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Enhance management of Inventor Design Data and Templates in Vault
We need the ability to store all deployable files related to Inventor in the Vault. This includes, but is not limited to, the ability to put the Design Data folder into vault, and enhanced tools to manage Templates, Style and material libraries, and iFeatures within the Vault. Being able to deploy inventor settings XMLs through the project file would be very useful as well.
Basically, we need enterprise level tools to manage inventor configuration.
I not sure that I fully understand your wish, but we are doing this today. We use single project method which resides under the Engineering folder (Refer to the screen shot). We then have all of our Inventor custom files in a parallel directory under UM_CAD_Custom. If we make a change to a template or style we just tell our users to go to Vault and perform a "Get Latest" on the entire folder. It sends all appropriate files to their workstation. We used to link to all Inventor custom files on a server, but when you went outside the network, you would loose that access to them. Plus, you had to have another project just for disconnection from the network. We no longer have to worry about that.
The request would be to have that data actually managed within the vault by built in functionality. I know you can put those files into vault, but they are just treated as file objects. The integration for the native parametric modeling suite has no real support for deploying and controlling design data. Its not a solution, its a workaround for the program that is the primary user for vault.
My proposal would be for vault to be able to store those files, deploy them to user's pc. It may be as simple as providing a wizard and a special file classification and maintenance role. From there, the vault client could check vault for new versions of files automatically and bring them local.
Truth be told, we were actually advised against putting those files into vault because, what we were told, is that certain tools that use the design data needs to be modified by inventor and having them be read only on the user's pc would cause glitches.
I know that the files can be put into the vault (even though we were specifically advised against it for design data files by Autodesk). That isn't actually managing and deploying these files. Given the pride that is taken in the integration between Vault and Inventor, those files should actually be deployable from within vault.
That means not having to email everyone and hope that they perform the get. It just isn't feasible with hundreds of users. Providing an interface for an administrator to manage and deploy material and appearance libraries, templates and other design data within vault would be a great feature that would be hard for a competitor to match.
I've seen competitors, and the integration between vault and inventor is nothing magical. This kind of thing would be a differentiator.
Did you had a chance to take a look on the Autodesk Vault Data Standard?
This something we released few weeks ago.
Vault Data Standard is a data control feature helping you to ensure design relevant information is captured in a standardized format during the data entry process in Vault Explorer, Inventor and AutoCAD. This allows you to standardize on methods including mandatory properties, file location, templates and more during data creation.
here is a video, which show few of the capabilities of the data standard:
We've actually written our own program that helps standardize property entry based on external lists (we're integrating vault with downstream systems). More control over folder structure would be really great (ability to disable folder creation rights, except for where required by a program) would be great, but that's a whole other issue.
This idea is basically asking for a tool that would allow administrators to deploy things like inventor templates and design data (bend tables, material and sheet metal rule libraries, design accelerator files, ifeatures, etc) without having to rely on the users to perform a get on a folder to have the latest released files.
It could either be written as part of the inventor add-in itself, or it could be written as a separate add-in that would cache the files to a local directory (the standard appdata directory makes the most sense) and checks each time inventor is opened to see if any files have been changed and automatically downloads the latest (release biased should be an option) files.
I love this idea and I've thought about this a lot. Vault is a data managment tool, but why not use the Vault to ENFORCE settings as a CAD Admin tool.
Enforce defaults on the Vault Prompts
Prevent Inventor from saving/opening files anywhere but the workspace.
Prevent Inventor from editing files unless they are checked out. (If you click NO on a check out prompt you shouldn't be allowed to edit the file. I see a lot of designers with files edited out of turn. That scenario shouldn't happen.)
Enforce Inventor and/or AutoCAD Application Options. This would start out as a global setting (unless you're an admin). Future vault releases would allow applying it to users/groups. (This would facilitate deployment of thousands of seats by enforing settings that shouldn't change)
However, I've seen a post by Irvin Hayes...
"Vault cannot have control of Inventor and what it does outside of Vault, especially if it isn't logged into Vault at the time it starts.
Currently we can save templates or data conception in Vault :
...but Inventor is unable to use directly Vault files : you have to get them from Vault to local workspace, then the project file (or inventor options) define the location in the local workspace. So, if you modify a template, you have to detect the modification from Vault : this mean you open the templates tree and verifiy all status icons. If you see a red icon you manually update your local file.
It could be more practical to define the path directly in the Vault : with this method you are sure to always use an updated version.
Placing functioning Inventor templates and Design Data (Styles) in the Vault is not a good idea. Place them on a network drive and point to them using your Inventor project file. The mapping is under the folder options. This not only isolates your templates and design data away from the standard Inventor ones but you can update them at any time and all will be using them immediately.
I totally aggree you about placing templates on a network drive, this is what I use currently. The advantage to place them in Vault is to manage all the files defined in the ipj (templates, styles, ...) by Vault, and, mosre important, to associate them with the Vault. We work on huge projects, so we use one vault by project. Each project has its own templates, styles, etc. Storing them in the vault assure a complete backup.
We use Vault Professional to manage our work between two different companies. The only connection between the sites is through Vault. We have to store templates in Vault to pass them from site to site. I would like to see Autodesk better integrate all the support files (templates, Style Libraries, ilogic rules, etc) in Vault.
There are also duplicate names inside the Design Data, and unless you turn off the setting for No Duplicates in Vault, you can't check in the design data
I agree that this is something badly needed. If I want to manage design data for all users at my company, using vault is the best option, as that is where all other inventor files are. It is unreasonable to manage these files in a vault that does not allow duplicate file names. Please reference this thread for a further description of the problem:
I've never been a fan of having all of our CAD files stored within the Vault, but we have our Inventor templates and styles on a share drive because Vault can't manage those. What?!
I would like a scenario where the Vault has a section where templates, styles, and everything else that the CAD software requires (Inventor, AutoCAD, Simulation, VRED, etc) is stored. Then, it keeps these files synchronized with the user's local workspace. So, when an admin makes a change to the file, Vault handles getting the updates down to the users.
This could be enforced by having Vault automatically overwrite the local files with the new versions. Maybe display a warning to the user that he has outdated templates instead? Different admins will want different settings, so options here would be good.
The current having to do a Get from Vault every time there is an update or change to templates is cumbersome. If Inventor allowed for the project file to point directly to the server or Vault location WITHOUT having users do a Get, then we can ensure that users are ALWAYS getting the latest templates.
This idea should cover several different types of Inventor configuration data:
The Vault project file itself.
Inventor Templates.
Inventor Style Libraries.
Desktop Content Center Files.
External iLogic Rules.
Inventor Application Options.
Any directory and its files in Vault.
Basically give the CAD administrator in a Vault environment a single place to push CAD standards to all users without having to log into each user's machine.
I'd like to see some options to control when/how the data push happens.
On login to Vault when Inventor or the Vault Client starts
As soon as the data is changed by the CAD admin
This would require some sort of alert to the user to re-start Inventor and the Vault Client
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