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Content Center in Vault professional - Vault manufacturing with Full Replication

18 REPLIES 18
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Message 1 of 19
jparks_79
1333 Views, 18 Replies

Content Center in Vault professional - Vault manufacturing with Full Replication

Hello,

 

I am curious if anyone has any experience with using content center in a full vault replication where multiple sites would access the same standard content(screws, nuts and washers, etc.)?

 

We are running into problems with folder ownership, and are looking for any suggestions.

 

The problem as I see it is, in order to check a file into vault fo rthe first time, you must he ownership of the folder. If you have multiple workgroups utilizing the same data, the system does not work as we have it set up. Users are constantly having their check in request rejected due to folder ownership.

 

Please help.

 

Thanks,

Jeremy

18 REPLIES 18
Message 2 of 19
delete3
in reply to: jparks_79

I too am involved in a situation similar to this.  We have 3 facilities collaborating and the 2 sites (secondary) are unable to complete the replication of Centent Center Libraries.  In addition, the users are unable to check in an assembly becuase it states that Content Center Files do not have the correct ownership.  Looking for Voices on this issue...  There is a HotFix for this type of situation, but have not tried yet.

Message 3 of 19
jparks_79
in reply to: delete3

We have been working directly with autodesk consulting on deploying Vault pro worldwide. I don't know if it is even possible to use content center in a fully replicated environement. But lets see. I hope there is a way...

Message 4 of 19
jparks_79
in reply to: jparks_79

I guess to keep this posting active...

From my ticket;

 

We recently purchased around 60 seats of Vault Professional so our engineering centers worldwide could collaborate effectively. And Vault Professional and the full replication functionality was a perfect fit.

Problem we are facing is ownership of library folders and Content center folders are preventing full colaboration, as only one site at a time can publish files to the folders. this does not work because their are several hours of overlap in the workgroups working hours. without this functionality, our implementation would ultimately end in failure.

We have 5 sites, 4 of which are full replication, the other is a remote site.

If you have any experience with this type of environment, any ideas are welcomed"

Message 5 of 19
jparks_79
in reply to: jparks_79

i guess no one is running Vault in a multi-site with content center. 😞

 

really..nothing from adesk?

Message 6 of 19
delete3
in reply to: jparks_79

I agree!!!  There  must be others running multi-site accounts...  Autodesk should respond to your Q/A here...  I will keep this session up to date with anything that I come across.

Message 7 of 19

Hi Jeremy, 

 

I'm sorry you didn't get a response sooner. We'll be in touch with you directly, and post possible solutions afterwards for the community. 

 

Best regards, 

Thomas Schwaiger

 

 

 

Thomas Schwaiger
Product Manager
Autodesk

Message 8 of 19
thomas.schwaiger
in reply to: delete3

Can you explain what happens exactly? Particularly with regards to

"...the 2 sites (secondary) are unable to complete the replication of Centent Center Libraries"

When checking in the assemblies - are the content center files already in Vault or are you adding these for the first time?

 

 

Thomas Schwaiger
Product Manager
Autodesk

Message 9 of 19
delete3
in reply to: thomas.schwaiger

Jeremy,

Please pass on any information that the community could learn from.  Thanks...Smiley Happy

 

Thomas,

From my end, the Content Center files are already stored components in the Library.  Even so, if it were a new generated file, I would think that a workflow design could be managed for "Standard" libraries that are not edited other than through the dialog and then replaced again in the CC Library folders.  Thanks...

Message 10 of 19

 

Hi Thomas,

 

After looking back at my original post, there were quite a few typos. So I can see how it would not be clear.

 

For our use of content center, we have a mixture of standard libraries "ANSI, ISO, DIN etc" and our own custom libraries. A very important part of our design work is Resuse of existing parts. 80% of our designs are prexisting components. So finding existing Designs, is very important. So vault has been very useful. And for our own standard components, although content center could use some TLC, it has been proven to be a very useful tool organizing and administering our standard component parts.

 

But until now, Content center was only used on a local basis. Our company has now made the move to combine the drawing databases of all our engineering centers across the globe. And autodesk Vault professional provided us with the best possible solution in regards to performance and CAD integration(We are Autocad and Inventor users mostly). But the full replication is now posing the problem due to ownership. As in order to modify a file or folder you must have ownership of the object. And anyone who has used Content center knows, that the files are not generated unless they are called while working in Inventor. This has a major advantage due to the shear number of files needed to completely populate, lets say the ANSI catalog.

 

So now, we have 4 fully replicated sites. There are only a few hours a day when there will only be 1 workgroup logged in to vault. The rest of the time, users will be accessing the system simultaneously. Our original dataset in vault will only contain a small subset of the total required number of content center parts. As we are also in the process of changing our design work into Inventor from Autocad, users will need to create this data everyday, all day.

 

Up till now, the only option provided was a tool to create all the members of some user selected libraries. This provides a solution, but the thought of the overhead and maintenance of creating several hundred thousand ipts that could potentially never be used is frightening.

 

I have attached a couple of images while checking in an assembly to a folder(which is owned by my workgroup). The assembly contains a content center screw. I do not have ownership of the content center folder. You can see the result in the images.

 

All of our engineering centers and production facilities all share the same standard components. So it is important that we are all sharing the same files with the same part numbers and file names.

 

I guess I should also mention we are in the process of connecting vault to our ERP system to assist with creating BOM's.

 

To answer your question about library replication, the libraries replicate fine. Only problem that could occur is if two sites needed to simoultaneausly create new members in a library. Then, there again would only be an ownership issue.

 

I know I just gave a lot of information, so feel free to pick it apart and ask piece by piece. 🙂

 

Thanks,

Jeremy

Message 11 of 19
delete3
in reply to: jparks_79

Nice explanation Jeremy..  The images are exactly as the ones my client generates.  Thanks for posting the images.

Message 12 of 19
chris_turner
in reply to: jparks_79

I have been reading this post with much interest... I too have the problem of ownership to the vault shared content libraries in a full replicated environment. When we try check in a file with new content, we also can't do it because of the message 'the entities required to perform this operation are currently not owned by your workgroup'. I can understand why this is happening but does anyone have a suitable workaround to this? Best practice/workflow? Autodesk?

 

Any help/advice would be much appreciated.

 

Thanks

Chris

Message 13 of 19
scottmoyse
in reply to: chris_turner

This is a seriously worrying thread IMO. We wil ultimately be wanting to replicate our site and content center and other libraries will most certainly be a big part of it. Autodesk's radio silence here is very worrying!


Scott Moyse
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EESignature


Design & Manufacturing Technical Services Manager at Cadpro New Zealand

Co-founder of the Grumpy Sloth full aluminium billet mechanical keyboard project

Message 14 of 19
jparks_79
in reply to: delete3

Hi Scott and Chris,

 

The Content center integration with Vault pro 2012 with full replication is not very desirable. Once you introduce the database replication, a logic of file and folder ownership is introduced. so you must have ownership of a folder to add files to it, and the ownership transfer is not automatic.

 

I do not want to over step my boundries, but there is a tool that can look into your content center libraries and create an ipt for every part instance of any of the libraries you want. This is the workaround. Create every part instance in the content center an then chek the files into the vault. There fore you would never need to add the files to a folder not owned by you. Maybe ask your reseller or issue a support request. I don't know how available the tool is.

 

I hope autodesk finds some way to eliminate the ownership requirements, it really is not very conduscive for collaboration between offices or work groups. You have to really think everything out ahead of time before you start a collaborative design project that involves more than one workgroup.

 

I hope this helps you guys out.

 

Regards,

Jeremy

Message 15 of 19
scottmoyse
in reply to: jparks_79

cheers Jeremy, I will make sure I get that tool if we go down this path in the future.


Scott Moyse
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EESignature


Design & Manufacturing Technical Services Manager at Cadpro New Zealand

Co-founder of the Grumpy Sloth full aluminium billet mechanical keyboard project

Message 16 of 19
mbodnar
in reply to: delete3

Hi everyone

 

I also have experienced the same challenge in a multi-site replicated environment, and apart from the tool already mentioned, I dont believe that is any other workaround.

 

By customizing a CC table and using specific folder names to create CC parts from that table (ie. Bolts Hex Head) is configured to create and check in to folder Bolts Hex Head, you might be able to minimize the amount of ownership transfer that needs to be requested between the sites but doesnt remove it entirely. I guess this way one would only need to request ownership on this subfolder rather than root folder en-us, but it's still a request on a folder in the end.

 

This also doesnt assist with folders already created with the CC parts placed so far.

 

I also hope that Autodesk address this limitation soon.

 

Regards

Max B

Message 17 of 19
shelmore
in reply to: delete3

Hello all,

 

Supposedly, ownership management is much improved in Vault 2013. Has anyone tested this issue with the latest version of Vault? Thanks,

       Simon

Message 18 of 19
jparks_79
in reply to: shelmore

Hi Shelmore,

 

I also read about the improvements of replication in the new release, but we have not tested it. Supposedly the transfer of ownership happens automatically on demand. I also read the is some improvement in replication that provides an afinity option to select best possible replication sources.

 

We have not tried either

 

Regards,


Jermey

Message 19 of 19
mbodnar
in reply to: jparks_79

Hi all

 

I was able to test the 2013 ownership workflows in a multi site replicated environment and in 2013 it works much better. The transfer of ownership is done at the file/folder level automatically on checkout and when adding new files. This improves the previous workflow where CC folder ownership had to be constantly requested between the sites

 

The default ownership is set to zero by default, and the lock ownership icons don't appear unless the ownership is requested for longer than zero

 

Hope this helps

 

Max B

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