Working in a team best practises

If you don't switch between designers few times a day 😉 I would suggest this kind of workflow:

1a) first designer creates initial INDD file,

1b) new designer downloads previous PACKAGE from the server to the local machine,

2) works on the file, links all necessary files - from local drive or from the network,

3) at the end of the day - he/she creates PACKAGE folder and synchronises it with the copy on the server - local copy should be kept for some time - just in case.

Then, when someone new needs to work on the same job - steps 1b) - 3) - if the same designer continues to work - steps 2) & 3).

Thanks to the step 3) - you always have a backup / copy in two places - local machine and server - so if someone new needs to pickup the job - everything is already on the server and you don't have to chase previous designer - and if something bad happens to the server - you have a copy on the separate machine.

You can modify step 3) a bit - upload to the server ZIPed PACKAGE folder - then you'll have more than only recent copy.

Another modification to the step 3) - if you can teach your designers how to do it - synchronise only Links and Fonts folders - then ZIP and upload INDD+IDML file to the server - you'll save space on Links - and will have more than one copy of the INDD+IDML files - date+time in the name of the package would be best - in the format YYYY-MM-DD_HH-MM - easier to sort and find latest version.

This could probably be somehow scripted/automated - no idea how on Mac but on PC it would be very easy.

Also, thanks to this approach - you can easily outsource your jobs remotely - PACKAGE will have everything in one place - less some fonts.

Have you considered a DAM (Digital Asset Management) System?

It stores all your files in a central location and through an app (and Adobe plugins) you can download to local through check outs, edit and upload through checkins maintaining file integrity and access for all.

We know that network file shares are not supported using Adobe products but it is the only way we can work with what we have to do as a business.

 

While that may have been true many years ago, there should be no issue at all working on a network as long as it's robust enough to handle the workload.

If you are indeed having crashing issues there are other avenues to explore but I've worked with countless clients in the past using local network workflows. I'm not an IT guy but I'd be looking at permissions first and I would, as a troubleshooting step, grant admin access to the people having issues. If the crashing stops, you've got a place to start.

Other things to check are fonts, third-party plugins (especially if a font manager is in use), RAM (Adobe recommends 16GB) and corrupt preferences.