Under the Hood

Meet the New Project, Same as the Old Project

Have I got an app for you. This is one of those utilities that Vault Admins cherish, as its benefits go beyond time saving, and onto company standardization. I’m talking about Clone Structure. The premise is simple, you have a folder structure, a hierarchy that you adhere to and you want everyone to use. This could be a familiar structure to all of your users, or a new one that you want to enforce. Either way, the Clone Structure allows you to copy a top level folder, change the name, and place it in another location in Vault.

Start by selecting a folder with some subfolders. In the example below, a right click on the folder displays Clone Structure in the context menu.

When the dialog box launches, you have options to enter a new name in the Clone As field, a destination field, and an example destination path. In addition, two options are provided to copy folder properties and folder permissions.

Click ok to complete the command. The new folder and subfolder structure is copied with subfolders, permissions (Access Control Lists), and properties intact.

As an added bonus, there is an option to include ( in an .xml file) files of your choice from the subfolders. This is ideal if you have an application that needs to copy system files as part of the structure. Finally, this utility was created by and is available though Autodesk Consulting.

-Brian Schanen

New Videos - Autodesk Vault and Microsoft SharePoint 2010 Integration

Good News! New integration between Autodesk Vault 2012 and Microsoft SharePoint 2010 has been announced. Read the press release here. http://bit.ly/mnFaGq

Following that, if you’re wondering just how this looks, we’ve prepared some videos for you. These two videos cover the Autodesk Vault and Microsoft SharePoint workflows from both a Manufacturing and AEC perspective. Both are posted to TheVaultKnowsAll:

And the AEC flavored video:

-Brian Schanen

Autodesk Vault Video Series on CAD Integrations

Introducing a new series of Vault tutorials posted to TheVaultKnowsAll: Module 3, Capturing your Concepts with Autodesk Vault. This is a 10 part video module that covers a day-in-the-life from a CAD users perspective. Topics include In-CAD access to Vault Projects, Visual Data Management, Revision Table integration, and Sheet Set Manager integration.

-Brian Schanen

Autodesk Vault videos posted - Organization Enhancements

Vault class is still in session! Check out the new Autodesk Vault videos posted to TheVaultKnowsAll channel. Introducing Module 2, Organizing Your Vault. In this playlist, we'll examine new user interface enhancements, and new functionality within the Vault stand alone interface. Topics include Projects, Links, Where Used, and navigation enhancements. These apply to Vault Workgroup, Collaboration, and Professional 2012. There are seven videos in this module series.

-Brian Schanen

Autodesk Vault - Summer School in session on You Tube

That’s right. Summer School for Autodesk Vault. You know there’s been a new release (2012) and maybe you haven’t had time to catch up on it. Well, I have just the thing…a couple dozen videos that cover both new and existing features of the Autodesk Vault Family of Products. This is what happens when one fires up Vault and abuses an espresso machine. Watch for all of these to be posted up to TheVaultKnowsAll You Tube channel.

Now, I’ve broken these down into modules/playlists, so you can come back and get schooled on Vault at your leisure. First, let’s start with Module 0 as an introduction to the Autodesk Vault Family of Products.

Class is in session, starting now:

 

-Brian Schanen

Vault 2012 User Interface – Have it Your Way

Vault 2012 includes new User Interface improvements, allowing users to configure Vault for their own workflows. First, the Properties window in Vault 2012 provides three optional layout views: Detail view, Small Icon, and Larger Icon. These options can be chosen from the standard toolbar.

Users can opt for this easy display of their files and thumb through documents quickly, leveraging thumbnail views of their file from the property grid. So, to contrast these options, I selected a file in Vault, and from the stand-alone client, let’s look at two way of view the same file. First, the text based, grid-like format that y’all are used to from Vault 2011 and earlier:

Now, take a look at the same data, with Property grid collapsed, Navigation Tree collapsed, and Large Icons set.

Which one would you rather use?

Finally, navigation in the new world is even easier now. Vault provides breadcrumb ‘back’ and ‘forward’ buttons, and an ‘Up’ level button to make surfing through Vault even better.

-Brian Schanen

Autodesk Vault Integration with Microsoft Outlook

Vault’s Microsoft Office compatibility now extends to Microsoft Outlook - enabling users to access correspondence check-in from within Outlook. Users can now multi-select their email messages and check in using the ribbon commands to assign emails to a folder within the vault.

Alternatively, users can map folders in Outlook to Vault folders so drag drop or email rules can be utilized to automate the add to Vault process. For example, in the image below, I’ve mapped a Work Order folder from my inbox to a Vault Project Folder. I’ve set up an Outlook rule for all emails that pertain to the Work Order, and now every email is automatically added to Vault in that Project folder.

So, how does this look in Vault? Once checked in, attachments in email are represented as Vault attachments.

Finally, you’re able to preview and read email correspondence within the Vault Explorer Window.

 

-Brian Schanen

Vault 2012 Feature Spotlight: Improved Where Used Analysis

Within Vault Family 2012, the Where Used tab provides an additional level of detail by allowing user to see not only parent files, but Items and Change Orders. This provides all users with a simple, single access point to analyze the impact of change to Files.

Now, by default, all of the Where Used options are not checked. Click the filter icon and check the necessary boxes to display all ‘parent’ objects related to a file.

 

-Brian Schanen

Vault 2012 Project Dashboard

Vault 2012 now offers a dashboard style reporting tool built right into the folder detail pane offering immediate feedback on project status. Reports based on data contained within a project structure are easily generated and viewed in the preview pane of the interface. The reports include files, sub-projects, items, and change orders within the project. In addition, linked data and implied data can be easily included in the report. As a result of the new Dashboard reports, you can communicate more effectively to your design team on the status of your Projects.

-Brian Schanen

Project Management with Autodesk Vault 2012

Autodesk Vault Family 2012 provides new features and tools that facilitate Project Management within a central interface. This introduces Projects – a folder collection of all related info for a job/customer/project – saving time, reduce navigating to various locations in vault and housing all data in one project context.

 

With Vault 2012, folders within Vault can take on new functionality that allows users to collaborate on a project basis and realize a more effective re-use of their designs. Vault folders now have the ability to become Categorized like files and have user defined properties assigned to them.

Along with Project folders, another new file navigation paradigm has been introduced: Links allow users to collect and share Documents, Items, and Change Orders across folders in Vault. This new environment essentially allows you to manage all data types within the consolidated Project context mentioned above. Links permit users to create shortcuts to objects, allowing the designer to share content across projects without copying or moving files from folder to folder.

Links are an exact representation of the original document (object) and can be created for files, eco’s or items. This means there is a simple method to organise all project Items and ECO’s actually within the Vault Virtual folder structure with the user security level still respected – a user is unable to operate a link if they are denied permission to the original folder.

This new functionality replacing the “Share” command means that linking is as good as having the object in the linked location but the object is still stored in one spot – one file or object can be linked into a number of project folders and unlike the use of shortcuts, the links are available to all users in Vault.

-Brian Schanen