CAD Data from Different Software Version for Autodesk Vault Professional 2015

[73141]

Hello,

We have questions in implementation of Autodesk Vault professional 2015 where our company has following situation: 

1. A department that insists to continue using AutoCAD 2008. Can its Vault Add-in continue to collaborate with Autodesk Vault Professional 2015? If not, is its DWG files can be checked-in and out easily by using Autodesk Vault Explorer 2015? Is AutoCAD 2008 able to open it back after check-in?

2. A department that owns lots of data from other CAD software. As we know Autodesk Vault 2015 can check-in and out Solidworks data, but how about CATIA, UGS NX, Solidedge, Pro-E, etc?

Any Help is appreciated!

Best regards,

Patrick

[73141]

Hello,

Has anybody an Idea?

Thanks,

Patrick

[swalton]

As I understand it, Vault Explorer will check in any file type.  Vault does not make any changes to files that are checked into the system. You should be able to get your older version CAD files in the system and pull them out for changes.

However, Vault will not understand the relationships between CAD files if you don't use the CAD add-in to check in the files.  Vault would not understand any of the xrefs in the old AutoCAD drawings, or would not know about any Creo .prt files required to build .asm or .drw files, etc.  The CAD plugins push information from the CAD files, Inventor iprops, and similar, into Vault's database.  No plugin, no automatic data push.  Check with AutoDesk or your reseller to figure out what versions of CAD your version of Vault and its add-ins will support.

You might loose 80-90% of Vault's utility if you try to use it without an add-in for your CAD programs.  I would try some pilot projects to see if the remaining functionality is worth having.  Otherwise, you will have to migrate all departments to CAD systems that work with Vault.  I expect that any PDM system (Vault, Windchill, whatever Solidworks sells) will require the correct CAD plug-in, so I don't think you will be able to avoid the issue in a multi-CAD environment.

One other thing to look at:  The PDM vendor will release a new version of the PDM software and a plug-in for the "native" CAD system at the same time.  Plug-ins for other CAD systems may lag 6 months to a year behind the PDM software release.  Once you implement a PDM system, updates and migrations of your CAD systems will be dependent on the timetable of the PDM vendor.

 edited for typos

[swalton]

Here is a list of available plug-ins for Vault 2015, from the online help file.

http://help.autodesk.com/view/VAULT/2015/ENU/?guid=GUID-334CC890-1F12-429C-9D6A-B964327CA590

It looks like you will still have to check with Autodesk or a reseller to see if your specific CAD systems are supported.