Under the Hood

Places to live and work in Vault (Revit Integration Enhancements)

 A number of user requested improvements have been made to the Vault Revit integration specifically around support for drawing sheets. 

The 2013 Vault Revit integration now permits users to leverage the job processor for visualization file creation, improving productivity and publishes, in addition to the 3d model, 2d sheets which are attached to the model within Vault.

Leveraging the new folder level lifecycle controls this becomes a more complete deliverable management story, using these sheets for review, markup or linked to create complete drawing sets or document packages.

Inside the product itself the process of adding Revit family files to the model has been simplified as has the add files to Vault workflow.  From an implementation perspective, side by side install process with Revit server has also been addressed.

Put the Autodesk Vault Job Server to Work

In the last post we discussed Autodesk Job Server, how to enable it, create a new account for it, and log into the Job Processor client. Next let’s take a look at how we can leverage a Job Server as part of your Vault network. Starting with the Preview tab within Vault, if you go to view an AutoCAD or Inventor file, it may return a message the the file cannot be viewed. This is because there may be no visualization (DWF or DWFx) associated to it. This is the file format that ‘shadows’ the native CAD file and is the currency within Vault for viewing, makrup, and printing.

To remedy this situation, select the drop down to the right of the Update button. The two options are:

• Update Locally: generates a visualization file (DWF/DWFx) immediately using the appropriate CAD software loaded on your machine.
• Queue Update: sends the task of creating the visualization to the job queue for any Job Server to work on.

The above workflow is great for file updates one at a time. But what if you have multiple CAD files to update? Quick tech tip: make a saved search for these types of files using Visualization file = None.

However you get them, select all files and go to the Actions menu>Update View>Queue Update. All the CAD files will be loaded into the Job Server queue.

Next, to see what is in the queue, go to Tools menu>Job Queue. This launches a new window that displays all existing jobs in the queue. At this point, whether there is a Job Server logged in or not, you should be looking at several rows of jobs waiting to be processed.

Now to get this to start. If it’s not running, start the Job Processor client (on your machine or another) and go to the File pull down. Click Pause, then Resume to get things going.

The first job in the queue is now running. From here, as jobs are finished, the next one will load into the Job Processor.

Meanwhile, back in the Vault, a quick look at the Job queue echoes what we saw in the Job Processor. From here you can see the whole queue, refresh, remove jobs, etc.

Finally, there are a couple things to remember. You can have multiple Job Processors connected to your Vault server, and each one polls at a preset frequency (default is 10 minutes). During the poll, it does not consume a license, only when there is something to do (DWF, synch properties) does it pull a license – but it returns the license when finished.

 

-Brian Schanen

Secrets of the Job Server

Today’s topic is the Job Server included with each of the Vault vertical products (Workgroup, Collaboration, and Professional) 2011. Job Server is a feature of these products that consists of several components: a Job Queue and a Job Processor. If you are not leveraging Job Server today with your installation of Vault Workgroup/Collaboration/Professional, read on for steps on how to enable it. If you are using it, keep reading – I’ll give you a few tips and tricks for getting the most out of this feature. We’ll cover what you can do with this in an out-of-the-box configuration, as there is a customization side to Job Server.

The journey starts with enabling Job Server for an ADMS (Autodesk Data Management Server). Note that I did not say ‘per Vault’. Job Server will hold a queue for All Vault databases on an ADMS. This also means that Job Server works in Replicated environments and it ‘watches’ a chosen server/ADMS.

Log in with an Administrator account to Vault. To enable, go to Tools>Administration>Global Settings and select the Integrations tab.

Check the box to Enable Job Server and close. This is a one time setting that will ‘stick’, so you will not need to revisit this, even after a backup/restore.

Almost done. The next step involves choosing a machine with Vault client and Autodesk Inventor or AutoCAD-based product. From the Program group under Autodesk, find the Autodesk Data Management folder>Tools>Autodesk Job Processor for Vault Workgroup/Collaboration/Professional.

Now, if you’ve not logged into Job Server before, the first thing you’ll see here is a Log In dialog box. See image below. Log in with an Administrator account, password, and enter the server name hosting ADMS.

This a good place to pause for a best practice. I suggest creating an Administrative account in your Vault for this called Job User. This account would be similar to any Administrative account, part of a Vault Admin group, and have access to all files in all lifecycle states and folder regardless of the security level. This allows for that account to perform tasks on files in Released or otherwise secured states.

Ok, back to logging in. You should be viewing the Job Processor client window, idling.

Next we’ll give Job Server something to do - Stay tuned…

 

-Brian Schanen