New 2018 PDF - how you gonna do this

[Neil_Cross]

This is possibly a nothing post, I think I'm just curious to know the mindset on how either Autodesk expect you to work this, or how people plan on implementing it.

The new 2018 PDF create job, by factory default the job creates a 2D PDF and puts it onto a Design Representation category, Released, on a default Design Representation lifecycle scheme.  Fine, all good.  We have a released drawing and a released PDF.

But.

If you roll back the original drawing to WIP, it doesn't roll back or delete/break the link to the PDF.

If you quick change the original drawing, it doesn't do that either.  The PDF stays at Released.

So then, when you re-release the drawing it obviously requires a new PDF to be created, but it can't create it because there's already a PDF there and it's Released.  It can't overwrite something which is released.

So ALL customers MUST edit the Design Representation lifecycle scheme and give the job processor account allow modify rights to the Released state of the PDF lifecycle.  This is an absolute must else there's a massive risk of incorrect PDFs being issued for drawings that are re-released at a single revision level.  

It also doesn't create an error in the job queue either to say the PDF failed, don't quote me on that though I might have missed it but I'm 90% sure it didn't.  It failed on the property sync jobs and therefore didn't spawn the PDF job.

We did this 'trick' in the past when trying to sync property changes into a released drawing title block, an optional attempt at creating functionality that Vault arguably should have done already.  This time however, this is needing to add rights to a released state to prevent a legacy PDF from remaining active.  This is compulsory.

So with that being said, is this documented clearly anywhere or is this just something that a system admin/Vault guy should be able to figure out for themselves as part of their assumed skill set required for taking on the responsibility of setting up a Vault Pro system?

Option B is to change the lifecycle of the PDF with the drawing and keep them in sync, but that's an extra level of file management that nobody wants.  Having to manually check the lifecycle state of dozens of PDFs in state change operation to make sure you're grabbing them as well as the drawing isn't something I'd recommend anyone does.  And having a WIP PDF showing a legacy revision but it having the next revision letter also doesn't make any sense.

Option C is to completely stop the PDF from receiving a lifecycle, I'm not actually sure why it needs one in the first place.  It's a read only file anyway.

Not sure if anybody could be bothered to read all that, but just curious to know how different people plan on approaching this.

[Senthil_Kumar]

Hi Neil,

How are you? Thanks for the detailed post on the new PDF functionality. Would like to clarify few things on this.

1. We have documented on how to use/create PDF in the help at - http://help.autodesk.com/view/VAULT/2018/ENU/?guid=GUID-F05BFEAF-A362-4070-BBA6-F3A74602967E. Please review and let us know if the information is not clear and we will be glad to fix.

2. Regarding the Option B you have mentioned, I may be missing some information. Do you want to Sync the revision between source and PDF or you do not want to ? Because we have that Option to Sync or Not to Sync in the PDF Publish Options.

3. Option C - You mentioned that you do not want Lifecycle at all for PDF. Can we have more information why that so? How do you identify which is the right PDF linked the right source drawing if that is not done? Again we may be missing some info here.

This is the 1st release of PDF and we are willing to hear from you all in order to improve it further in the coming releases. So please keep it coming on what is working with this solution and what is not working.

Thanks again for your time and looking forward to hear from you.

[Senthil_Kumar]

I would also recommend to read the Readme notes from - http://download.autodesk.com/us/support/files/vault_2018/readme_autodesk_vault.html.

We have documented some of the known issues in the PDF workflow in this.

[Neil_Cross]

Hi @Senthil_Kumar

1. That's great, that's exactly answered my question thanks.

2. I haven't established yet what this setting is doing, I've just moved a drawing to WIP and a job was not created to sync the revision of the PDF.  So I have to assume it does this at a different stage.

3. I think different companies will think different about how they want this to work.  But in my mind, with a PDF, the metadata means nothing (Vault Revision etc).  The PDF is just an attachment which reflects the master drawing.  If the master drawing is released at rev B, the PDF content is the drawing released at rev B.  I don't see the value in having a PDF with a WIP state against it.  Anyone with an interest in viewing the PDF probably won't be looking at it via the Vault client anyway.

It's fine though, I think what we have here there may be enough flexibility for most companies to work with it how they want.

[cbenner]

@Senthil_Kumar, @Neil_Cross

Just my two and a half cents worth.  I think I made these comments at AU last year.  I think this whole thing is just a band-aid, and creates more work un-necessarily.  

If the default visualization file format were switched from DWF to PDF, none of this would be necessary at all.  We would have the ability to use all of the PDF editing power available from so many different sources to edit, markup, share etc these visualizations. They would follow the life cycle of the file or Item they are attached to automatically just like DWF does now.  This is just double the work, now we have both a DWF and a PDF to worry about (if we choose to use this).

The other option that would be a more permanent fix would be to beef up the DWF editing tools such as the long forgotten ADR, so that it is as powerful as any of the Adobe editors.  I've preached about markup tools for years to no avail.

Sum it up:  Pick ONE visualization format, and give us the tools and power we need to manage it.

Just my not so humble opinions.... again.  

[smilinger]

I couldn't agree more.

I just couldn't understand why we need to create a dedicated category and a dedicated lifecycle definition to manage PDFs. Why can't we manage PDFs the same way as DWFs and let user choose the visualization format, dwf or pdf?

Besides, many customer need publish PDFs to a network shared folder, which is easy to accomplish with DWFs, but how can we do this with PDFs now?

[Senthil_Kumar]

@cbenner @smilinger

Thanks for your feedback and opinions.  What ever you have asked here are in our plan for future releases. Changing DWF to PDF in one release may be a tough task. That is why we are doing it in Phases. We also request you to join our Beta programs where we will be talking about what we need to plan for next phase. So please join and provide your feedback in the Beta programs for the next phase enhancements.

Thanks again and keep them coming.

[Senthil_Kumar]

@Neil_Cross Thanks again for your information and reply. On the #2, please note that the PDF will be created only on "Released" state.

[mbaker]

Hi Senthil

Quick question, With PDF as visualization, can we push them to a flat file on a shared Server, just as we can with DWF. I have not seen how to accomplish.

Thanks

Mike B

[mflayler2]

@cbenner, @mbaker haven't seen a way to do it out of the box (create PDFs to a flat file or mirrored folder structure like DWFs).  We have been doing it for years though for free to our VWG and VP clients.  Not sure if you subscribe with us or not, but these tools can be bought if you do not.  Basically we use the Job Processor to kick off a job to create or update the PDF and even add revision as a suffix.

[danmachen]

Hi Neil,

thanks for for the post. I completely agree with this and I caught your video on this as well.

It could be quite problematic if doing a "Rollback lifecycle state" of a released drawing to WIP, meaning there is a released PDF but the corresponding drawing is back in WIP. This means until the drawing is re-released that you have given access to the PDF file in the interim.

I don't know what the solution is. We currently use the Naviate add on to manage our PDF export process.