Deep Vault Thoughts

Anonymous · ‎06-19-2007

Having worked many years in a semi-isolated environment, I'm wondering if anyone can offer advise to avoid the potential landmines that I'm seeing with the Vault, which seems more prone to user error than semi-isolated. Example: Suppose we have a power outage (as we just did) and one of the other users' systems remains down so he jumps on mine (with my logon) and opens an assembly from the Vault not realizing that I have several of the part files checked out and revised (and saved prior to the power out). A dialog asks him if he wants to replace the local files with the Vault files and the default response is YES. So he figures the default to be safe and overwrites my local changes. In semi-isolated, my local files would've been opened by default. It was impossible to open files from the server if they were checked out on the same local machine without canceling a checkout. Forgive me if I appear to be bashing the Vault. I'm not. I'm a newbie to it and am simply asking for advise from others who might have come from semi-isolated.

Anonymous · ‎06-19-2007

Very good question. I have made the same mistake myself.

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wrote in message news:5630887@discussion.autodesk.com...
Having worked many years in a semi-isolated environment, I'm wondering if
anyone can offer advise to avoid the potential landmines that I'm seeing
with the Vault, which seems more prone to user error than semi-isolated.
Example: Suppose we have a power outage (as we just did) and one of the
other users' systems remains down so he jumps on mine (with my logon) and
opens an assembly from the Vault not realizing that I have several of the
part files checked out and revised (and saved prior to the power out). A
dialog asks him if he wants to replace the local files with the Vault files
and the default response is YES. So he figures the default to be safe and
overwrites my local changes. In semi-isolated, my local files would've been
opened by default. It was impossible to open files from the server if they
were checked out on the same local machine without canceling a checkout.
Forgive me if I appear to be bashing the Vault. I'm not. I'm a newbie to
it and am simply asking for advise from others who might have come from
semi-isolated.

Anonymous · ‎06-20-2007

Autodesk? Are you reading this? I'm a nobody, but you've got THE very well respected Mr. Jeffrey indicating the same. How 'bout at least a second dialog box that says "Are you sure you want to overwrite all the changes that have been made locally with older Vault files and never see your changes again without, of course, recreating them?" Just a thought.

Anonymous · ‎06-20-2007

Well. I hope I have an answer for you. Please do
the Invisible Vault setting
as shown in the attached image. Hopefully, this
should take care of your
concern here.

(Invisible Vault settings can
be invoked from File > Vault > Options)

Please let me know if you
have more questions.

Regards,
Madhan

<backerman>
wrote in message
face=Arial size=2>news:5632201@discussion.autodesk.com
face=Arial size=2>...
Autodesk? Are you reading this? I'm a
nobody, but you've got THE very well
respected Mr. Jeffrey indicating the
same. How 'bout at least a second
dialog box that says "Are you sure
you want to overwrite all the changes
that have been made locally with older
Vault files and never see your
changes again without, of course, recreating
them?" Just a thought.

Anonymous · ‎06-20-2007

Thanks, Madhan. I had considered messing with these very options but wasn't sure what other commands I might adversely effect. Will these changes prevent me from properly using "Get Latest Version" and "Open From Vault"? Am I killing two birds while saving one? I haven't had time to do much 'what-if' playing around, as my workload is quite heavy.

Anonymous · ‎06-20-2007

style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt; FONT-FAMILY: 'Times New Roman','serif'; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'">
face=Arial>

style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; FONT-FAMILY: 'Arial','sans-serif'; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'">You
are not killing two birds :-). But, I just wanted to suggest a solution that
would work for you. With the recommended settings for get latest version, you
will not loose the modification that you had made.

style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; FONT-FAMILY: 'Arial','sans-serif'; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'">

style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; FONT-FAMILY: 'Arial','sans-serif'; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'">Regarding
"Open from Vault" option, you won't get a prompt to check out. Other than that
"Open from vault" will work as expected.

style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; FONT-FAMILY: 'Arial','sans-serif'; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'">

style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; FONT-FAMILY: 'Arial','sans-serif'; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'">Let
me try to explain here.

style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; FONT-FAMILY: 'Arial','sans-serif'; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'">

style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; FONT-FAMILY: 'Arial','sans-serif'; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'">When
you open a file from vault actually we are using the following
commands.

style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; FONT-FAMILY: 'Arial','sans-serif'; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'">1.
Open from Vault - Downloads the file from vault if it was not available
locally.

style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; FONT-FAMILY: 'Arial','sans-serif'; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'">2.
Check Out - Reserves the file to the current user

style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; FONT-FAMILY: 'Arial','sans-serif'; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'">3.
Get latest version. - Replaces the local files to match the version in the Vault
server

style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; FONT-FAMILY: 'Arial','sans-serif'; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'">

style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; FONT-FAMILY: 'Arial','sans-serif'; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'">So,
in the Invisible Vault settings, I suggested using "No" and "Never
Prompt" for “Check Out the file when Opening it from Vault”. This means,
the second action in the above list will not work. In other words, you will not
see the option to Check out the file when it is opened from
vault.

style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt; FONT-FAMILY: 'Times New Roman','serif'; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'">

style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; FONT-FAMILY: 'Arial','sans-serif'; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'">The
other option about "Get latest version" is also "No" and "Never prompt". This
means, when you open a file, it will not overwrite the files that were already
edited and saved in local disk. However, it will replace the older version
files. This is intentional as this would help the users to see the latest files
always.

style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt; FONT-FAMILY: 'Times New Roman','serif'; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'">

style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; FONT-FAMILY: 'Arial','sans-serif'; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'">If
you wanted to explicitly replace the locally edited files, you can use “Undo
check out” with “replace local copy”
style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt; FONT-FAMILY: 'Times New Roman','serif'; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'">

style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt; FONT-FAMILY: 'Times New Roman','serif'; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'">

style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; FONT-FAMILY: 'Arial','sans-serif'; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'">Hope
this helps. If you have any further questions, please let me
know.

style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; FONT-FAMILY: 'Arial','sans-serif'; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'">

style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt; FONT-FAMILY: 'Times New Roman','serif'; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'">

style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; FONT-FAMILY: 'Arial','sans-serif'; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'">

style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; FONT-FAMILY: 'Arial','sans-serif'; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'">Regards,

style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; FONT-FAMILY: 'Arial','sans-serif'; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'">Madhan

style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; FONT-FAMILY: 'Arial','sans-serif'; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'">

<backerman> wrote in message
href="news:5632405@discussion.autodesk.com">
size=2>news:5632405@discussion.autodesk.com
size=2>...

Thanks, Madhan. I had
considered messing with these very options but wasn't sure what other commands I
might adversely effect. Will these changes prevent me from properly using
"Get Latest Version" and "Open From Vault"? Am I killing two birds while
saving one? I haven't had time to do much 'what-if' playing around, as my
workload is quite heavy.

Anonymous · ‎06-20-2007