Bring back the Version Number

[Webdad]

I've worked with Fusion 360 for 8 years, and developed workflows and SOPs that were heavily dependent on the version number in both the view as well as saving STL meshes.  The recent decision to not only stop adding the version number to mesh saves but also remove the visibility of the version number completely within Fusion 360 has severely crippled by ability to be productive with this software.

What recourse, besides moving to another CAD solution, is there for regaining lost / crippled functionality?

[ColintFKJ99]

Jumping in on this as well. Losing versions has been the biggest problem that my company has experienced with Fusion's involuntary updates. Losing the old versions from previously completed work is a huge problem. For the future updates, It does not matter to me whether it would be an auto version with each save or if you have to manually create a version when it is needed. The important thing to us is to quick and easily see what version a model/ drawing is to determine if it is the most updated version or not. The version needs to be added to the name of the files in fusion and when exported as they were before.

[victor.farautS6FQB]

@cyan_perry thank you for acknowledging that the community is not super happy with the change and sharing this blog post.

I do agree that I was a bit confused back in the days coming from solidworks to Fusion with all the version thing. However this is how the software is from years now. People have build workflows, scripts, extensions to be able to work with and even get a usage of such feature. The simple exemple can be to embosse the version number to a part for it to be printed of machine and thus creating a unbreakable link to the version. I don't see myself embossing the timestamp of this save into the part... 

As an other user mention. The UI in the software is slow, page opening is lagy and worst of all, not consistante between the "home" tab, the left panel and the web UI. At least in my version of my hub, the new version function doesn't work. Everytime I have an error.

I cannot quickly add a description of my version as now I need to save in Fusion, then go to the web view of the hub, reload, click on the history control panel and then I can change the description. This is now a multi click feature while it was a one click one. The old one had some issues as well, the non ability to edit the description if you did an error in it was one. But at least it was quick, worked, and was here since day one. So the whole process and the habits of people and their workflow works with this. 

As many suggested, making just a toggleable option in the team menu doesn't look like a very hard thing to do. But please if you roll it out. Roll out all the functionalities at once. We are not ALPHA tester. For many, we pay and rely on this tool to make our work. 

[pedro_souza4MQRX]

I know there is a lot of frustating comments that seems repetitive, however I'm obligated to have my disappointment with Fusion 360 after this major update.

Unfortunatelly, there is also more problems besides the version itself. Actually, this missing in history is something new for me.

The first problem appeared was due to getting part number in drawing files, as seeing in my custom descriptions, names and number parts on my designs componentes properties got lost on the ... topic.

That all is actually very frustating, since it is delaying a lot of our work. Since we do not have any option or path to recover it, we are having a lot of work that was already done due to all problem caused by this major HUB update.

Really unfortunate.

[greenwoods1462]

Please add me to the long list of frustrated CUSTOMERS- this change is a disaster for me and I feel very disappointed with the management at Fusion.  You are out of touch with what your users need.

[Webdad]

Cyan,

Thanks for the post.  

I'm trying to sift through the statements and understand exactly what is / will be provided as far as legacy versioning.  From your statements, it appears that legacy versioning is dead, but there are efforts being made to reveal the previous version numbers by embedding them in the history panel, but they will just be for show, and any real use will require manually extracting or tracking linkages back thru the history. 

Your below statement needs a little clarification for me:

• Restoring and surfacing version numbers on legacy data (saved prior to CE hub) so you can more easily map past work into the new experience. For legacy designs, those numbers were generated on every save – going forward, saves won’t be numbered, and only intentionally created Versions will include an auto-assigned version number (shown in the version description) for traceability.

Based on the above, am I correct in assuming that a legacy design will show the historical version numbers as prefixes in the Description field, but there won't be any way to continue that version sequence without manually over-riding the proposed version during the Create Version step, each and every time?  If that is correct, it further shows the lack of value in attempting to create versions through the file menu, since it doesn't understand any custom previous versions and provides no access to the list of previous versions.

For the Export traceability tagging, how exactly is the tag going to be created / maintained, and is it user editable or will be generated in the background and "as is" so to speak?

It seems like the export tag will be separate and distinct from the version sequence (automated or manual) and so any "traceability" will require manually traversing the UI to get to the History panel and traveling back to the version, is that correct?

Aside from resurfacing legacy version numbers, not sure we've moved forward very much.  These new workflows are cumbersome, slow, clunky, and error prone from what I can tell.  If I'm wrong, I'd like to see the team post some videos of editing a design with legacy versions, creating new versions that continue that legacy version sequence, and then exporting the new version with the export tag.

[admin]

What is "saved"? A timestamp? What good is that? We need our version numbers back. This is seriously complicating operations

[admin]

If enough of us complain, they will listen. Count me in

[almiradjo]

This blog post does not solve the problem.

I don't care about multi-user collaboration features; I just want the software to work the way it did before.

You can keep both systems, but there must be an option in the settings to turn automatic versioning on save back on.

When are you going to implement this option and bring back the old workflow? 

Can someone in charge please respond?

[jlarsonLP454]

I posted another thread yesterday since I didn't realize this thread existed. For me the loss of easy save descriptions is the biggest issue, followed by the lack of images next to each file in the history, followed by the laggy slow history pop up window, but overall this is a terrible change and should be reversed.

[scarwars13]

Please bring back version history how else are you supposed to find the files you need? especially when there are multiple files, and you know the most edited is what you are looking for?

[kevin.dudley]

Absolutely a huge inconvenience and causes lack of visibility on what you are working on.

The History panel is SLOWWWWWWWWWW!

[lawrenceV4TAS]

Version variation is our data to record the history of design stages.   It's terrible that other company can take away our own data.   

Without those history data, it may possibly damage the final design but also greatly slow down our design process.

Please bring back our version information as soon as possible.

[mattirvin]

This just rolled out for me and it is a big disappointment since I have engraved all of my prototypes with versions numbers for each part in my assembly to identify what features they have. I figured out I can count each save to find get the version number, but I was at version 139 and counting is a pain. I am sure I will adapt going forward, but I feel for all of the people who need to change their ISO9000 documentation or whatever other sop's they use to match the new Fusion way.

I'm guessing it has already been covered, but I looked and you can get the version number from the API. So a script or add in could at least display the current version of the file you are working on. This doesn't help with finding the version in the history list though. I had the Fusion Assistant write an Add In and now I can quickly click an icon next to ADD-INS to find out what the current version I am working on is.  I also created a user parameter that gets updated when I click on the icon.

Not a great solution, but at least I feel a little better about things now.

[mattirvin]

FYI, in the API the important variables are datafile.latestVersionNumber for the latest version and datafile.versionNumber for the current version.  

[leighCB8FK]

Another long time user 7+ years, who misses the option to add the description when saving, for those who did not care they could just press enter.

[urmo.koiv]

I have been using fusion for almost 10 years now. This enshittification is a huge problem. It blows my mind that they did it. "Ah, those suckers don't need version numbers". what are we supposed to do to keep track of our versioning now? Before it was simple - save and forget because it bumped automatically and the version history could be seen in the data panel, allowing to interact with specific versions. Great job increasing our cognitive load and breaking workflows and user data that has carried businesses for year. Seriously? Somebody needs to be sacked for this major eff up. Haven't you guys evaluated your competition? You made OnShape look really compelling because they have nailed the version control. 
I hope you get sued over this. What you have done has real life cost for companies and it's unfair that you can mess with your customers with no consequences. 

[infoYYZLD]

Don,t you think this shoul be the revision to be automated in fusion? The revision functionality is so terrible that we can assume it does not work in fusion. This is something to be taken as a versioning in engineering practice. But, this also des not work. byt automatic versioning of every file was stupid in my oppinion because evetry save was creating version. So we had for example files that had v1457 - makes totally no sense. and not saving each 5mins or during big moves of components also is not possible because this software is unstable completly.

[rob.holmesBKLJD]

If Fusion 360 had moved to an auto save system, where every action was automatically saved. The removal of version numbers from the saves would have made sense. The 'Save' button / function could then have been the 'Create Version' which could then ask for version comments (Or show this via a preferences, so it suits those who need comments and those who don't).

Auto saving would avoid having to have a recovery system, even if that auto saving was just local until the cloud connection came back up. Or would also give Fusion a new selling feature which is comparable with other cloud based platforms. Plus it would remove the link between Saving & Versioning which seems to have been the driving force for this move. Which makes sense, just not the way it's been implemented currently.

It also wouldn't have been such a problem had the version history and comments area not have been behind a very slow to load, hard to read windowed box. You've taken a feature that was front and centre and moved it to an after thought.

[moriarty.chch]

This was the last AD update - looks like we are stuck with it ?

[ChrisHeerschap]

---

 wrote:

If Fusion 360 had moved to an auto save system, where every action was automatically saved...

---

I kinda like this idea. It's not _far_ off of how it works now, it's definitely saving changes locally which we can attest to each time Fusion crashes and we're presented with the recovery dialog. Like this morning when it was beach balling before I even tried to use it. Killed it off, recovered the one thing that was open and it was right where it was.

Make that "official" and then make save "create a version" with the comments and I think that would be a total winner.

It also 100% won't happen because Autodesk knows better and we just gotta play along.