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Improving the Check-out workflow

16 REPLIES 16
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Message 1 of 17
mikel_martin
1824 Views, 16 Replies

Improving the Check-out workflow

Hello all,

 

We (the Vault team) are looking at potentially making some improvements to the download and check-out workflows.

We would like to have some conversation with people that frequently use these workflows, about how and when they do these operations today. We are particularly interested in workflows involving 200 or more instance in the structure, but we are happy to hear from anyone.

 

This is your chance to help us make the product better!

 

If you would like to have a conversation about this please send me a private email (mikel.martin@autodesk.com) with "Check-out Improvements" as the subject. Please include some contact information. Someone from my team will email or call you back to have the conversation.

 

Thanks for your help,



Mikel Martin
User Experience Architect
Autodesk, Inc.
16 REPLIES 16
Message 2 of 17
mikel_martin
in reply to: mikel_martin

Still looking for people to give feedback on download and check-out.

 

If you would like to have a conversation about this please send me a private email (mikel.martin@autodesk.com) with "Check-out Improvements" as the subject. Please include some contact information. Someone from my team will email or call you back to have the conversation.



Mikel Martin
User Experience Architect
Autodesk, Inc.
Message 3 of 17
Pacetech
in reply to: mikel_martin

We use the vault with a small team. My biggest gripe is when somone checks out an assembly. Makes a small change, then check it back in. First, they bump the revision on the part files simply because they selected a local update. None of the parts actually changed, but it created a new version. Now I have a ton of copies in the vault that are the same part with no actual changes. The vault should evaluate what the changes actually were.

 

The other problem is when someone checks out an assembly but it doesn't force them to get the latest version from the vault. So it pulls their local (outdated) copy of the assembly and parts, then they check it back into the vault. Sometimes its a simple update to the iProperties (part number or material). Now I've got to go back to the previous version.

 

Typically this is because of new users not knowing what they are doing. They use the Vault tab on the ribbon to check in/out. This should go away. I always use the Browser bar - which is a pain having to swap back and forth between Model and Vault - these should be stacked on top of each other. But the browser bar should be the only way to check out stuff, that way you see you don't have the latest version.

 

Low level users should not be allowed to check something out without "getting the latest version" first.

 

Admin level access should allow me to delete/purge the latest version on the vault history. The current method sucks, you check it out, get the older version, then open it, then check it in. I do this when new users screw something up, which happens more often than I'd like. The vaulting restrictions should be removed for admin user.

 

Admin access should allow me to edit the comments on the vault history, so I can make notes. I should be able to force low level users to enter a comment on each part they are checking into the vault.

 

Low level users should not be allowed to edit vaulted files without forcing them to check it out and get the latest version. This should be an admin level setting that I can enforce.

 

One tool that we need is a simple way to sync your local folder to the vault. We have thousands of files. If I have everyone check in all their files on a friday night and hit SYNC TO VAULT, then it should simply get the latest version of every file and put it on their machine, so everyone is up to date monday AM. I do vault backups on the weekend anyway.

 

Another tool would be the ability to find local files that do not have a counterpart in the vault. Oftentimes people forget to add stuff to the vault, this would serve as a reminder to do that. Also, I can do a cleanup of all scratch/test/junk files on my local drive from time to time.

 

I'm sure I have more, but this should get you started.

Inventor 2013 Professional 64 bit SP 1.1
DELL T3500
Windows 7 64bit SP1
Intel Xeon W3520 @ 2.67GHz, 12 Gb DDR3 RAM
Geforce GTX 460 Graphics 2048 MBytes
Message 4 of 17
xavier_dumont2
in reply to: Pacetech

Have exacctly the same behavir betwwem open a file from Inventor with "Open from Vault" command and open a file by double-click in the Vault Explorer.

 

A difference betweem those two command is the Properties Update...

Message 5 of 17
mvdberg
in reply to: mikel_martin

Hi,

 

I would like an option to disable check-in/check-out and use a single workspace on the server where you can reserve (lock) the files (like productstream Professional). The check-in/check-out system asks to many questions when you are working with multiple users on one project. It wants so save files with pending updates that are not checked out because someone else is editing them. What is the point of saving files I can not check in? It should ignore those files.

 

save-check-in.jpg

 

Furthermore if you create a new drawing with views of a model with pending updates, you can not check it in because vault first want to save the model (which it can not because it is checked out by someone else) it than terminates the action with an error message. If you create a drawing and check it in BEFORE you create the views it works fine.

 

I also agree with pacetech that vault makes to many unnecessary versions.

 

Regards, Martin

Regards,
Martin van den Berg
NKM Noell Special Cranes GmbH
Inventor Professional 2019.3 + Vault Professional 2019.1.1
Message 6 of 17
mikel_martin
in reply to: mvdberg

Thanks for your feedback.

Would you like to put our list of people to contact for further feedback on pending changes?

 

In regaurds to some of your specific points:

 

1. The Vault downloads file to the local for machine for many reasons (performance, offline workflows, and others), we have no plans to change that behavior in the near future. Though I feel that your specfic concerns can be addressed through other changes in the workflow.

 

2. I agree that the Vault workflow could be improved (prompt less, flow at litte better) and those are some of the issues we are currently working on.



Mikel Martin
User Experience Architect
Autodesk, Inc.
Message 7 of 17

I think you have  issues with both check-out and check-in.

 

  1. Inventor should never ever prompt to save (and require to save) files that are not checked out and/or are released.
  2. It should be an option to  "Synchronize properties" during check-in, not only on transition changes!
Message 8 of 17
cm_at
in reply to: mikel_martin

Hi,

 

we need the old behavior from former vault versions to chose between "get" and "check out" when downloading assemblies. We work in Inventor with the skeleton modeling method and therefore we need the possibility to uncheck "get". Now you can only download all or nothing and not only parts or subassemblies.

 

Regards, Claudia

Message 9 of 17

I agree with all these suggestions, the dialogue frequency is dire. You should never be able to modify a file which isn't checked out to you, period. This whole process is a dog with skeletal and solid body workflows, if you make a single change to one body, it wants to update and save every single file referencing the parent file....


Scott Moyse
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Design & Manufacturing Technical Services Manager at Cadpro New Zealand

Co-founder of the Grumpy Sloth full aluminium billet mechanical keyboard project

Message 10 of 17
scottmoyse
in reply to: Pacetech


@pacetech wrote:

 

One tool that we need is a simple way to sync your local folder to the vault. We have thousands of files. If I have everyone check in all their files on a friday night and hit SYNC TO VAULT, then it should simply get the latest version of every file and put it on their machine, so everyone is up to date monday AM. I do vault backups on the weekend anyway.



Have you looked into Workspace sync?


Scott Moyse
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EESignature


Design & Manufacturing Technical Services Manager at Cadpro New Zealand

Co-founder of the Grumpy Sloth full aluminium billet mechanical keyboard project

Message 11 of 17
Pacetech
in reply to: scottmoyse

Workspace Sync - sounds like the solution!

 

But I can't seem to find this command on the dropdown menus and the file was missing on the command line.

 

I'm using Product Design Suite Ultimate which comes with Autodesk Vault (Build 16.1.58.0 Update 1).

 

I would expect the ULTIMATE suite to come with the Vault that has Workspace Sync.

Inventor 2013 Professional 64 bit SP 1.1
DELL T3500
Windows 7 64bit SP1
Intel Xeon W3520 @ 2.67GHz, 12 Gb DDR3 RAM
Geforce GTX 460 Graphics 2048 MBytes
Message 12 of 17
scottmoyse
in reply to: Pacetech

not sure it comes with the free vault. sorry.


Scott Moyse
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EESignature


Design & Manufacturing Technical Services Manager at Cadpro New Zealand

Co-founder of the Grumpy Sloth full aluminium billet mechanical keyboard project

Message 13 of 17
Pacetech
in reply to: scottmoyse

Yup, you are right.Almost.

 

Except there is no free vault, nothing about this software is free.

 

I'm using the Ultimate Suite, which doesn't really seem all that ultimate. A bunch of stuff I don't use and the no-additional-cost Vault.

Inventor 2013 Professional 64 bit SP 1.1
DELL T3500
Windows 7 64bit SP1
Intel Xeon W3520 @ 2.67GHz, 12 Gb DDR3 RAM
Geforce GTX 460 Graphics 2048 MBytes
Message 14 of 17

Pace,

 

I'm using Vault Workgroups (one step up from the basic, vanilla Vault that comes with the design package) but I'm just assuming that with your version you do not see the following tab:

 

synch.PNG

 

It can also be found under the Tools tab in Vault Explorer.

 

Considering your first post, I'd highly recommend you get at the very least, Vault WorkGroups and set permissions and file lifecycles (controlling revisions and such) that WG's offers where basic Vault does not.

 

Might make your life a bit easier.

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Jim
Celtic Design Services, LLC

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Message 15 of 17

Hello,

 

We are Inventor 2013 and Vault Basic 2013 users. We have recently started using

"Close files and delete working copies" option.

 

What I noticed:

If the ipart is opened, edited and all the members are generated and checked in with the above

option then only the parent/factory is deleted from local and all the members still reside in the correponding folder.

But if

I check out a drawing and check in the drawing with above option on then the members and ipart/parent/factory file is deleted with the drawing from local.

 

Is this an expected behaviour.

Is it that the members when released are not currently considered as linked files to ipart/parent/factory ? (WHICH SOUNDS WRONG)

 

It will be great to have members deleted with the ipart/parent/factory file

 

Thanks

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Config :: Intel (R) Xeon (R) CPU E31245 @ 3.30 GHz, 16.0 GB, 64bit win7
Inventor 2013 and Vault Basic 2013
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Message 16 of 17
Senthil_Kumar
in reply to: Ktelang

Thanks for posting back the issue. The reason for this issue is, when you are in Factory file, you will not see the Members in the Vault Browser. But we bring them when you try to Check-in. That's the reason the members are not getting deleted.

 

Also in Vault, the relationship to Factory and Members is bit different. Factory is considered as Child and Member is considered as Parent.

 

Anyway I am still forwarding this to development team to look into this workflow and if possible improve it in future releases.

 

Thanks again!

 



Senthil Kumar
Development Manager,
Autodesk, Inc.


Be sure to check out the Vault Help!
Message 17 of 17
jason.rose
in reply to: mikel_martin

I would like some form of configurable notification to users that have had files checked out for "x" amout of time to remind them to check there files back in.

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