Vault working folders - take 2

[Anonymous]

Okay, live a little, learn a lot. (sorry in advance for the runon post...)

A week or so ago, I posted a little workaround to allow you to copy shared
working files locally. Turns out there is a much better way to get "the
best of both worlds". I don't remember seeing any mention of this little
ditty in any of the Vault whitepapers, but an Autodesk AE (thanks, Mike!)
pointed out to me that you can use windows environment variables as part of
your vault working folder. (upon furter review, I did find it mentioned in
the help file, but who reads those! 😉 This is HUGE! (well, it was to me
anyways) What does this mean? Well, as an administrator, it means that you
can enforce a default working folder for everyone, but as a user, that
working folder can still be somewhat flexible if it needs to be. Rather
than forcing your users to a specific location for the shared working
folder, each user (okay, each advanced user!) could potentially override
this setting as needed. Here's what you do:

In your login script (or simply at a dos prompt, right clicking on My
Computer, etc), define a system variable VAULT_WORKING_FOLDER and set it to
whatever value you think is appropriate for the current user (say, H:\). In
Vault Explorer, go to Tools->Administration and click on "Define Working
Folder Options". Click the bubble marked "Enforce consistent working
folder..." and enter %VAULT_WORKING_FOLDER%\MyVault\ into the text box.
From then on, when a user logs in to that Vault, their working folder will
automatically be set to H:\MyVault. However, at any time, a user could
change the value of this variable to C:\Civil 3D Projects and all of a
sudden, they are using a local working folder instead of the shared working
folder. Obviously, you need to consider whether or not you SHOULD do
something like this, but this really provides the best of both worlds - for
98% of your users, you could force the working folder to something specific,
but if a laptop user needs to go to a client's office, they could set the
system variable to a local path, download the project entire project, and
check out the files that they plan to modify. When they return, they can
just check the files back in and restore the system variable to the network
share (or the login script could do it for them!).

We plan to use the login script to figure out which office the user is
connected to (based on their IP address) and then map the working folder
according to their location (ie: New York users will set to a new york data
drive, new jersey users will set to a new jersey data drive, etc.).
Anyways, just thought that others might find this helpful - it seems like a
small thing, but for us it's really made the difference between a "so-so"
implementation and one that really has the flexibility that we need.


Jon Rizzo
Langan Engineering and Environmental Services, Inc.

[kbellson]

I tried this and it worked for vault explorer but when i try it in civil3d the drawings go to "C:\Documents and Settings\kbellson\My Documents\%vault_working_folder%\survey\data drawings"

[Anonymous]

You are correct. I guess that's what I get for assuming that it would work
properly in Civil 3D. I only tested it in vault explorer. Oh, well, I
guess Autodesk can add this to the list.



wrote in message news:5433272@discussion.autodesk.com...
I tried this and it worked for vault explorer but when i try it in civil3d
the drawings go to "C:\Documents and Settings\kbellson\My
Documents\%vault_working_folder%\survey\data drawings"

[Anonymous]

You can achieve the same thing by using a virtual drive instead of system variable set to certain server/folder. You just need to map the virtual drive to what the system variable would hold. I applied it on a real project and it works flawlessly in both vault explorer and civil3d prospector. It comes down to, that having the system variable work in civil3d will be an additional option to virtual drive.

Just a word of thanks – credit for all solutions mentioned in the whole thread goes to Mike Maibach of Autodesk. He is one of few people you meet in your life from whom every sentence they state make sense, and because of whom you appreciate more the company they work for.

Strah@Langan

[Anonymous]

>>Re: Vault working folders - take 2
You can achieve the same thing by using a virtual drive instead of system variable set to certain server/folder. You just need to map the virtual drive to what the system variable would hold. I applied it on a real project and it works flawlessly in both vault explorer and civil3d prospector. It comes down to, that having the system variable work in civil3d will be an additional option to virtual drive.<<

Huh?????