According to the documentation the presets are stored in C:\Users[username]\Connect\workspace\configurations\OutputCreationConfig. Since every designer in our company works on a locally installed version of the Connect Designer - as per company policy they don’t have access to the server - this is not a good idea for us.
So I need to change where Connect Designer saves these files. How can I do that?
To answer the question directly, I’m not aware of any way to change this default path. It’s certainly not configurable through the GUI.
The copies on your machine are just your personal copies, however. They’re not the ones the Workflow would be using for automated processing. These are stored here: C:\ProgramData\Objectif Lune\PlanetPress Workflow 8\PlanetPress Watch\OLConnect\OutputCreation
Furthermore, they can be easily imported at any time. As long as you have access to the preset you’re looking for, you can import it into your personal repository through the GUI.
Therefore, there are a number of ways that this could be worked around.
Create a Read-Only share of the folder containing Workflow’s copies. Give all the designers access to this location so they can copy down and work with the versions that exist on the server.
If policy dictates that option 1 is not allowed, consider setting up a Workflow process to periodically synchronize it’s copies over to a different network location through the use of something like Robocopy.
If you want to make a centralized store of all of the presets made by individuals, not just the ones currently in use by Workflow, consider automating the synchronization of the Presets on each machine into a shared presets directory. This would be a good idea simply for the sake of maintaining backups of your work, but would also allow sharing of the presets with little individual effort. Again, something like Robocopy would be excellent for this.
That’s about all I’m coming up with at the moment. Ultimately, these presets are designed to be passed around and shared. They’re also meant to be re-used between many jobs, which is why they accept so many variable inputs. How that’s accomplished is left to the individual rather than having the software attempt to manage it for you.
I can easily figure out several ways to work around this, including your suggestions. I just think I shouldn’t have to. It would be far easier (and this is common practice in so many applications) if the folder was configurable. Then I could put it on whatever shared network drive I see fit.
I second this. A shared network drive, or populate the drop down list in Connect from the “active” presets loaded on the Workflow Server. A central “repository” in any case.