Inventor 2022 Content Center Item Sorting Problem

[chrishutchinson6848]

When I place a item such as a hex nut from the Content Center the list of nuts isn't sorted correctly.  See the attached screen shot that shows a 3/8" hex nut after the 3" hex nut NOT at the top of list after 1/4".  After you see the problem the size needed can be found but can't Content Center list the parts in the correct order?

Thanks,

Chris Hutchinson

Duke Energy

Charlotte, NC

[jan_priban]

Hello all,

sorry for the sorting issue, we are aware of it. Sorting issue is tracked in our tracking system as the INVGEN-58801.

Regards

Jan Priban (Autodesk)

[johnsonshiue]

Hi Folks,

The latest status for INVGEN-58801 shows that it has been fixed on internal builds targeting 2022.3 update and 2023.1 update.

Many thanks!

[hannes.olssonPQT3P]

Hi,

I ran into the same issue and found your post.

After some testing I found a solution, just open the spreadsheet in Excel and use the sorting functions to rearrange the spreadsheet to your liking. Apparently this applies to the sorting in the selection dialog. 

Best regards.
Hannes

UPDATE 10-25-2022:
I found that this may be far from ideal for Vault-users. Basically what the Excel rearrange does is change the cell values for each row instead of rearranging them. This means that the parameters of Vaulted members (Size, part number etc.) will change upon refresh. Therefore we had to clear the Vault folder and reupload the parts to avoid messing up existing assemblies. 

If I understand correctly this where supposed to be fixed with update 2022.3. However from what I can tell the problem persists for us (Using 2022.3). I believe that the selection dialog lists them in order of appearance in the spread sheet and that the sorting function is only temporary. With other words: The rows can't be rearranged. Perhaps a rearrange function should be added as a suggestion for upcoming updates?

Best regards.
Hannes

[jan_priban]

Hi Hannes,

thank you for feedback, nice to hear you found a solution.

regards

Jan Priban

[freesbee]

Hi!

I am on 2022.5 and I am having issues. We would like to have the sorting as it is written in the ContentCenter table, as it has been for the last 12 years at least. @johnsonshiue has written that this has been fixed on 2022.3 but it does not appear to be the case.

QUESTION: How do we get the members in the mask sorted as they are in the content center table?

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Why we need it

We sort the ContentCenter table as member shall appear on the mask. If we sort the table this way

Content Center table in Inventor 2020we want that the mask appears as follows

Content Center mask in 2020

This has been working fine for at least 10 years, and we have very good reasons for this specific sorting: the members in the red rectangle are "non standard lengths". Therefore we give to our designers a visual feedback of which are the standard lengths: the ones on the top of the list (3, 4, 5, 6, 8, 10, 12, 16, 20 in this specific case).

The same in Inventor 2022.5 reacts completely differently: here is my table, sorted as it has always been

Content Center table in Inventor 2022

but here is what the mask shows, which is undesired and different from previous behavior:

Content Center mask in 2022.5

Here the length "4" (non-standard) appears on top of all others, and our designers will mount a non standard length thinking that it is standard, which is heavily misleading. The lengths "4", "35" and "40" should appear under the length "30", exactly in the order specified in the content center table.

This is a simple example, but things can degenerate very quickly, leading to a total mess. Here an example of a family with more non standard lengths:

Content Center table in Inventor 2022

The mask mixes up everything, which is a total mess:

Content Center mask in 2022.5

So how do we get back the proper sorting in the mask, which means in our case "the same sorting that is provided in the content center table"?

[jan_priban]

Hello all,

we got request related to "keeping old sorting" from our Autodesk product support guys. We are aware there are people they want to define order of items in Content Center family dialog via Excel by themselves. FYI, this request is tracked as the INVGEN-73055 in out tracking system.

Thank you for reporting this.

Regards

Jan Priban

[freesbee]

Can you share any target release for fixing INVGEN-73055?

[jan_priban]

Unfortunately I am not allowed to say when it will be available

Jan Priban

[cadman777]

This may be irrelevant, but the way I sort items in the CC Family Table is to make a new column called 'Sort' and then add alpha-numeric values to each cell so the table sorts correctly.

So maybe you can use my work-around to accomplish what you want?

To do it you add a new column, then copy all values to it from your existing sort column.

Than add an 'A' prefix to all the sizes you want listed first, and add a 'B' prefix to all sizes you want listed next.

Then sort, save and close.

Then check the 'mask' to see if they retained their CCFT order?  

[freesbee]

Dear CadMan,

Thank you for this tip. I am aware of this technique, as I use it in other fields (sheet metal styles for example). So far I did not explore this possible strategy in the ContentCenter, but I am sure that it can work.

However, I cannot agree with Autodesk guys changing things that are established since more than one decade, and now that they realize that they have done something inconvenient they simply answer "oh, yes, we had requests in this area and we are aware that we have done a mistake, but we still don't have a plan to fix it". That is exactly the case with INVGEN-73055.

In my specific situation the fix you propose would mean weeks of work by multiple companies in different systems for no valid reason (I have authored a quarter of a million custom content center parts, and all users are/were happy with them). If Autodesk would pay that work, then we could discuss how to approach the problem, but I am quite sure that Autodesk will NOT pay for this adjusting.

Hopefully a timeframe for INVGEN-73055 will come in the near future... in the meantime we can only "scale it to the support team"... whatever that may mean.

[cadman777]

Hi Massimo,

I fully agree with you. I have made many 'rants' in the past on this forum about costs incurred due to 'defects in the software' that Autodesk refuses to fix, or introduced during 'upgrades', or otherwise should not exist in the software. Some of my posts in here have been 'censored' due to my pointing the finger at the 'perps' at Autodesk. The problem today is that corporations have no accountability. The 'corporate veil' is the 'fortified city' that the corporate criminals hide behind to 'milk the public' and get away with it. It all points in one direction: Global commerce. BIG SUBJECT!

Your work sounds impressive. Sorry to hear that you have been 'hamstrung' by negligence, shoddy workmanship, and stupid bureaucratic decision making!

[freesbee]

...just a part of them (and they are all paired to ERP items!! 😉😞