Vault Local Workspace Cleanup tool.

[HenkdeB]

Vault Local Workspace Cleanup tool.

When you work with Vault you download lots of file to your local workspace (read only).

When you close the files in Inventor, these files stay in your local folder.

After working for a while with Inventor/Vault you need to cleanup the local workingfolder.

But how do you know which files can be deleted?

Therefore we need a LocalWorkingFolderCleanup tool.

This tool should scan the local workspace used by Vault (based on a projectfile).

As result this tool should show all the checked out files and all the file which are not saved in the Vault.

This tool should give you the possibility to check in the files into Vault and delete all the read only and unused files in the projectfolder (not in the libraries).

[askinner2001]

Have you tried running a workspace sync?

open Vault - Tools - Workspace sync

If you go through all of the options this should clean up any old files.

[h.schkorwaga]

Sorry guys but for me this is NO synchronization. This is "check local files and delete all what's not in vault (with options)".

Why is this feature not able to check in items that are not in vault. From the generated list you should be able to open, or view the parts, assemblies, etc.. then you can decide to chek in or delete.

I don't want to delete things I worked on for two days and can't remember at them moment I hit the button to make this kind of "synchronization".

Or have i missed an option?

Cheers!

[HenkdeB]

We use Vault Basic, so we don't have a Tools > Workspace sync.

[scottmoyse]

If you want this, then it's a paid for feature... as you've just established.

It would be nice to interact with the report resulting from it running to make decisions. That would be a nice option.

So far as it deleting work you have done 2 days ago? There are settings to control how old an 'unmanaged' file needs to be before it is deleted. You can also exclude folders, so if you want a scratchpad to create parts in, and you don't always check them in from there.... AND you don't want anything to EVER be deleted from that folder, then add that folder as an exclusion.

The Workspace Sync tools has most of that stuff covered, and you can schedule it to run every day, so you don't even have to remember to run it.

[scottmoyse]

Vault Workgroup and Vault Professional have one. It's called Workspace Sync

[rpeterson9DZ38]

using the managed and un-managed option is not the best way to deal with files in your workspace in my opinion.  What if these files are new but are old in the way of when they were created?  It is not uncommon to be bouncing around projects and time slips away before you get back to it.  Workspace sync is ok for a higher level update, need more visibility from the workspace point of view.

[gerrarddhickson]

At a previous company, we Identified the opposite problem, people were creating files but never adding them to the vault - so they didn't get backed up, and when users changes and PCs got wiped we'd loose all that data - It turned out that about 10% of all drawings (and their children files) didn't get added to the Vault. In an office of 50+ designers, drafters and engineers that had been operating for many years that amounted to a staggering amount of data at risk of being lost - or that had already been lost. The cost of reproducing that amount of data is insane.

To solve that problem I wrote a little tool some years back as a work around - It was a simple string comparison tool.

• Run a batch file on your local working directory to generate a list of all files (including their paths),
• Go to Vault, go to the search box, perform a wildcard search on vault - either the whole vault, or the folders of interest.
• Update your display view to include the "Path"
• Then click "File>Print Preview".
• From the Print Preview window you have a whole bunch of export options... So click File > Export Document > CSV File
• Now you've got 2 lists of files - one from your local working directory, and one from the vault.
• Import these two lists into excel, and it will show you which when a file exists in one but not the other. Then its up to the user to decide how to handle the exceptions.

I did start writing a .NET app to do this much easier - but I changed companies soon after, so it died an early death.

[michael.callahan]

I worked a vary large corporate design firm, manufacturing corporate jets. The managers MUST lock down procedures for designer or you will never have control of your project and files. If anyone is working on their local then the project manager does not see any work performed and that designer will eventually be terminated. ALL work must be performed on the vault so the project managers can track the engineering workflows. This should not be an issued of deleting local files not in a vault.. if managed correctly.  

[rpeterson9DZ38]

The sync workspace is an "OK" tool but not as good as it should be.  I don't care what company you have worked for.  The vault should manage some things continuously.  Rather than forcing me to do a workspace sync to update my local files that should be done automatically.  If you need to keep a file you modified locally then you should have either checked it out for a change or made a copy of it with a different name.

Other things like if I delete a file in my local workspace and it is in the vault I should be able to delete it in either location.

If I rename a file locally then the file in the vault should update automatically.

If I move a file to different place in my workspace then that file should move in the vault as well.

[michael.callahan]

You are right, vault should manage files local and in the databases. The "company" I worked for used Smarteam PDM. Anther company I worked for used Solidworks EPDM (PDM PRO). None of these database assets had a problem with local files. This is strictly an Autodesk issue. They acquired this PDM I think 11 years ago and never re-wrote the core program to modernized it. That to me is the problem. This PDM is vary archaic for the time. That is why I said the PDM managers must lock down procedures with ALL designers to check all work in before they leave everyday. Especially with this PDM>  

[n.schotten]

As part of a cleanup option, it would be nice if from within Vault (BASIC!) there would be an option to "delete local file".

A quick cleanup could then be to do a wildcard search and sort by status dot. select and delete local.

Then we might want to look into creating a batch scrips or program to delete empty folders. A program that does that might already exist?

From there it's easier to go trough your WF and find any remaining files.