Saving projects in older versions

[Mischa]

It would be nice if there could be made an option to save projects to an older version of Scia Engineer. It happens that we work in coöperation with other engineers. They are not allways up to date with Scia Engineer. Also at our own office we do not upgrade simultaniously. So a Save project as 2008 version (and 2007 version) would be great. Afcourse new functionality will be lost and must be warned for. But correcting los functionality is often a lot less work than remodelling the structure.

[Renen]

This is not a 'would be nice' but an essential in my view.This is a functionality that exist in almost every respected software.

I now cannot exchange with collegues from other companies in the same project team.
Can we expect Scia to correct this faillure in software design soon??

[Cyril Heck]

Hi,

you can actually use the export to XML to exchange compatible data between project versions.
All compatible objects (nodes, beams, plates, loads, etc) should be exchanged without any problem.

XML works in such a way that new properties or objects are simply not recognized in an older version, and thus ignored.

This way, you can recuperate in the older version most of a project made in a newer one.

Hope this helps,

[Renen]

somehow this doesn't work for my model. When I import the xml, the plates are gone.
Perhaps you can post a step by step procedure or suggest what to change

[Cyril Heck]

A first thing to test would be to check if the problem appears only on the past versions, or also on the current one ?

Another possible issue is that in older versions, possibly the XML-input of plates was maybe not possible...

In the case of plates, make sure that you export enough data to enable the software to reconstruct your model. Notably, maybe the list of the plate nodes (table of geometry) is not present in your XML export ?
If you hesitate:
- do not use the XML default template
- insert instead your own tables, and make sure that you put all the properties in those tables (with the table composer)

Another issue can be different geometrical tolerance between the two project.
My tip: do not use "import XML", but create a blank project and modify the tolerance setting as needed.
Then use "update from XML file".

Otherwise, please contact the support with your project & XML output file, they should be able to help you.

Good luck !