and the SAVEWORK. This time difference is model size dependent. We compare the database modification times with the time stored on the attribute with a 5 minute time buffer in order to determine, to the best of our ability, whether an element has been changed.

Importing does not do a SAVEWORK by itself, but because of this, there can become some significant time difference between the import, modification and database dates and times. Import, creation and modification dates and times are passed through the ABS file, but these can be significantly different from the Dabacon date and time.

Overall, this will make it difficult to compare models purely on dates and times.