Documents are stored on TIMS3 file servers to allow many users access to the same set of documents, and to reduce the storage requirements of workstations. When you use TIMS3 and you need to edit or review a document, you "check out" a copy of the file/document from a file server and download it to your workstation.
If you download a document to modify it, no other user can "check out" the document to make changes to it. This prevents users from accidentally erasing each others’ work. You can always download a document for review purposes, even if someone else has checked out a copy for modification. When you are finished modifying or reviewing a document, you should "check in" the file, i.e. return it to the server so that other authorized users will be able to then add their modifications to the file.
Once a document has been located or the document file name is known, you can check out that document to your local workstation by accessing the file transfer dialog from within the TIMS3 Data Manager, or by selecting the check-out function from within the project navigator.
To simply review, print or plot a file, you may "copy out" the file using either the file transfer dialog or the Project Navigator. This will download a read-only copy of the file onto your workstation, and will not prevent another user from checking out that file for editing. When you no longer need this file, you may cancel the copy out. This will simply delete the file from your workstation.
When you check out or copy out files from the server, you may also select whether you want graphics reference files or XREFs copied out automatically with the main graphics file selected. Note that these reference or XREF files are downloaded as read-only files.
After checking out or copying out the required documents, you can then launch the appropriate application to either view or modify the contents of that document. With the Project Navigator, a simple double-click on the document name will automatically check out the file, copy out all reference file attachments if it is a graphics file, and launch the application that Windows has associated with the file type.