Vault Data Standard Behavior Issues

[swalton]

We are just getting started using Vault Data Standard with Vault Professional 2022 and Inventor 2022.  We are using Categories, Lifecycles, Revisions and Numbering Schemes.

We have done some customizations to enforce various parameters depending on the file's Vault Category.

We have noticed the following issues:

1. Failure to run VDS When Creating a Custom Content Center Structural Steel Part
1. We place structural steel components from Content Center as Custom, so we can use a Vault Numbering Scheme to set filename/part number.
2. When VDS is disabled, we get the normal Numbering Scheme dialog when saving these files for the first time.
3. When VDS is enabled, we get the default save dialog and filename as defined in the CC part table.
4. When we were using VDS in the 2020 release package, we got to rename the files with the Vault Numbering Scheme, but did not get the full VDS interface.
2. Some VDS Ribbon Commands have no effect.
1. Pressing the “Copy”  and “Copy incl. Drawing” Commands trigger a quick busy icon, but do not call up a window or other interface.  It does not create a copy of the open document on disk or in Vault.
3. Some VDS Ribbbon Commands have inconsistent effect.
1. Pressing the “Replace with Copy” and “Replace with Copy incl. Drawing” Commands sometime trigger a VDS window and sometimes do not.
2. Yesterday, I was able to use Replace with Copy 6 times in a row.  Today it does not work at all.  
4. Enforcing ALL CAPS in VDS fields disables the space bar at the end of a text string.  The space bar works if the arrow keys are used to move the cursor to any other location in the string.  This appears to be fixed in Vault 2023, but the fix has not been backported to 2022 yet.
5. VDS window hides required fields that have values when saving copies of existing models.  This prevents me from updating the required information for the new model.

I’m not sure which of the above behaviors are as-designed and which are errors in VDS or our customization scripts.

Please let me know if you have seen any similar issues and if you had a resolution.

[Markus.Koechl]

Regarding 1): I see the same behavior in 2022 and 2023; we are already looking into this and checking for a regression compared to 2020.

Regarding 2, 3): Did you check the log-files in c:\temp\? Did you compare the default configuration with your customized one? If all customizations are made in *.Custom\ folders instead of changing the default ones, the fastest way to turn on default is renaming the \*.Custom\ folder to, e.g., \*.CustomRenamed". How did you migrate your customizations from 2020 to 2022?

Regarding 5): can you share a screenshot? The InventorDynamicProperties.xml applies consistently to the dynamic grid, independently of _CreateMode, _CopyMode, or _SaveCopyAsMode.

[swalton]

@Markus.Koechl 

I am traveling for the next few days, so I won't be able to update much.

1. Understand that this is a regression that Autodesk is researching for a fix.
2. Looking at my C:\Temp directory on my laptop, I find two log files
   1. dataStandardVaultlog.txt
   2. DataStandardInventorlog.txt
   3. Both are empty files. 
   4. I will check on my primary workstation when I get back to the office.
3. The custom jobs
   1. I did not do the customization so I am not sure what was done.  I'll check with our team.
4. Still waiting on a fix from Autodesk
5. I have an Screencast that I can share.  Please let me know your email so I can send you the link.

[swalton]

Here are the log files from a coworker's machine.

I'm not sure what operations he attempted, but most of the errors are about failing to extract a thumbnail.

I'll try to generate some log files on my laptop.

[swalton]

I just tried to use the VDS Copy command on an Inventor Part, then tried to use the Replace with Copy Command.  Both commands failed, but generated log data.

Inventor Log is attached.

[Markus.Koechl]

The errors most likely relate to customizations; they should not occur running the Autodesk default one. Note - customizations may include localization files, e.g., en-US, de-DE, etc., so you need to swap these back to the Adsk default. The error shown could be a double entry in one of these localization files.

[swalton]

Digging a bit more into the background.

We have several custom Job Processor events that run on Lifecycle changes. They were developed by CoolOrange if that matters.

We are not aware of any custom VDS code, other than whatever is created by using the Vault Properties window.  I've got an email to our consultant to see if there is something we missed.

See the attached screenshot for our typical settings.

[swalton]

Our installation consultant says we don't have any VDS customization.  Is there an easy way to verify that our system is using Autodesk defaults?

[Markus.Koechl · Accepted solution]

I come back with an update for the first issue on your list: the behavior change has been intentional, but we missed updating the documentation and readme. The default behavior follows the rule, that a Content Center Part is complete in regards to metadata and naming conventions, regardless it saves as standard or custom.

And we acknowledge also that there are good reasons to allow user interactions on metadata and/or file naming conventions for custom parts; therefore, the change introduces a configuration option for the VDS Inventor AddIn. Follow the attached documentation (preview) that we are going to publish soon.

All your other topics 2..5 obviously do not relate to customizations and need investigations on a default installed computer. I cannot reproduce these.

[swalton]

Thanks for the updated documentation.  It helps resolve Issue 1 in my original post.

Is there a way to update the VDS config file for all Vault users?  Or do I have to go to each workstation and laptop to manually edit the config file?  What is the normal workflow for pushing out custom VDS settings to each user?

Issues 2-5: Are you saying that you have tested the workflows and can't reproduce the problems, or are you saying that you focus on Vault Customization, and therefore I need to start a support case for each of these issues?

[swalton]

Issue 1 is resolved by the updated documentation.

Issues 2,3, and 5 are being addressed by Autodesk Support.

Issue 4 is being addressed by Autodesk development.

Thanks all for the help understanding the tool and the issues.

[fredform]

Hi swalton,

Did you resolve the issues related to the ribbon button not behaving as expected? I noticed the same things on my own machine. "File"-buttons (Save, Datasheet, Save copy as) seemingly have no effect. Copy commands trigger a brief windows "loading-icon" but nothing happens after that. About-button behaves as expected.

Attached is my error log.

/Fredrik