Vault Workflow (Item Centred)

[Carl_mgfx]

Good day Forums

I feel like I'm flogging a dead horse with this question and workflow but I've hit a dead end.

We are in the process of rolling out Vault Pro to a customer who has been on Vault Basic for year. We are now setting up a workflow for them that will suit their needs. Below I have outlined the basic steps i see them following, however I am struggling to figure out what Autodesk's intended workflow should be once Items go through a lifecycle change and revision bump.

• Files are created and checked into Vault
• Items are generated from the main assembly
• Items are then put into a “Released” state
• Linked CAD files are locked for edit
• If the Item goes through a lifecycle change, Released > WIP the item revision is bumped and files are available for edit.

Now comes the kicker...  What happens to the File Revision property?  

Lets say I'm at initial release revision A, with the item in the released state, I then move the Item to WIP and the revision updates to D.

I check out the related part file and drawing and perform a "Property Update" from inside Inventor and the files now reflect revision D.

However when I check the files back in to Vault and view them in Project Explorer, I see that the revision reported is still A, in fact it will always stay at A and the file is flagged for property compliance. (See attachment)

How can I have Vault update the Revision property so that it is the same for Files and Items?  

I thank you in advanced for any assistance you can give me on this, I think I may just be missing something small in the whole setup and this is throwing me off the right path.  I’ve been staring at Vault setting dialogs for WAY TOO LONG!!!

[Anonymous]

It seems you have the item property revision mapped to the inventor file property revision correctly, but the incorrect mapping from inventor file to vault file. I think you need to have the mapping File -> Vault.

[Carl_mgfx]

Thanks for the reply.

I tried this but it seems that the Revision property can only be mapped from Vault to File and not the other way around.  See my mapping attached.  Is it normal to only have the mapping from Vault > File? 

[Neil_Cross]

I think there's an element to all this being overlooked.

With Vault Pro there are 3 Revision values:

1 - Revision of Item

2 - Revision of Document

3 - Revision IN Document (typically called rev number - iProperty/title block attribute)

When you build a Vault system, you chose to use one of two workflows.  Items or Document workflows.  

You can't use both without third party sync tools, and that's really not recommended unless you want a world of aggro.

So when you chose to use items, number 2 as shown in the list above is completely ignored.  When you look at your files in project explorer, the columns for State, Category & Revision are essentially not used, they should be empty, they're used only if you're NOT using items.

This is an oversight with Vault in that when you're using Items, the property columns in project explorer for Revision, Lifecycle etc should be turned off/disabled/hidden.  Because when you're using items you make the decision to revise the item, not the file.  The item pushes its revision into the 'rev number' in the file, and you don't use the Revision and lifecycle columns/properties for documents.

So in the associated files area on the item, that revision column is the document revision (not the rev number) which should be disabled and not used.

I honestly cannot believe that Autodesk still haven't done something about this, the fact that it requires this much of an explanation goes to show how un-intuitive and overly unnecessarily complicated it is.

I really don't know if this makes any sense.  Autodesk could do a MUCH MUCH better job at handling this and making it easier to understand.

[Carl_mgfx]

Good day Neil

Thanks for your reply.  This is just what I needed to hear and confirms what we were thinking.  However this now leads me to the following questions.

1. How do I prevent 2 - Revision of Document from showing non-compliance and confusing the client and potentially causing problems down the line?
2. Do I NOT setup categories for files and hence have no Lifecylce and Revision Schemes applied to files?  (This is ultimately handled by the Items)
3. The Vault Client should be configured to show Property columns related to Items where possible?
4. How are Revision tables on drawings handled?  Do these update when the item is bumped a revision?

I've been driving myself round the bend trying to figure out what Autodesk's thinking was behind all this setup.  I understand that people want the flexibility of Item centred or File centred workflow, but there is so much left out in the open with no definite answers.

[Neil_Cross · Accepted solution]

Yea it's a terrible implementation, it works to a degree but it's unnecessarily complicated.

1. There should be no File mapping to the document revision property.  So in the revision mapping, it should only be mapped for Item.  I don't have an item based vault environment here so can't show any screen prints, but essentially you need to remove the property mapping for the File revision.  The compliance check should only be checking the item revision against the iProperty.

2.  Correct.  This ultimately means you're left with a load of empty columns in vault client, also all the 'change state' and vault based information shown in the CAD clients is dumb and dead, because that all only applies to document workflows.  Another massive error on behalf of Autodesk.  All the CAD client interactions with vault cannot work with Items.

3.  It should, but I don't think it can.  The only place you can view item properties is in the Item master.  I don't think it's possible to enable and display item property columns next to files in project explorer.

4.  I've no idea, I tried to use vault revision tables a few years ago and had to leave it as it was horrendously unreliable and unworkable.  It might have improved since, but I have zero confidence in it.  But by all means see if you can figure that out.

So hopefully you can see now why its such a big choice at the beginning of an implementation whether or not to use items.  Using items renders a massive amount of vault and the CAD client functionality as dormant and wasted, and that can be even more confusing for the users when they see blank revision information at CAD application level in things like data cards which again do not work with items.

As a side note, it is possible to use items AND document lifecycles together, but it requires third party tools which synchronise things on state transitions.  For example, you would release a file... the third party tool would check to see if that file has an item, it would then release that item using a job processor task.  If you bump a file to revision B, the tool would then revise the item to revision B and so on.  I implemented this at one of my sites and although it works, it required us to employ a new member of staff who's job is purely monitoring errors and keeping things in check.

[Carl_mgfx]

@Neil_Cross

Thanks for all your input on this, your details and explanations are perfect.

1. Thanks this worked.
2. Agreed, we'll basically be hiding those blank columns.
3. We'll be using Item Master to view properties like you said we can't view Item properties in Project Explorer.
4.  I've been testing and checking it out.  Looks like we'll stick to Inventor Rev tables.

So with all this info I can go ahead and get it all sorted out.  Finally getting some clarity on the situation.

Thanks once again for all the help!

[Anonymous]

If you want to see the item/file revision inside the Vault explorer you can create a UDP and map it from the file. This will be for reference only. I do this for clients often.