Autodesk Vault Customization

[#1]

Hello All,

Am hoping for some assistance from a Guru or two on here!

We are currently investigating the implementation of Vault Pro 2012 to replace our current document management program IBM DB2. This would see the control of all our Engineering information across multiple sites produced in AutoCAD & Inventor. This is for the Nuclear Business unit of Babcock International Group. It will also, if succesful, be implemented in our Defence and Airports business units.

We currently have 3 Vault Servers running standard Vault at our Whetstone site, and a single installation at both our Daresbury and Irlam sites, all based in the UK

Our current use of DB2 at Whetstone is written into our Quality procedures so one of our divisions are keen to retain as many of the processes available in DB2 to be replicated in Vault.

I have a live demo Vault Server where I have been carrying out some testing. We had a backup kindly donated to us by another division to copy their Behaviours and Properties etc.

I have been customising this to the best of my ability with a great deal of success, tailoring the Properties and Lifecycles.

However I have reached a point where I am now slightly stuck.

We have some quite specific requirements that I believe may lean towards customisation which is why I am posting here. Below is an idea of our current 'snag list' -

• The ability to automatically rename a DWG (Filename) with the entered Document Number from Vault
• A file could be created with filename fred.dwg, when added to Vault given a document number such as 123A1234 our current DM renames the filename to the document number when the file is 'Checked Out'. This enhancement needs to be investigated with Vault Pro. 
• Creation of visualisation files from AutoCAD defaults to active view. Needs to be changed to extents
• It has been noticed that when a file is checked out and checked in, the visualisation file gets 'cut' at the last viewthis is required to be 'extents'. 
• Verifying to Released property compliance - I have set criteria that requires the below properties to be set before a document can be 'changed state' from Verifying to Released. When a Verifier attempts to 'change state' without these properties set Vault informs of the property non-compliance but does not indicate which properties require populating. Notification of these properties is required.
• Checked
• Verified
• Verification Level - L1 / L2 / L3
• ECN
• Release Date

• Released to Draft requirement to clear / overwrite previous release properties automatically if possible or requires prompting for which need to be cleared.
• When a document is 'changed state' from Release to Draft the above properties that have been set need to be cleared or prompted to be cleared so as not to have a new 'B' revision populated with revision 'A' release information. 
• Major / Minor revisions A.1. Could version property be used.
• At present with a document in a 'Draft' state we use A.1, A.2, etc when a document is being worked on. This also gives the indicator that it is 'Draft. Once released, the minor revision is removed to populate revision with 'A'. This functionality needs to be investigated with Vault.

We have already had some consultancy from Autodesk which did not fulfil our requirements. I am also a little dismayed that Vault Pro cannot simply do something IBM DB2 can do with AutocCAD files with regards to property updating. Also, having to use a Revision Table for me is quite limiting.

I think that's enough of a post for now. Is there anyone out there willing to point me in the right direction?

Many Thanks

Stephen