Need to make an update to a released assembly? Some important bits to remember. There is a Special Permission you’ll need to make sure you have – Override Revision Control Locks (I talked about this when first introduced back in 2012: Taking Control (Overriding Revision Control Locks in PLM 360).
It’s also important to note that you need to specify Revision, Lifecycle State, and Release Date – this allows the import tool to make sure it’s updating the correct revision.
-- Michelle
Vault Professional 2016 starts shipping for many lucky soles today (cue fireworks) and we're pretty excited about that! Today therefore also marks the beginning of my semi-regular feature blogs on the new capabilities, starting with all your new ideas implemented as part of this release.
Vault 2016 of course includes all the mid-year Vault 2015 R2 enhancements (see the Vault Professional and Vault Workgroup 2015 R2 ideastation list here) while adding capabilities to new copy design, completing many of the item and BOM enhancements as well as introducing Inventor AnyCAD support, and finally - the crowd favorite - rollback file revision.
Fireworks photo: Anthony Cramp
Again, over the coming weeks we will dive into the new capabilities but for those of you interested in the Ideastation details read on below for the complete list of implemented ideas.
Remember if your idea is still not accepted, keep voting, meanwhile we will keep working away on those accepted ideas and hope to be able to showcase some more great ideastation ideas in the near future!
-Allan
File Change State Rollback: http://forums.autodesk.com/t5/ideas/v2/ideapage/blog-id/2/article-id/281/page/3
This had 89 kudos, the most commented request in Vault Ideastation with 31 comments.
Role Item Editor 2 is granted the permission to manually purge Item:http://forums.autodesk.com/t5/vault-ideastation/itemeditor2-should-be-granted-right-to-perform-quot-purge-item/idi-p/4511195
Flexible Purge http://forums.autodesk.com/t5/vault-ideastation/make-purge-item-command-flexible-alike-purge-command-for-files/idi-p/5040488
Prompt before moving a file to another folder: http://forums.autodesk.com/t5/vault-ideastation/prompt-before-moving-file-to-another-folder/idi-p/4331587
Search in BOM View: http://forums.autodesk.com/t5/vault-ideastation/multiple-bom-views/idi-p/5369665#comments
Column filter in Parts Only/ First Level View: http://forums.autodesk.com/t5/vault-ideastation/item-bom-property-filter-removed-from-2015/idi-p/5318827
Collapse All and Expand All in Where Used (Item context): http://forums.autodesk.com/t5/vault-ideastation/collapse-all-removed-from-item-where-used-in-vault-professional/idi-p/5348103
Resize Description field within ECO dialog: http://forums.autodesk.com/t5/ideas/v2/ideapage/blog-id/2/article-id/1989
Carry out pre-checks prior to install: http://forums.autodesk.com/t5/vault-ideastation/move-some-prechecks-to-the-beginning-of-the-vault-installation/idi-p/5026386
One of the most requested enhancements of recent times on our ideastation (If you still don't know what an ideastation is - read up on it here) is increased support of the Autodesk Vault integrations for Microsoft Office products.
These add ins which permit users to manage vaulted documents directly inside Word, Excel, Powerpoint (and Outlook for Vault Workgroup and Vault Professional customers) have been around for some time but previously only supported up to the 2010 Office release.
We are therefore happy to announce a new update is available to customers via the subscription center which fully integrates Autodesk Vault 2014 into Microsoft Office 2013, Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Outlook.
The integrations are vital in providing the ability to easily manage all of the supporting information for your Digital Prototype, including email correspondence, specifications, calculations, and presentations, enabling the entire workgroup to collaborate more effectively and get to market faster. Users can now further enhance these capabilities by working with the latest Microsoft applications.
-Allan
Photo: Peter Alfred Hesse
Last week we took a look at how Autodesk Inventor and AutoCAD Revision Tables can draw their information from different Vault revision file versions – continuing to look at the new revision table options this week we will cover what to do if you don’t want to see one of these revisions at all.
Firstly, let’s talk about the initial revision, Revision “0”, “A” or as some people like to call it “Not actually a Revision” – the first released version of a CAD document generally does not represent a change, so although we will likely want to reflect the drawing as Rev 0 or A in our Inventor or AutoCAD drawing title block, we do not need this added to the revision table.
In 2014 we can now filter out the initial revision so only subsequent document change revisions populate the table.
Likewise we may have a number of internal document revisions (drawings which undergo internal release, review or approval before being released to external teams) which include a number of point releases that while might be useful to track internally, do not constitute meaningful document changes. In these cases we can also filter out secondary or tertiary releases – leaving us with just the revisions that matter in our drawing's revision table.
Finally we can also reset the revision table altogether – if we are using an internal scheme that needs to be changed for distribution, we can now opt for Vault to detect a revision scheme change and reset the table by removing the revision history – sometimes a critical step when sharing documentation with partners or suppliers.
Combined with the existing row controls and update rules, the new filter and reset controls provides far more flexible and user friendly revision table controls within Inventor and AutoCAD.
-Allan
Tracking document revisions on your Inventor or AutoCAD drawings is a vital part of the manufacturing and construction process, a key part of the design communication and something frequently managed by Vault making integration with drawing data a big deal for many customers.
It's good news then, based on your feedback, that Autodesk Vault 2014 sees a number of great new enhancements to the Revision Table integration used in Autodesk Inventor and AutoCAD products.
In the next few posts we are going to go through these changes in detail, but let’s start out by taking a look at one of the biggest (and perhaps most misunderstood) changes, tracking which file version properties we are referencing when we talk about the revision.
This can be a tricky one as a document “Revision” may have more than one version and in fact even more than one released state.
As an example, if we were to release a file in Vault Explorer our transition rule may trigger an action on the Job processor to write data back to the file and create a visualization, thus creating two file versions which are both released and at the same revision. Likewise if we make a “Quick Change” to a Released file this creates a new released version of that file – so we need to decide what is the most correct information to display in the table – the properties when it was first released or the last properties associated with the released file.
So In 2014 we are now able to select whether the first file version in any released state or the last version in any released state should be displayed in your revision table. This appears under the Revision Table Settings, Content tab as “Populate Information using First / Last Version”
So, what if we have more than one released state? Some design teams utilize an internal release state like “Approved” before a document moves to “Released to Manufacture / Construction / Customer” or an “As Built” released state.
Each of these may have the same Rev Number but there could be a different approver or detail so we need to know which State represents the properties we want to see in the table. Below the version settings is the “Populate information from the First / Last released state information” which lets the user decide whether the revision table information should come from your first released state or the last released state.
Using these settings in conjunction it is technically possible to have 4 different sources of document revision detail being: the first version of the first state, last version of first state, first version of last state and last version of last state and should ensure you end up with exactly the right properties for your drawing.
Confused? Head over to the wiki to find out more information or jump in and have a play with these settings and make sure your Inventor and AutoCAD tables have the right detail!
-Allan
Date Effectivity is a function which is applied to a Bill of Materials (BoM), and was introduced in the recent latest release of PLM 360. This capability allows a particular revision of a component part or subassembly to be assigned ‘effectivity’ dates which, essentially, define a period of time during which that item is valid within that BoM. When a BoM contains that item, it will show whatever revision of it is relevant at that point in time. You can choose to view such a BoM as it would appear at a given point in the past, present, or future. This capability allows improved and more flexible planning, for example for Manufacturing and Purchasing departments, and more accurate traceability of previous configurations of a BoM.
Further details of how this powerful new capability works is outlined in our PLM TV User Briefing video …
System Administrators can choose whether to enable this capability, and where, in the release cycle, it comes into play. Effectivity is configured in the Lifecycle Editor facility of the Setup menu. Within the editor, we can switch the ability to apply date effectivity on at any one or more of the release lifecycle stages. For example, if we want to enable it at the ‘Production’ stage, we right-click at that point to edit it …
… then simply click on the ‘Effectivity’ tick box, and select ‘Accept’ to enable it …
Once enabled, every time a user signs off the revisioning step of the Change Order workflow to move an item to ‘Production’ status, they will have the option to set a date effectivity.
So, if you’re managing Bills of Materials today in PLM 360, be sure to check out date effectivity, and see how it can really affect the effectiveness of your product development process (please correct me if the grammar in my last sentence is wrong!).
-- Gavin England
-- Photo: Dictionary.com
So you just opened up an iPart, went into a table and changed a bunch of members hey? Not sure which ones, was it important to remember? No, not really, Vault will figure it out for you.
That's right, Vault 2013 is now smart enough to automatically check out and check in any new or modified ipart and iassembly family members.
Simply go into your family table and make the required member change, regenerate the files through Inventor (select all your members from under the table icon, right click, "generate members") and check in the factory. Vault checks out only those newly generated or modified members and includes them as part of the check in operation.
This is a big step forward from the workflow in previous releases where changed members would need to be identified, checked out, regenerated and checked back in manually to capture the updates, or perhaps you were one of the many who created an enormous assembly file containing all the possible file instances and assembly iterations for the purpose of keeping everything up to date.
This new automated member check out is coupled with better messaging along with improved place and replace member workflows which support the download of associated version/revision of the member to local disk.
This means unlike previous versions users can now grab an earlier release of the ipart or iassembly and have the associated versions retrieved.
We feel these small changes will make a big difference in using and more importantly updating your Inventor families with Vault and get you back to designing.
The new release of Autodesk Vault 2012 Workgroup, Collaboration, and Professional bring a deeper level of integration with both Autodesk Inventor and AutoCAD. Vault now provides support to populate the Revision Table within an Inventor .idw/.dwg or AutoCAD dwg. From Vault, you can map the Revision assigned to a file and have it reflect the revision-bumping rules. Bottom line, not only do Title Blocks get updated, but the Rev Table will update or add row to match the correct Revision level in Vault. The benefit? This automation removes another step in the management of files from the users’ workflow, and that’s a very good thing.
Configuring the Rev Block integration begins in Vault. Log in with Administrative rights, and get to Tools>Administration>Vault Settings, Behaviors tab. In the Properties area, click Revision Table. If you haven't set up Rev Tables, you’ll be met with an initially collapsed dialog box. Check the box to Enable Revision Table Control.
The dialog box transforms into a new window, and a prompt comes up. For the interim, click Yes to accept the default values. You can always modify them later.
Now, the next dialog box is a glimpse into the mapping of Vault intrinsic (system) properties that will be directly mapped to the Revision Table. Toward the bottom of the dialog are option to limit the row count, etc.
Click OK, and your work here in Vault’s administration is done. Time to apply this in CAD.
Ok, now it’s time to use this on a drawing. I’ve chosen Inventor for the following sample. Open an Inventor idw or dwg that is under Revision management. From the Annotate ribbon, select the Vault Revision feature.
Place the Revision table on the drawing, perhaps upper-left corner. The Rev table reflects the up-to-date data from Vault. Save, check in, repeat for all drawings.
Vault family 2012 family takes Revision management further by integrating with core CAD functionality, reducing manual efforts by drafters and designers.
Next, more new in-CAD enhancements with the 2012 release of Vault.
-Brian Schanen
Happy Monday All. I’m still going through archives and digging up useful docs to share with fellow Vault implementers out there (and you know who you are…) Today’s post includes a sample Vault implementation punchlist for documenting the rollout of your Vault. Enjoy!
Download Vault 2011 Punchlist worksheet
-Brian Schanen
