Under the Hood

What's New in Fusion Lifecycle: June 2017

Our new release is hot, hot, hot!  Or maybe I’m thinking about the weather here in Portland last week.  We hit triple digits! Here is what's new in the June 2017 update:

• New Copy Item Ability for Modern Interface

You can now copy items in the modern interface with the Clone command. Copying an item creates a new item with all of the source item's details, including all tab data, such as attachments, BOM listings, and relationships.

• New Description View When Creating an Item

You can now view the description of a field when creating an item in the modern interface.

• Workspace Now Displays the Number of Items

You can now view the number of items in a workspace.

• New Escalation Time Range

Escalation time can now be set to 999 days or fewer.

We also resolved quite a few known issues – if you had an open support case, that team should be following up.  In the meantime, here’s a list:

Resolved Issues

• Email notifications sent in the modern interface are now cleaner, do not contain HTML tags, and have a more readable subject line.
• Updating or saving an item containing an OnEdit script that updates a field used as a pivot for a derived field is now faster.
• The bookmarks panel in the dashboard is no longer empty after navigating it for a second time.
• The item.addBOM method in scripting no longer lets you create duplicate entries in the database.
• Users can now see a deleted item with the revision value of "Superseded."
• The loading time is now faster for BOM tabs containing multiple columns.
• Users are no longer logged out of the system during certain workflows.
• Effectivity dates for affected items no longer show yesterday's date when you release an item today.
• Users no longer have to refresh the browser to see bookmarks in the modern interface.
• A value of False can now be used when setting an Is Latest Version or Is Working Version filter on the Items and BOMs workspace.
• The Workflow Action dialog and Filter menu in the modern interface no longer shudder in certain conditions.
• In the modern interface, an attachment is no longer added twice if a user double-clicks on the add button in the Attachments tab.
• The details page for the Quick Create ECO workflow in the modern interface now loads correctly after creation.
• Importing users all by name in a pick-list multi-select no longer produces an error.

-- Michelle Stone, Fusion Adoption Team

Vault 2017 - Revision Roll Back Multiplies!

One of the most frequently requested features we have had over the years is the ability to roll back revisions on files - we sorted that one out last release implementing a command to allow roll back of both item and file object revisions when things go bad (like an ECO being rejected).  This meant that users could confidently change state and bump revisions prior to release knowing that they could revert later - you can reread the details on the feature here.

There was one catch though, you had to roll back files one at a time - and in a certain order - to ensure all documents were set back to the previous release, and revision rolled back.  This in some cases is no small ask where there could be any number of affected files as part of the original change and increased potential of human error (where we were not perhaps following strict procedures).  

The good news is of 2017 we are able to select a set of files to carry out the roll back on.  For those using ECO's this means simply selecting all attached documents, doing a search through your project or simply selecting all objects on the affected assemblies uses tab and from the actions menu choose "Roll Back Lifecycle State Change".

The roll back dialog will display all selected files and provide details of any restricted objects (those that do not have a valid state to roll back to for example) and what the outcome will be for valid objects, allowing you to review before committing the roll back, and purging intermediate file or item versions.

As long as you have purging enabled on your Vault (so we can get rid of those unneeded file versions) your items or files will revert to the previous state with the correct revision - like nothing ever happened, getting you back to the drawing board faster than ever.

- Allan

 

Where Vault Item Numbers Actually Come From

Another quick post from the "not as obvious as it may seem" category, relating to how we work with Item numbers in Vault.

When assigning an item to a file we need to specify an item number.  The original intent in Vault was that this item number should be generated from an automated numbering scheme, taking the next available value on assignment and using other property values like title, description and file associations to provide specific component identifiers, which of course is still possible today.

Many organizations though prefer, or at least find it easier, to have a number directly reflective of the file name or part number, which can be configured as well.

So whats best for you?  It may depend here on who is responsible for component numbering or when component numbering is applied.  

If your designers know the part number straight up and set the file name and part number at creation (via auto numbering or some business logic) we should map the item number from your file part number.

If however you don't assign numbers until after designs are approved / items created, you may want to simply name the file as you please and assign the item number automatically - noting that you CAN map the item number back to file properties once this is set.

So how is item numbering set?  Your administrator controls this from the numbering panel under behaviors, here we can create a number of automated item numbering schemes for you to use as well as the default mapped type - but not so fast, this does not actually control the mapping!  

By default ALL items numbers are mapped to file properties, the Mapped numbering scheme here is actually just a free text field that allows you to enter whatever item name you like on creation, so the most important thing here is to set the default which will be used when creating an item from scratch OR when the selected file does not have a valid number mapping.  So how does the mapping work you ask?  Read on. 

Where does the mapping come from?  This is maybe not so obvious, but it is an easy one, from the properties tab select "Number" (Item, ECO) - but do not go to mapping tab!  From the Settings tab on the property expand the "initial Value" cell.  When item number is set to mapped the number value is pulled from the initial value mapping here.  In the image below we see the defaults for Inventor, ACAD, ACADE and Office documents.

Worth noting that once initial Value is used, there is no longer any read mapping from that property - initial value is only ever used once, so changes to the original file value will not update the Item number once created.  

If you DO NOT wish to use mapping from files to create the item number, this is where we remove the mapping.

What happens if there is no property defined?  If you assign item to a file with mapping enabled and there is no initial value mapped for that file or if:

• The value is blank (no part number for example)
• The value is a duplicate of an existing item
• The value breaks some other rule

The item numbering dialog will appear prompting you to change the numbering scheme or manually enter an item number.

Typically if you have your file naming under control and are not assigning items to a bunch of odd files types, this process just works, but hopefully this helps to understand why it works and why occasionally it may not work the way you expect.

Also a special thanks to Anil for his editorial notes on this topic!

- Allan

Vault ECO - How do I enforce this stuff?

There has been a number of subtle changes to ECO object behaviors of late, with the extension of flexible lifecycle definitions to items and addition of ECO record support to files we have seen necessary changes to the close ECO behavior as detailed in my last post, but also the addition of new properties and settings to control ECO workflow and manage lifecycle transitions.

First off we should take a look at the primary method for how we now enforce change order control over objects.  Typically once a change process is defined via ECO, administrators will want to ensure user adoption of the process, requiring any lifecycle transition to be approved via an ECO.  To enable this, from the tools and Vault administrator settings you are able to select the Change Order tab and configure "Restrict File and Item Lifecycle state changes to Change Orders".

From the dialog above we can see that the options to tie lifecycle state changes for either or both items and files to an ECO, providing a blanket requirement that all files and items states be controlled through an ECO and meaning that an ECO is required not only for change management, but initial file release.  This is a great way to ensure noone is accidentally releasing or "sneaking" designs into production without additional approval and we can capture the approval process for new designs as well as your change requests.

Depending on your teams needs it is of course possible to provide different routing's for initial release vs design changes (with different approver's etc) and if desired we can also permit the administrator to override the ECO control and change object states, something you may consider for special cases. 

So what does it look like when a user tries to change file states now without an ECO?  You will see here our user gets a descriptive error message indicating they require change order control for state changes:

Of course your administrator can be made an exception here and will not see this error, but otherwise the user has little choice but to assign the file or item to a change order and follow the prescribed approval process.

Once in the ECO we have additional means by which to control state changes which is worthy of a longer examination in my next post, where we explore how to limit or enforce state changes throughout the ECO process.

- Allan

Having more fun than ever creating and editing items

In addition to jamming all this new item functionality enhancements into the latest release we took time to make sure items are easier to work with than ever before.

As in previous versions of Vault Professional, you can automatically categorize Items based on predefined rules and change item category as required, but this release introduces an administrator controlled setting which enables users to assign category on create, making item creation more flexible and user friendly.

Likewise if you are creating a new item from the save as command, the new item opens directly in edit mode so you can dive straight into updating the new item detail.

On the general item tab you can now configure your associated file list view, including switching on and off visibility of linked files for a simpler view.  You can do other fun stuff too like re-size the view within the general and view tabs to view what's most important to you, we even moved the "Exit Edit Mode" button to make access on the toolbar simpler.

Watermarking has also been refreshed to provide configurable stamp settings based on lifecycle, properties or just a custom stamp.

A more flexible item dialog makes it simpler to create, edit and consume item details important to you, and based on your feedback simple changes to item create workflows will have you assigning faster than ever!

- Allan

Different object, same old interface

Over the last few weeks we have outlined changes to the Item workflow engine in Vault Professional 2015 R2 bringing it in line with the much more flexible file based lifecycle schemes.  One of the nice side benefits of this fundamental change is increased user interface consolidation, making configuring and working with items much more straight forward.

After install, at least for administrators and folks who have been following this topic on the blog, the first thing to notice is the separate Item lifecycle option and edit dialog has been removed and all Item based lifecycles controls are integrated into the single lifecycles UI.  Similar to what we have done in previous years with categories are revision schemes, there is now a single set of tools on the Behaviors tab.  Of course there is still a separate Items tab for other item specific settings and controls, but the set up should now be more discoverable and user friendly.

The second part of this is the end user commands.  Where items had a separate set of commands to do things like change the revision or category (done exclusively from inside the actual Item dialog) these controls along with change state have been aligned with the file controls, meaning that users can select one or more items from the main pane in the item master and access these commands, which are presented in the familiar looking file action dialog.

 

The new dialogs present a far more visual, interactive view of the current action, making it easier to understand the command and results.

These changes may seem small, but represent a big step in providing a more user friendly and consistent experience in Vault and enhances some key user workflows making it quicker and easier to get your designs released to manufacture correctly.

- Allan

Creating Your New Item Lifecycle Scheme - Part 3: Bringing it to a Close

At this point we have created our new Item Lifecycle Scheme in Vault Professional 2015 R2, mapped out all the transition requirements and actions, defined the state based security for items and their attached files making our job almost complete.

The last few pieces now relate to the item state definitions as they relate to work-flow and system behaviors.

There are two important check boxes to start outlining this item behavior, defining whether the selected state is a "Released" or "Obsolete" state.   

As our new custom released state can have any name and administrators can have more than one released state (think "Released to Construction" and "As Built" for example) we need to flag which states can be considered "Released".  The "Released" state is used to control things like our transition rules where child items must be released to proceed with a release operation on the parent.

Similarly, when we want to restrict release of files that contain "Obsolete" data, we need to identify that state information here by checking "This is an Obsolete State". 

Note that signifying this state as released or obsolete does not affect end user access, or our own transitioning rules - it merely informs system processes like conditional rules on lifecycles or item export settings.  Typically a WIP or Review state has no special behaviors and would not be explicitly tagged.

This tab also contains the system purge controls for the lifecycle state.  Another great new Item features in Vault Professional R2 is the ability to view the item versions we generate as modify the properties, BOM etc. (We have basically always created versions, we just didn't make them visible).  Users can now (as they do with files) display versions or only revisions of items depending on their requirements and can purge unnecessary item versions.

For each state, the administrator selects whether or not to keep every version of that particular state on purge, remove all versions, or perhaps keep last or first and last.

In the example above, when we identify the state as a released state, there is no option to remove all versions - you have to have at least one - and I would suggest doing the same for obsolete states. The rest is at your discretion, I always like to err on the side of caution though and perhaps save at least one version for each state, in case you are wondering what changed after review for example.

So there you have it, a completely configured item lifecycle scheme with all behavioral conditions applied, as a final touch though, jump in and add some Comments.  

The comments are the default text that appears when you execute a lifecycle transition, they're designed to help others understand the state intent, like "Sent for Customer Approval" or "Approved by Line Manager" for example, these can be edited when needed but its a nice touch to have a clear descriptive comment for the lifecycle action.

 - Allan

Creating Your New Item Lifecycle Scheme - Part 1: Making the Transition

OK, so now we have taken a look at what your default Item lifecycle scheme looks like, lets focus on whats new in terms of creating your new item lifecycle scheme.  

Why do we need more than one item lifecycle scheme though?  Good question.  Many users won't, but if you are importing purchased components from third parties there may be a different default state for those items and different rules about file access. Likewise for library files or non-CAD based items.  

To accommodate these changes we can build a separate Item Category with its own rules and assign an alternate lifecycle scheme OR add multiple lifecycles to one of the default item categories and we can change lifectycle schemes on demand as we do with files:

In terms though of creating your lifecycle scheme, for the most part this is as it has always been, we specify the scheme name, specify the states we want, how and who is allowed to transition between the states and who has access to the object(s) when we are in each of the states. 

To build your new scheme you can copy one of the existing schemes (Copy option in the Lifecycle Definitions dialog) or just create new and enter in your new states - each state should have a name and a description (preferably ones that make sense).  

You likely should have a "working" state where users can make changes to the item, at least one released state and an archive state for obsoleted / unused items that are used as a reference.  Typically one or more review states are used, but that really comes down to your company process.

Once we have identified some states we need to control how to move between states.  Unlike the old process where there was a rigid path between states and limited actions (bump revision or not), here we can choose our own adventure and control what occurs on transition.  

As we mentioned in the previous post, traditionally anyone that had Item level permissions could transition an Item between states, but this was very inflexible when we consider a large organisation with different divisions and areas of responsibility. To work with that the administrator can now specify groups or specific users with item permission to progress item approvals.  

In order to restrict transition between two states and define the correct release process, the administrator simply blocks all users from making that transition (Everyone = Deny).  

The next thing to address in the transitions is to specify some rules, this is a combination of the criteria and actions which must be satisfied before the transition is allowed.

From a criteria perspective, the administrator can now select Item properties to filter down just to item details and ensure for example that the Item has a description or a title, or that all item properties are compliant (filled out correctly) before the Item can progress.

Now the administrator can select the actions on transition, there are 4 new options on this tab that deal with items as well as the new obsolete state for files, folders and items.

Firstly the administrator should specify whether or not all child items need to be in a specific released state (or at least not obsolete) prior to transition, the legacy behavior of course required all items to be released and it is typically best practice to ensure that you do not release an item with dependents that are not also released.

Administrator should then check if the item file links are up to date, the legacy requirement here was that all attached files should be the latest before you release an item.  Again this is a pretty good practice to follow (so consumers are seeing the right linked files), but you can choose now which states this really matters for and also what type of links matter - it may only be "primary" links you care about (the file which the item was created from or extracts all its data from).

Another new feature is "Check that associated item file links are released" which makes sure that, if desired, the files linked to your item are all released by their own lifecycle definitions, and you can restrict this by link or file type as well (Primary Link, Design Document etc).

Finally, we need to decide when to bump the Item revision - this too is now managed on the transition tab, simply select the state change that will prompt a revision change (be it primary or secondary/tertiary) and enable it.

Once these settings are configured for every possible state transition (or the transition disabled) we can start to look at the actual state behaviors including the new linked file security, but we will save that for part 2!

-Allan 

 

Autodesk Vault Professional 2015 R2 Item Lifecycles

So its finally here - the flexible configurable lifecycle schemes you have been enjoying for years with documents in Vault Professional is now available for Items.

What does this mean for you the existing Item user you ask?  What enormous changes will you notice straight away?  Not much to begin with actually - we have taken care to make sure your existing Item workflow is migrated across to this new environment "as is" and ready to roll.

Logging into the Admin options and heading straight for the behaviors tab (no more lifecycle controls on the Item tab) you will find a new lifecycle scheme named "Item Release Process".  This scheme is applied by default to all item categories, with all the same lifecycle states duplicated, right down to your own state display names, as seen in the image below comparing a 2015 lifecycle configuration on the top right with the new R2 scheme on the left.

OK, so there is one change - your new scheme has a Quick-Change state tacked on to the end, this state has been added to maintain the administrator controlled "Skip Revision Bump" option added a little while back to provide a "quasi" Quick Change experience (highlighted below).

So now you have a fully fledged Quick Change State for items, migration also takes care of the security aspects, with the quick change state transition limited to Released files and controlled by administrators only, as it was in your previous Vault version. 

This is true for all state transitions, Vault Professional 2015 R2 respects the same user roles as prior releases, meaning if you were not given adequate permissions to change item states in the past you cannot change item states now, even without transition rules.  

We migrate a few other things too, your revision bump settings, property compliance controls, release dependents and linked file rules (must be up to date), your linked file security settings (locking linked files - though more on that topic later) your item state based securities including the ability to read, write and delete items (Administrator Only).

So without touching any of the new configuration options you are set up ready to go with the same item environment you have always known.  Here's the cool bit though, with flexible workflows, you can now switch on transition rules for every state change, and refine which item users are allowed to transition specific states, making the item release process much more "administrator friendly" and well..... secure.  

You can also create whole new states, want a Pre-Release Check state?  Make one.  Want an As Built Released state?  You can make one of those too.  You can start to better define transition actions, control access across states for different users and groups, add and remove item user privileges, manage the type of link file controls imposed by state and by link type, and if you have the time even more.

So buckle up and stay tuned as we dive into the big new world of what flexible item lifecycles will do for you, or maybe just keep using items them the way you always did - totally up to you!

-Allan

R2 is Here with a Whole Bunch Of Your Good Ideas!

This month sees the release of Autodesk Vault 2015 R2, a subscription only release goaled at providing a number of really great Item and BOM enhancements, a new Copy Design tool and a new Office Client to improve change process and approval participation for non-CAD users.

Over the coming weeks we will do a deep dive into all the new functionality, and take a look at some of the critical user requests we have addressed with this release.  In all we have now implemented a further 19 user ideas from the ideastation with this release.  For those of you looking for some more light reading the implemented idea list can be found below - hopefully something you voted for made the cut, if not you better keep voting and hopefully your idea makes it next time.

Tune in next blog either way as we start to break out the new feature detail.

-Allan 

http://forums.autodesk.com/t5/vault-ideastation/copydesign-customizable-window/idc-p/5262987#M2225 

http://forums.autodesk.com/t5/ideas/v2/ideapage/blog-id/2/article-id/1020 

http://forums.autodesk.com/t5/ideas/v2/ideapage/blog-id/2/article-id/1810

http://forums.autodesk.com/t5/ideas/v2/ideapage/blog-id/2/article-id/1821

http://forums.autodesk.com/t5/ideas/v2/ideapage/blog-id/2/article-id/2152 

http://forums.autodesk.com/t5/vault-ideastation/copy-design-without-downloading-unwanted-files/idi-p/4751567

http://forums.autodesk.com/t5/ideas/v2/ideapage/blog-id/2/article-id/27

http://forums.autodesk.com/t5/ideas/v2/ideapage/blog-id/2/article-id/2043

http://forums.autodesk.com/t5/vault-ideastation/copy-design-gt-rename-duplcate-files-during-process/idi-p/5184825 

http://forums.autodesk.com/t5/vault-ideastation/vault-copy-design-and-quot-read-only-quot-categories/idi-p/3701976 

http://forums.autodesk.com/t5/ideas/v2/ideapage/blog-id/2/article-id/1040

http://forums.autodesk.com/t5/ideas/v2/ideapage/blog-id/2/article-id/1310   

http://forums.autodesk.com/t5/ideas/v2/ideapage/blog-id/2/article-id/2086

http://forums.autodesk.com/t5/vault-ideastation/bom-udp/idi-p/5014194

http://forums.autodesk.com/t5/vault-ideastation/item-master-improvements/idi-p/3772976

http://forums.autodesk.com/t5/vault-ideastation/item-bom-improvements/idi-p/4319428

http://forums.autodesk.com/t5/vault-ideastation/item-history-needs-dramatically-improved/idi-p/4301686

http://forums.autodesk.com/t5/vault-ideastation/change-category-on-multiple-items/idi-p/3637414

http://forums.autodesk.com/t5/vault-ideastation/reports-for-boms/idi-p/3507788