Can Data Standards be created that require unique properties

[Anonymous]

Greetings,

Is anyone aware of Data Standards being capable of requiring unique iproperties namely the part number?  My company is wanting to link our 2 design sites.  One has no Vault and uses multiple IPJ files to manage projects, while the other will be transitioning from a single IPJ Vault 2013 Basic to 2016 Pro, but has neglected maintaining it for the past 10 years. Both sites do custom design work with standard parts and assemblies.  The plan is that both sites will share standard designs and library parts.  The non Vault site makes use of iparts and iassemblies, where as the Vault site has a "library folder" which is actually a common working folder they share and basically dump everything into.  As a result the Vault site "library" is a mess.  To add a little more flavor we recently implemented an ERP within the company that pulled 3 different sites part numbering systems into 1, and management wants these numbers applied to designs.  Our design groups did a poor job of using iproperties, so both sites have only recently started showing part numbers on the drawings, and most parts do not have anything associated to them yet.

We plan to change the non Vault site to using single IPJ Vault with libraries that make us of iparts they have already created.  The iparts tables will be assigned with the part numbering from our ERP.  Our site with Vault will have all their "library" moved to Pro into a locked down file.  This will restrict them from creating additional parts in their legacy library, and hopefully force them to start actually making use of the common library that contains the correct part numbering from the ERP.

This is where a data standard for unique iproperties comes in.  I know data standards can help or force designers to fill in iproperties, but can they also be used to determine if a part number is already in use?  Would items have anything to do with this?

[marco.mirandola · Accepted solution]

WOW, it's a quite intriguing situation! Data Standard is definitively a good choice in order to drive the designers on filling up the properties required by the companies business rules.

In order to prevent users creating part numbers that already exists, there are several ways.
- One way is to make some smaller customisations to Data Standard and let the dialog search Vault for the entered part number, and in case the number already exists, then behave accordingly. For this, you'll have to use few lines of Vault API code within the Data Standard dialog, such as FindFilesBySearchConditions and set the part number as search condition.
- Another way is to integrate Vault with your ERP system. This would lead that part numbers are no longer create manually in Vault or added manually to CAD files. Instead, the designer can directly communicate with the ERP system, and either assign an existing number or create new (in case this is desired).

For the part number search, we may create a sample in the next weeks, so that you get an idea how this might work.
For the ERP integration, we point you to powerGate (http://www.coolorange.com/en/powerGate.php), which is an extension for Vault hat makes it simple to integrate with any ERP system. This is build on top of Data Standard, so it would perfectly fit.

i Hope this gives you at least a direction how this problem can be addressed.

ciao, marco

[marco.mirandola · Accepted solution]

Just an update. We just published a post on our blog that shows how you can check if the part number is unique via Data Standard. have a look:http://blog.coolorange.com/2015/09/18/unique-part-number-check/

i hope this helps
ciao, marco

[Anonymous]

Wow, I've been looking at coolOrange for awhile.  Amazing place for4 Vault info.  Never thought I would get this kind of attention.  I'm so flattered

Thanks for the great answer and the example.  My Vault experience is limited to setting up a basic one a couple years ago in a class, so everyday I am more amazed with what Vault is capable of.  We are working to the goal of direct integration with our ERP, but the company trying to do this on the cheap so its been a tedious task and often confusing undertaking.  Really appreciate the help.  I was part of our ERP implementation so I understand how key Vault will be to integrate them correctly.  Unfortunately, as they say in sports, our team in in a rebuilding season.

I am still trying to figure out what is the correct focus to have with Content Center Libraries, product vs project focus.  Will how Data Standards search Vault be affected by what libraries are selected to be used in the project?

[marco.mirandola]

Hi, sorry for late response. The search that we've used in the blog post, is the Vault search and it's quite capable. So, for instance you can configure which folders the search should be limited in, which properties, etc. So, you can either exclude the library/content center folder, or include them, etc. You are quite flexible on this.

in case you may need active help on your project, feel free to get in touch with us. best is probably privately.

ciao, marco