Assigned Items Get Different Revision Scheme Than Associated Files

[btillman]

Making a bit more progress today. I have managed to get a new custom revision scheme setup and assigned to my new category. Then I dragged some CAD files into the folder under Project Explorer and I was delighted to see the new revision scheme and category were properly applied. So then I highlighted all the files and right+clicked to choose Assign / Update Item. The new items were created but they came in as Base instead of the new category I created and they are all using the alphabetical revision scheme. So what did I miss? I was assuming the new items would be closely related to the files.

[cbenner]

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@btillman wrote:

 I was assuming the new items would be closely related to the files.

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That was your first mistake!  LOL  (sorry, couldn't resist... I've been down this road before.)

First, though,... I have to know what releave and version of Vault are you dealing with?

[Neil_Cross]

Which version of Vault Pro are you using? If you're using anything other than 2015 R2 then the answer to your questions will be totally different.

Assuming you are using R2, Items & files don't use the same categories and lifecycles.  The rules you set up for assigning categories will only apply to files.  When you're creating the rules, there's probably a drop down option at the top of that box to specifiy whether the rules apply to files or items.  The setup process is pretty similar, but there will be 2 different sets of rules, one for files and one for items.

This next statement is up for debate and discussion.  But in R2, I don't believe you're supposed to use file categories/lifecycles/revisions at the same time alongside Item categories/lifecycles/revisions.  It's one or the other.

Basically because the Vault (standard functionality) won't keep them synchronised.  What I mean is if you have a DWG at rev 1 assigned to an Item which is also rev 1, if you up-issue that DWG to rev 2... Vault will not go and automatically change the Item revision to rev 2.  They'd be out of sync with eachother and it would be on you to manually up-issue them and keep them both in sync with eachother. 

It's not practical to do that, and inevitable human error will easily lead to mistakes resulting in incorrect revisions all over the place.

So you'll probably need to have a think about that when deciding how to move forward with your setup.

[cbenner]

Neil,

I agree with the "one or the other" approach, even prior to R2.  Trying to revise both file and item, and keep the two synced up is a nightmare scenario.  I've used both, and settles on Items only because of the watermark... which is sort of a null reason in R2 since the watermark is only good in full client... not thin client... long story.

Anyway... I agree,... one or the other.

[btillman]

Thanks so much for the replies. I am using Vault Professional 2015. When I check the Help/About window it says 2015, build 191.0.49.0, but I don't see any reference to R2. And I do seem to be finding that the docs for Vault 2015 are a WIP themselves. I was searching yesterday for information and came across an article dated just the day before. On the other hand, many of the tutorials and searches I do end up pointing me to articles and information from several releases in the past.

BTW I should mention here that we fully intend to interface Vault with our ERP program (BaaN). That's down the road a ways but I'm trying to be careful in building my configurations keeping this in mind. And from what I read this morning I've still got some more planning to do.

[Neil_Cross]

Yep, unless you have a spare year of your life to design a Vault which will use both!

That's what I've built here, and we've been sucessfully using both file lifecycles & items for nearly 2 years now.  All revision changes are actioned from the files, the Items synchronise via the job processor and export to ERP on release.

I wouldn't recommend this to anyone after the hassle I went through to get this working efficiently, but it is an option if you have the time and the budget.  Obviously with standard Vault Pro functionality you can't do this 

[Neil_Cross]

If you're not using R2, and you're using just 2015 Professional, the Item & file categories are completely different.

If you need to export to ERP, there's loads of options but it depends on what your business needs are.  In a nutshell you can either export from the Inventor BOM as a CSV file, OR use Items in Vault Pro.

Honestly, Items are a god **** nightmare.  I can't even begin to explain how much you'll wish you never bothered if you decide to go ahead with using them, but if you have to use them then you'll have to forget about the file lifecycles.  You can't have both unfortunately unless like I said above, you have oodles of time to build a system and money to burn.

[btillman]

Thanks. I only have "Noodles of Time" which is my lunch hour eating a cup of Ramen Noodle Soup to learn this app, so obviously I don't have money to burn either. We knew this software would be coming with a large learning curve so that's what I do is to try and learn it so we can deploy it with our year end goals. I believe it will serve us well, but getting the initial setups done is not easy.

[Neil_Cross]

Where are you based? There's always your local Autodesk reseller who can help out.

Vault is brilliant, but it's far from polished and perfect.  The learning curve is not just understanding how it works but also understanding and working around its limitations.   

Good luck getting stuck into it, go nuts with posting on here and we'll all help out as best as we can