three persons working in one project, Step7 v5.5

hi there,

three of us have just start working on one project, Step7 v5.5
There is few plc-s in the project and we are all writing software on all of them.
simatic manager is crashing every now and then. ...usually when two persons are working on the same symbol table.
Is there some option/setting that could make things betters for us?
Project is on file server and we are accessing it from our win7 virtual machines

tnx

You cannot.

I suggest that you split your work. If you have program description, share it and when everything has made, connect it to one.

I suggest a person per PLC... or a well thought out software development strategy, where each develops independently from each other and then copy functions into a single project.

Three people developing at the same time on live machinery is asking for trouble.

I would make one person the designated programmer - and he is the only one that writes anything in Step7.

The other 2 can look at the project, but have to have a three person meeting and propose his changes to the group. That way everyone knows what is going on and 2 people are not going to crash the machine.

If person 2 changes a subroutine and person 3 doesn't notice the change and uses it, or the result of it, not knowing the result is different - then the whole project becomes a useless waste of hard drive space, and a possible danger to anyone in the building the machine is installed in.

EDIT: ..or driving by the building or property if it involves fuel storage tanks.

It is definitely possible to have a multi-user situation in Simatic Manager, although I think it is intended for editing blocks in the program, not the HW config. Only one user can edit a block at a time.

https://support.industry.siemens.com/cs/us/en/view/45531110

SHort version is you need to have Step 7 on your file server, and then change a setting in: Start > Simatic > STEP 7 > Configure SIMATIC Workstation. Then your S7 install more or less asks the other step 7 install permission to access it's project.