Vault Pro BOM question

[tclayton]

Ok, this is going to be a long-winded question, but I need an answer before I go further.

I design tooling and fixtures for a proprietary machine we use in manufacturing.  We have a basic assembly model that we apply (copy design) to each job then I manually place standard fixtures and design specific tools to run each job. I generate a set-up document for our production dept. Currently, I type it by hand, based on the assembly model.

I'm working on a set of machine templates to automate configuration of the assembly in Inventor using iLogic.

I'm familiar with the Inventor API and writing the code to loop thru the component occurrences and get the part numbers, etc of the parts I want in the document is no big deal, and I can write them to a text file or whatever.

Here's the deal, my company is considering upgrading to a vertical version of Vault.  I'm told Vault Pro has a pretty robust BOM management and report writing system included.

We've had a demo from a reseller on-site, and I asked the reps about generating a document with this functionality. They say its doable, but probably thru the Vault API.

1. Would this be easier in Vault?  The code in iLogic uses the Inventor API and is going to be fairly difficult to generate and I dont want to waste my efforts.

2. If I do go ahead and write the code in Inventor, will it be similar to that in the Vault API?  (Would the code transfer?) 

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

[Redmond.D]

1.  Since I don't know your full set of requirements.  I can't say for certain if Vault is going to give you exactly what you need. If you are a member of the Autodesk Developer Network, you can download Vault Pro and play with it yourself.

Assuming Vault Items do everything you need, it is fairly easy to read the BOM data using the Vault API. 

2.  Don't expect many similarities between the Inventor API and the Vault API.  If you write something in Inventor, it will probably be very different than something written in Vault.  Of course, there are ways to structure your code to minimize the impact of change.

[tclayton · Accepted solution]

Thanks Doug,

I think I'll just keep it in Inventor.