Publishing parts with same family name in content center

[RotorCAD]

Hello,

To start off I/We have been going through a naming convention for our engineering data.

In doing so we needed to control all aspects of CAD data, some of which is Custom Content Librarys.

In short, our file structures are sorted by make,modle,product (this is what we call our product identifer) next is our category,issue,data type and part number.

For example ill use our company name as a product ID:

ACS.212.MR.01<----Product Identifer, Containing Make, Model and Product+config

next is  -TD.01<--- Category and issue numbe

and finally

300.01<--- Data type and sequentially release number making the end part number

all together would look like this

ACS.212.MR.01-TD.01.300.01

hope your still following!

So my windows file strucutre and sharepoint search critearia is filed as soley the product identifer, once you find it click on what product your like to veiw So te file may contain:

ACS.212.MR.01

ACS.412.MR.01

ETC

ETC

Select what product youd like and open the file. Next select category youd like to veiw, in this case its TD aka "Tool Design" 01 (1st issued tool design under that specific prduct) Open te "TD.01 or TD.02 or which ever tool design number we need.

insde that file we have .300 .400 etc, in this case we are using .300.01 (CAD data file type,First part) .400s are CAM ,500s are word documents and so on.

Great our system keeps continuity via the product ID as well as all data types and support documents together only seperated via a coded number. this is great for our file managment requirents and sharepoint to filter search criteria.

Now heres the problem im faced with.

I create a new IAM called .300, Saved it in the file ACS.212.MR.01-TD.02.

In this assembly im making parts, part 1 is .300.01 part 2 is .300.02 etc

now I need to make a custom content part. I creat the part, save it as "300.01" in the "ACS.ICC-TD" file location.

Publish it, bring the PN with it, and name the family the source file "ACS.ICC-TD" Done.

Drop an instance in my assembly and its shows as "ACS.ICC-TD.300.01" Perfect its its now easy to ID as there is no Mulitple ipt

names of .300.xx 

Lets make a second part to publish to Custom Content.

I make the .Ipt and save it as "300.02" same file location as the firt CC part.

Go to publish the part and bring the PN over and name the family the same as my first cc part "ACS.ICS-TD" click next and a error pops up "Family name already in use, please chose a diffrent name"

well thats the whole point these parts belong to a internal custom content family only differentiated via a part number, in this case the ".300.xx" number.

Other wise I have to name each family uniquly, which when brought into a assembly shows as "family name.family name:1" not both family and PN.

How can I publish multiple parts under the same family name?

I hope this makes sense

I appreciate you reading through all this!

-Justin 

[cbenner]

Well, the short answer is that Family names need to be unique.  Family Descriptions, I think, can be the same... but the Family name cannot be a duplicate.  

[RotorCAD]

Hello and thanks for the reply!

After a few hours of what seemd to be a excercise in frustration I have came across a solution that seems to work for me.

I simply add all the parts into the content center that I like, leavng the pre defined family name (usualy the File name) slected by Inventor.

Then using the edior I select all the parts that I'd like to stay together as members under a single family name, right click on them and Edit "Family Properties...." changing there family names from the FILE name to a common Family name.

Next I exit that menu and right click again this time selecting "Family Table..." Double Click on the "File Name" column and un-check "Expression" box. It will give you a message that the part has been updated once you click ok.

What this does for me at least is when I am working on any level of assembly which is make, modle & product specific, I name all my parts as .01 .02 .03 etc and NOW when placing my custom content into that assembly it showes up with the prefix of the family name THEN"the part number" IE: ACS.ICL-01. No more parts with duplicate part numbers.

-Justin