Another big request we have heard from users and have implemented in the new Copy Design is the ability to update properties for our new files.
We have for a while now been able to update the part number value as part of copy design, but what about all those other fields like stock number, description, author that can all retain incorrect details? Vault Workgroup and Professional 2016 offers the ability to reset or remove some of these values and in a few select cases map a new value into these fields.
Our intent is, over time, to expand the flexibility of property editing as part of copy design, but for now we are focused on providing a file which is assigned the right category, state and revision without incorrect information from the source file. You will likely though still need to update some properties after copy if you are changing descriptions or adding new custom property values.
Lets start off by looking at how we access and create rules, in the next post we will look at the specific rule conditions available for use.
From the file menu in Copy Design select the Action Rules, you will see here a list of available rule sets - as we have seen in earlier examples only one action rule can be applied per operation though the sets can contain multiple rules to permit different behaviors based on file properties. In any case, this is the place where we define the available rule sets for user selection.
Note that rule set definition is available only to administrators and specific to the machine they are set up on, once configured you need to deploy these rule sets to clients using Project Thunderdome or some other system tools.
To create a new rule, we can copy one of these existing rules or start a new one from scratch. Note we have supplied a default rule here which cannot be deleted or edited. This default rule mimics the legacy copy design behavior, so if you do not require additional capabilities default will do the job, simply updating the part number, resetting the category to that of a new file and removing iLogic.
In the video below we will copy this default rule set and create a new one. Once we open this up we will see an interface similar to the file category assignment rules.
At the top is a list of rules which make up the rule set. These rules have a single condition or multiple conditions that need to be met before we apply the settings - this could be file type (like a part file in this case) or category type for example and the rules are checked top to bottom, this means that the order is important as soon as one rule condition is met for a file Copy Design stops checking.....
Once the rule conditions are set we can then add the actions associated with the rule, what properties should be modified and whether the change should be to Reset, Set Blank or Set Value As (map a property). Here lets just clear he description and select OK.
We will go more in depth on rule creation next blog.
With our new rule set created we can select OK and leave the Action Rules Dialog, returning to the main Copy Design UI we are now able to access the new rule set from the Selected Rule Set pull down menu.
Select the new rule set and run the copy - our new files are created with updated properties including a blank description value.
-Allan
