topic Re: About Vault in Vault Forum

About Vault

Anonymous — Thu, 25 Jan 2018 20:41:51 GMT

Hi everyone,

I work on a engineering consultancy firm and I`ve been designated to select the documents management software that best suits our needs.

We use to design things using Microsoft Office and Autodesk tools, like Revit, Civil 3d, Cad, Navisworks, etc..

We work on multiple projects. In some of them we are the designer firm; others we are the construction and design manager. Actually we use dropbox and a standard folders structure for almost every project we are in.

We are used to work most of our time for government projects. And we are always dealing with many stakeholders that need to be well informed about the ongoing of our projects.

We have been studying the ProjectWise software form Bentley and now We are curious about Autodesk Vault software. Some things are still not clear for us about Vault sofware. How do the file storage works on it? Autodesk have a host server and we upload our files? Does it have unlimited storage? Do we have to store our files locally on our own server and get it linked to internet? How does it work?

And, in your opinions, is Vault better than ProjectWise or not? Does anyone have some experience with them ??

Thanks in advance,

Tarek

Re: About Vault

rtowne72 — Thu, 25 Jan 2018 21:51:56 GMT

Welcome to the Forum and this is a great place to ask your questions.

First off I know nothing about Bentley ProjectWise, but know quite a bit about Vault!

Vault will integrate easily with your Autodesk Products and also any MS Office products you have. Using Dropbox will not be needed if you install Vault as there are share options for design files and just viewing files. This feature is called Shared Views and you can also integrate Autodesk Drive to share whole data files and designs.

Here is a link to show you how the Shared Views are Achieved: http://underthehood-autodesk.typepad.com/blog/2017/09/shared-views-with-autodesk-vault.html

Here is a Link to what Autodesk Drive is: https://help.autodesk.com/view/DRIVE/ENU/?guid=GUID-A0317A19-4350-4583-A671-1AFFA5C84217

You mention working with Government Projects, Vault is great for Security of files like these. Within Vault there are lifecycle and category security settings that be customized by groups or users. Customizing vault for your needs is simple and can be handled by the Administrator or a VAR can do this for you. For instance we have an engineering lifecycle that only allows certain people to see a file before it is released. Upon release it is locked down and is in a View only state for those with permission to view the file.

As for storage, this is dependent on if you have a MSSQL server installed or use the Express Server that comes by default with the installer. We use a separate MSSQL Server and we are only limited by Server configuration at that time, moistly Hard Drive Size or SAN/NAS size. MSSQL Express limits the number of Processor Cores, DB Size and RAM, with RAM being the largest detriment followed close by DB Size.

Vault Requires a Server called the ADMS and Client installed on each persons computer, either Professional, Workgroup or Office (for non CAD Users). There are many add-ins avaialble for Vault, with too many to mention. Here is a link showing the intrations available: https://knowledge.autodesk.com/support/vault-products/learn-explore/caas/CloudHelp/cloudhelp/2018/ENU/Vault-About/files/GUID-334CC890-1F12-429C-9D6A-B964327CA590-htm.html

Here is an overview of how Vault works: https://knowledge.autodesk.com/support/vault-products/learn-explore/caas/CloudHelp/cloudhelp/2018/ENU/Vault-Install/files/GUID-8E5D6085-A006-4D9F-B880-10E18BABFF6B-htm.html

To sum up, we have been using Vault company wide for 2 years and 4 years in just the Engineering Dept. We have multiple sites/plants (6 total US and international) configured that allow access to the files and data seamlessly. I am the CAD Manager and handle all the customizing and Security of the Vault. I am sure others will chime in with stories of Vault, but I cannot imaging using anything but Vault, and in your case especially since you already use Autodesk Products. Hope this helps with your decision to obtain Vault.

Re: About Vault

cbenner — Fri, 26 Jan 2018 16:38:01 GMT

@Anonymous

I would add to this but @rtowne72 covered it quite nicely. I will simply add that we have been using Vault since it became an Autodesk product. Our records show that we were the first customer to buy a Vault license many many years ago. We have been continuously integrating more and more of the features into our workflow. We currently use Vault Professional and control our revisions through the ECO process built in.

I also know nothing about the Bentley product, sorry. But I can say Vault has been a good tool to work with all these years.

Re: About Vault

Jason.Courtemanche — Tue, 30 Jan 2018 19:26:21 GMT

Hi @Anonymous

I'm just checking in to see if you need more help with this. Did the suggestion that @rtowne72 & @cbenner provided work for you?
If so, please click Accept as Solution on the posts that helped you so others in the community can find them easily.

Regards,

Jason

Re: About Vault

Anonymous — Wed, 31 Jan 2018 18:44:53 GMT

Hello guys,

Thanks for the replies. I wish I could see the opinion of other people about it and have more discussion about the differences between Vault and ProjectWise, and know if anybody had some experience with both softwares.

Thanks in advance,

Tarek

Re: About Vault

kent_wold — Mon, 26 Aug 2019 12:26:36 GMT

I too only have experience with Vault Basic and Vault Pro.

The consultancy firm I work with now is also deciding between ProjectWise and Vault Pro and most of the experience here has been with ProjectWise. I am the only person here that has worked with Vault Pro and that was 3 years ago even though I administrated and oversaw the install of Vault Basic at the last location as I was the de-facto CAD Manager there as it was a very small department.

Although I am leaning towards Vault Pro due to its ability to manipulate Inventor files without losing links etc. I am likely going to be hard pressed to find the answers to our questions here.

Unfortunately it appears ProjectWise handles .dwg files and other Autodesk information quite well and my only experience with non-Autodesk files is dropping in .stp files etc for certification used by the consulting engineer for FEA etc..

Can anyone tell me how well Vault Pro handles Microstation files? Can they be checked in and out like .dwg? Is there a working method that can be used to make Microstation files work with Vault? Our largest client requires final submissions of drawings to be .dgn for their own file system so we are stuck with that and converting a dwg though not hard is made more difficult due to specific lineweights they use and the font they have as standard is Microstation only! I can closely approximate the title block and 'look' in an Inventor .idw but I cannot replicate their title block as it also has a title block checker that is an automated code we have to run on the .dgn file before submission.

Any suggestions?

Does anyone have experience in both that can give their input on both systems?

Thanks in advance!

Re: About Vault

DarrenP — Mon, 26 Aug 2019 19:20:31 GMT

i know with Microstation Autodesk does provide an add in for it here with Vault Pro: https://apps.autodesk.com/VLTC/en/List/Search?isAppSearch=True&searchboxstore=VLTC&facet=&collection=&sort=&query=microstation

but this only works up to 2019 Vault it does not work with 2020

Re: About Vault

Anonymous — Tue, 01 Sep 2020 11:13:39 GMT

Hi，

I notice that your company seems to be quite successful using vault and you ,sir, are very proficient .So could you give some advice on my situation? In my company, it is quite often seen that different project owners require the specific version of dwg or rvt files as they needed, accordingly different versions of CAD and Revit are all used in our office. As a result , we have to keep several version of vault Servers and Cilents ,Add-ins because of the limits of compatibility for different releases. We could not figure out how to connect all these different version of Server. Is it possible that all these Servers, like Vault Server 2016,2017,2018 ,2019 ,2020 linked to one file store in one SQL environment, in which way our data and files could be accessed to seamlessly liked yours, among different projects?

I wonder if I make my points clear or not, and it's really appreciated if you could help.

Thanks a lot .

Re: About Vault

DarrenP — Tue, 01 Sep 2020 12:01:13 GMT

no you can't

you will need multiple servers with with vault server installed on them

with 2020 you can connect 2019, 2018

if you need 2017 & 2016 you will need to install 2017 or 2018 vault server to connect to them

Re: About Vault

Anonymous — Wed, 02 Sep 2020 02:11:33 GMT

ok.I guess so.

Thanks for your reply.