Managing CAD and item revisions in Vault

[shlee3983]

Hello~ 

I'm looking for advice on how to manage revisions when using Items in Autodesk vault.
.
If I use the revision of the CAD file, there is no revision of the item, so I can't separate the revisions in the item.
Also, if I use the revision of the Item, I can't use the CAD file separately by revision, so I can't check the CAD file by revision.
I'm looking for advice on how to manage revisions of CAD files when using items in Vault.

Any advice would be appreciated.

Thanks. 

[Gabriel_Watson]

From what I understand, practically you manage revisions from the item level more than the file level. When you release a file you should have it associated with an item, and then handle change management through the item (revise the item -> revise the file -> release both again).

Sometimes you may have files that were released many times prior to items being introduced, and in that case you get an item release numbering lower than the file. This is mostly fine, as perfect synchronicity of numbering isn't needed. You just treat file revisions compared to item revisions the same way you would treat version numbering compared to file revisions when items are not in play.

[shlee3983]

Galaxybane, thanks for the great response.

If there are any companies using Vault Professional that actually use the items, I'd love to hear examples of how they're using them.

Thanks.

[Gabriel_Watson]

In two companies I worked at where items were used, the first one worked as I described above, and the second only used items sparingly for releases to manufacturing. The latter would not really release items because their export to ERP integration did not require those.
Tagging @CGBenner who can give more examples.

[CGBenner]

@shlee3983 

Thanks, @Gabriel_Watson for the tag.  I've been out of practice for a few years now, but in my previous role, the company I worked for used Items as the Released data for production.  The machinery we build was of a type that did not ever require a revision on a single part (mainly purchased components mounted on a house built frame), so this is how we structured things.

The Item was assigned to the Drawing, not the Inventor model or assembly.   Lifecycle state changes and Revisions were all performed on the Item through the Vault Pro ECO process.  I added watermarks to the drawing files, through Vault, that reflected the current State of those drawings, so that anyone trying to access them from Vault CLient or thin client would see the current state and whether or now they could be used for production.  In Vault itself, the file revision didn't mean anything since the only drawing that could be used was the one attached to the Item.  Drawing files in project explorer in Client would not have the watermark, and so could not be used for anything.  We were not totally paperless, but we were going in that direction.

A lot of what I set up over the years there is documented in my old blog here.  You may have to do some digging through articles to find the ones that are meaningful to you.  EDIT: Looks like I did NOT ublish any articles on this topic... sorry!

Also, if you want to know more about ECO and Vault Revision blocks... try this class from AU2019.

There are a lot of correct ways to do this, it comes down to trying things (in a test environment if possible), and figuring out what process works best for you.  We're always here to help as you go through this journey!