Civil 3d, Vault and data references

[joar.bryhni]

I'm asking this as I wonder if Vault is the right thing for us. If you have a dwg with a surface, and the dwg is checked out. You also have a dwg that references the surface, and that is also checked out. And not by data shortcut, but by "Vault reference". You make a change to the surface and save the surface dwg. Then you open the dwg that references the surface. Will it read the changed surface, or the checked in (but now outdated) surface? If it reads the checked in surface, how can people work "offline" (meaning not logged in) from Vault? Or even on a too slow vpn to even think about checking in dwgs every time you want to see referenced objects updated in other dwgs? Or is it, like I hope, a local file that represents the surface (xml or something) to dwgs referencing it, while the mother dwg is checked out? And that is updated locally until the mother dwgs is checked in again?

[mathewkol]

There are no weird "local files" that "represent a surface".  It's alll about the DWG.  Imagine you're not even using Vault.  If you change a surface, you need to save that file so the surface can be "reloaded" into other files.  Because you're using Vault, you'll need to check your file in so that it can be accessed by others using your surface.

If this is your workflow, you really need to work "online" and have a fast VPN.  Even if you weren't using Vault and you're using a slow VPN, you'd still need to send the DWG over your slow VPN every time you made a change to that surface.  There's no difference that I can see.

[joar.bryhni]

Ok, thanks. That answers my question. I was a bit unclear about vpn, I mean checking out to a working folder on your own computer, so no "save traffic" over the vpn, only "check out and check in traffic". Or even check out to a work folder on the server, using a sync program to get the working folder replicated on your own computer, do your work, sync back to the server work folder, and then check in. Our workflow is to make (often very small) changes to a surface or other C3D objects or normal Acad object, and not study the result so much in the dwg the objects come from, but in other dwgs or in Navis where a lot of dwgs/objects are referenced so we can see them in context with each other. So for us, I guess Vault could be problematic even when logged in to the Vault and sitting next to it, because files are saved so aggressively to see the updates in the aggregated models, that the Vault size would spin out of control before anyone had time to purge it. I would like a check box at check out saying "Check out for offline use", that would create the necessary files in your working folder to work offline and have all references update locally witout any check in and check out. Then, when your working folder, you check everything in, and Vault updates it's "no weird file" references and deletes the weird files from the working folder. We are a small company, and don't care if other users have to wait until the first user is finished 🙂