Improved Inventor iLogic Management

[swalton]

I would like Vault to manage external iLogic rules that are called by Inventor ipts/iams/idws. 

These rules are programming code that can affect model geometry, iproperties and drawing views.  External rules are saved out to a directory visible to the Inventor project file.  By placing them in a directory, it is very easy to share them among different Inventor files and users.  If an external rule is edited and re-run on the Inventor file, the Inventor file will change.

Users can add the external rules to Vault using the stand-alone client, but the Inventor Vault Add-in does not see the dependency between the external rules and the Inventor file.  If another user, possibly at a remote site, downloads the Inventor file from vault, Vault does not know to bring the external rules too.  Users must remember to grab the latest copy of the external rule directory.

Vault should track these file dependencies. The rule files should be subject to the same revision and lifecycle control as any other file in Vault.  Users should be able to perform all of the typical Vault commands on these files from the Inventor browser.

See http://forums.autodesk.com/t5/Inventor-General/Sharing-ILogic-Rules-between-remote-design-sites/td-p...

for a discussion of the current system.

[chad.salmela]

I realize this may be a little backwards and may be more of an Inventor feature, but I would love to see better compatability between iLogic and Vault.

For example:

We are currently in the process of automating our engineering process, and that includes iLogic models. But in order to check them into Vault, after we have re-configured a model, we will have to go through some extra steps to check it back into Vault.

Our plan is to keep our iLogic model in a seperate folder in our folder structure. All parts in the iLogic models will have generic part names. When the model is re-configured we will have a "Finalize" rule. Before the Finalize rule can run, we will need to get all of the folders that have the actual parts into our Workspace. Then we can run the finalize rule wich will check to see if the new part numbers exist in the current folders. If they do exist nothing happens, if the file is not found, it will do a "Save As" for that part into the correct folder. Once all of the parts in the assembly have been checked, it will then do a component replace for every part in the assembly with the actual production parts from the appropriate folders in our file structure. Finally it will do one more "Save As" and save the main assembly into the correct folder. Now we will be able to check that file into Vault. All new parts will be check in and any parts that already existed, will not have been changed so there will be no conflict. Once this is all done, we can then go back and delete all of those files out of our Workspace.

I would love to have a way to do this without having to run through the extra steps, that I have outlined here.

If someone knows a better way, I would appreciate any insight you may have.

Thanks,

Chad

[Maarten65]

We like to start with external vault rules as well, but only when they can be managed by Vault correctly. 

[Ben-Cornelius]

I think it would be cool to have a version of iLogic just for vault so obviously you could right rules on vault functions

[dkatz]

I think this is a great idea. I think the case for why is solid. The workflow to add external rules (and may I add, global forms) to vault is somewhat convoluted, and it could be much easier for a user to save ilogic to vault without having to manually check/in out.

We actually had a big snafu recently that would make this feature appealing to some who might not realize this problem. This isn't Autodesk's fault, but the above solution would have made it impossible for it to happen.

The situation: Our hard drive where we have vault files is also where we keep our external rules. We needed to upgrade the hard drive (I'm trying to remember the exact reason, but it was meant to not cause any disruption in normal operations). Our IT department used the method of backing up Vault files through the Autodesk software, so everything should have been covered. However, they did not also copy the files that were on the hard drive through the normal windows file structure. 

The problem: Some of the files on the drive were Vaulted files, but they were checked out for editing. Some of those files were external rules. Some of my hair got ripped out that morning. Basically, I was left with whatever was last checked in (Which I am really glad for. A lot of work went into those rules). I'd also like to mention that global forms should be included in this request, as the same thing happened with those.

Like I said, there were plenty of mistakes on the IT side of things, but if the external rules and global forms were able to be checked in somehow, that would save a lot of extra steps on the design side, and prevent IT mistakes from prematurely balding engineers who didn't need the help.