topic Re: Switching Vault Users in Vault Forum

Switching Vault Users

Anonymous — Wed, 04 Oct 2017 08:11:49 GMT

Somebody created a number of vault user profiles and checked out most of our vault (inventor ipt, iam and idw's) to these profiles on one workstation.

I believe they are proposing that when we need the parts, we login to vault as one of these users on our workstation and checkin the bit we need then logout, login our normal profile and edit the parts, then checkin the part, switch user profile again and checkout back to this created profile.

From past experience, switching vault users and checking in from different machines causes instabilities both in Inventor and Vault, is there any reasons for this instability or a valid reason not to do it this way? We are using Vault basic and have no intention to upgrade at the moment

Thanks

Re: Switching Vault Users

cbenner — Wed, 04 Oct 2017 11:23:11 GMT

@Anonymous

I can't speak to any reasons why this would cause instability, but I just have to ask..... What?! That sounds like a nightmare scenario and I can't think of any legitimate reason why you would WANT to do it. Is there some security reason for having to switch user profiles to make changes to parts?

Re: Switching Vault Users

mflayler — Wed, 04 Oct 2017 12:44:17 GMT

Chris,

Its a poor man's release cycle. Checking out to a user called Release has the ability to technically lock the file for editing. I've seen it done but takes a great deal of understanding and patience. Also not using the Undo Check out will create a LOT of versions of the file in Vault.

Instability...depends on how you look at it. Technically nothing wrong with it.

Re: Switching Vault Users

cbenner — Wed, 04 Oct 2017 13:23:47 GMT

@mflayler wrote:

Chris,

Its a poor man's release cycle. Checking out to a user called Release has the ability to technically lock the file for editing. I've seen it done but takes a great deal of understanding and patience. Also not using the Undo Check out will create a LOT of versions of the file in Vault.

Instability...depends on how you look at it. Technically nothing wrong with it.

Thanks for the explanation @mflayler.... I was scratching my head trying to figure out why anyone would want to do that. Seems like such a run around. But I've never used Vault Basic, so I guess I'm used to the life cycle management in Pro.

Re: Switching Vault Users

ihayesjr — Wed, 04 Oct 2017 15:12:01 GMT

I am assuming this is being used with Vault Basic. In the past Vault would not allow you to check-in files if they were checked out from a different machine. This doesn't cause instability as it wouldn't create a new version of the file. You were forced to perform an undo check-out.

The problem with this solution is if you don't have the latest version of the file on your workstation you could be checking in a new version or an old version. This would cause instability as it could break associations and assemblies that used the file. Unwanted versions are now in Vault. If you do this it would take extreme discipline and you should only use the Undo Check-out to prevent a new version and instability.

Re: Switching Vault Users

Anonymous — Fri, 06 Oct 2017 12:31:16 GMT

Thanks for the replies. The problem is the person who has taken responsibility for administering the vault has no clue as to how it works. The scenario came about because untrained users were checking out top level assemblies including all children and checking back in the wrong versions of files... Training is not an option nor administering vault properly so this is what we are left with.

I know in the past switching vault users both in inventor and in the vault has caused instabilities and crashes but wanted to quantify these problems. Offering alternative solutions will not help, for me its about how I can get thru my working day with minimal disruption