Collaboration - How To Place Files From Other Users' Folders In The Vault

[Anonymous]

My company has one vault and in that vault every designer has a folder that is located under the root location in the Vault and each designer's working directory on the C: drive is mapped to their named folder in the Vault. Something like this:

$\Vault
+John
+Ralph
+Bill
+Luke

Each designer has multiple sub folders under their names that represents the projects/designs they are working on. Using the Vault works flawlessly as long as each designer stays in his own folder. We are having issues when we try to collaborate on a design. For instance, John and Bill are both working on the same project. John is doing the mechanical design and Bill is doing the electrical design. Bill needs needs to place some components that John designed into his (Bill's) assembly but when Bill tries this, Vault gives him an error message warning him that states:

" The location of the selected file is not in the active project. To ensure that the file can be found when you open files that reference it, add the location to the project or move the file to a location specified in the project."

The operation then fails and the part from John's folder in the Vault is not placed in Bill's Inventor assembly. The steps Bill is using to place the from the Vault into Inventor is as follows:

(1) Select "Browse to a file in the Vault and place it in the assembly".
(2) Bill browses over to John's folder (see folder structures above) and locates the part.
(3) Select "Open"
(4) Error message appears as previously described.

What can we do to resolve this problem. We need to collaborate in the Vault environment.

Thanks.

[markc-uk]

I think this could be solved by having a single project file (.ipj) within the vault. It should be at the very top of the folder structure; i.e under $\vault but higher than +John, +Ralph etc etc.
Ensure you use a vault project, add it to the vault, then make all your team 'get latest version' of the vaulted project.
HTH.

[Anonymous]

I don't understand and I actually did not know that each user's project file gets checked into the Vault. We use an Inventor Deployment to rollout Inventor to all users and within that deployment package, the project file is specifed (locations, files, etc.) and named "Working Directory.ipj". Searching the Vault for ".ipj" shows about 15 instances but in different user's folders. Now I'm quite confused.

But back to my original problem - This seems more difficult than what it should be. I thought the Vault allowed easy access to all files within it making collaboration very easy. What am I missing here?

[markc-uk]

That sounds messy. You really shouldn't have all those .ipj's
As I said, our drawing office of 12 people uses just one single .ipj. It sits right at the top of our vault structure.
Maybe post on the vault forum and get some more specific guidance?? Sorry I can't be of more help.

[markc-uk]

That sounds messy. You really shouldn't have all those .ipj's
As I said, our drawing office of 12 people uses just one single .ipj. It sits right at the top of our vault structure.
Maybe post on the vault forum and get some more specific guidance?? Sorry I can't be of more help.

[Anonymous]

I'm in total agreement on the Single Project file approach. No
need for multiple project files at all.

--
Dennis Jeffrey, Autodesk Inventor Certified
Expert
Autodesk Manufacturing Implementation Certified
Expert.
Instructor/Author/Sr. App Engr.
AIP 2008 SP2, AIP 2009-SP1
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[Anonymous]

So, how do I direct each user's seat of Inventor to use a single project file in the Vault? I have never seen that option during any of the Inventor installations that I have done. Please explain.

Mike

[Anonymous]

href="http://teknigroup.com/AU2007">http://teknigroup.com/AU2007 Start with
the session paper.

--
Dennis Jeffrey, Autodesk Inventor Certified
Expert
Autodesk Manufacturing Implementation Certified
Expert.
Instructor/Author/Sr. App Engr.
AIP 2008 SP2, AIP 2009-SP1
PcCillin AV
HP zv5000  AMD64 2GB - Geforce Go 440, Driver: .8185
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Pro SP2, Windows XP Silver Theme

href="http://teknigroup.com">http://teknigroup.com

[Anonymous]

Ok...let's forget the fact that Autodesk deleted my mmiller1 account for who knows what reason. Grrrrr!

Dennis - I read the docment regarding project files and it confirms what I already knew about them. We set our folders up similar to what was described in that document before we started using Vault. So, here are my questions:

(1) I am one of about 20 users of the Vault. How do I put a .ipj file in the Vault that everyone uses?
(2) How do I direct each user's seat of Inventor to look into the Vault for a project file?

I found this link http://forums.augi.com/showthread.php?t=83301 but it stopped short of detailing how to do it.

Thanks again.

Mike

[Anonymous]

Each user station must have a defined workspace folder that is
named exactly the same on every station. A copy of the same IPJ file will reside
at the top level of that folder. Additional workspace folders will replicate the
folder structure in the vault. Properly structured data should work for every
user at that point.

--
Dennis Jeffrey, Autodesk Inventor Certified
Expert
Autodesk Manufacturing Implementation Certified
Expert.
Instructor/Author/Sr. App Engr.
AIP 2008 SP2, AIP 2009-SP1
PcCillin AV
HP zv5000  AMD64 2GB - Geforce Go 440, Driver: .8185
XP
Pro SP3, Windows XP Silver Theme

href="http://teknigroup.com">http://teknigroup.com

[markc-uk]

Mike,
From memory:
First you set up your folder structure in your local workspace so that it mimics EXACTLY the structure in Vault.You then need to create a new vault project (as opposed to a single user project). Make the new vault project your default project. Start a new ipt or iam. Change the browser to the vault browser (rmb on the top of the browser window). It will show your project as being NOT in vault. RMB the project and add to vault.

Now your ipj is vaulted (and should be placed at the very top of the vault structure). Now have all users go into vault explorer and navigate to the ipj you just created. Have all users 'get latest version' of the ipj.

Now, get all users to go to their project editor (within Inventor) and click new project. Then browse to the project they have just 'got latest version' of. This ensures that all your users are working with the same ipj.

I'm at home now and my memory on this is a little vague (and I've had 2 glasses of red 😉 I'll check at work in the morning but you should be able to get somewhere close to what I've described.


HTH.

[Anonymous]

I think I understand now but just to be sure, I have attached a document that explains what our Vault structure is now and what I think our Vault structure (and .ipj file) should be. Please see the following figures (I can't upload to this forum for some reason so these are external links).



Figure 1

Figure 2



....after looking at the figures....







Does this mean that I have to reorganize our Vault structure from what is shown in Figure 1 to Figure 2?







Thanks,



Mike