"Has Parent Relationship" Current Version Only

[Anonymous]

Ability to run a search on a file's "Has Parent Relationship" property, on the current version only. At the moment, when you run a search on this property it looks at all the versions of the file. So if the file ever had an attachment to a parent file, the H.P.R. property will be always be True, even if the current version is no longer attached to the parent. This doesn't really help when you're trying to find orphan DWF and PDF files that used to be attached but for whatever reason did not re-link during an update.

This is the answer I got from Autodesk Support: "When you detach a file from another file, a new version of that file is created, leaving the previous version of that file still referencing the attachment. For that reason, the Has Parent Relationship property is not expected to be changed to False for the PDF because it still technically has the attachment relationship to the previous parent version."

[ihayesjr]

@Anonymous I was part of an internal discussion on your issue. Can you tell me what command may cause a PDF or DWF not to be attached to a parent file?

[Anonymous]

Hello! We aren't doing a command or doing this on purpose. During an update to the parent file sometimes the link that was broken to do the update isn't re-attached. So we end up with orphan dwf or pdf files that have an older version that used to be attached to their parent files but the current version do not have the link. When Vault tries to do the update it sees a file with the appropriate name (ipt.dwf, idw.pdf, etc) but without the link, so it can't make a new one (duplicate file) and it can't update the existing one. So the job errors in the Job Queue. We have found the only solution is to delete the child file (dwf or pdf) and re-create pdf/update view.

[ihayesjr]

@Anonymous 

Let me clarify my last statement, I am not stating you are doing this on purpose. I was just looking for the common operation that detaches the DWF or PDF file from the parent file.

Let's first talk about the DWF file. DWFs are detached during a number of operations because they become outdated. You can see a list of commands that will detach a DWF file from the parent by going to Tools -> Administration -> Vault Settings -> Visualization -> Visualization Management.

This shows all the commands that will detach a DWF file from the parent file. DWFs are not orphaned in this case, they are just not attached to the latest version of the parent file. They are still attached to the earlier version of the file. What you can do is search for files where the "Visualization Attachment" property is "None" and the results indicate all parent files that do not have a DWF file attached. You do this type of search in the Advanced Find dialog and you can choose to search only the latest version of the file.

Does this help you with DWF files?

[Anonymous]

During the update the link is broken, but to finish off the command, doesn't Vault re-link the parent and child files? That's what I mean by orphan, the link is not re-established. Now we just have a child file that is outdated and not attached to the parent file. The next time the parent file is updated, we get an error when Vault tries to update. The child file will not update.

I know I can find the parent files without a "Visualization Attachment" (no dwf). But that's not what my original problem was. I want to find the dwf or pdf without a parent relationship ("Has Parent Relationship" is false). However, that property remains True if there was any previous version of the dwf or pdf that was linked to the parent file, regardless of the status of the current version. 

I went over this during the original support ticket and he confirmed that this is what is supposed to happen. However, that doesn't help me find the child parts that used to have a link but no longer do.

I have a document/example that I can show someone on a Zoom call or something. I don't think you are understanding what I am trying to say.

[stefan.hoeflinger]

This Icons should always look at the Current Version of the dataset and not on the Complete file history.

We are in the Industry Branch and therefore only the Current Version of a file is Interesting in this behavior.

I can Imagine that a Product oriented Branch use this as designed, but then it would be nice to have the possibility to configure this in: Current Version or Complete History entry.

Also it would be nice if the is Parent/Relationship Icon is only a Has Parent Icon.

Because then i can easy see in the list view if there is a Parent or a Drawing linked on the file.

[olekie]

I completely agree with Stefan Höflinger

From other Vault Property logic point of view: Every property shows the value of latest version. 

[lukerietdyk]

Agree that having a Has Parent Relationship (Historical) property would be useful.

For our situation, we have 100,000's (literally) of CAD files supplied to us by an external company in JT format, which we use as a base for our subsequent designs. We have had poor data management practices over the years, resulting in many duplicate ipt's and iam's in Vault. We have a defined cleanup process in Inventor whereby we can take an assembly with say 1000 children and reduce to that 50 unique children only, which massively helps performance, but when it is checked back into Vault, the 950 files no longer referenced by the latest version of the parent assembly still have a value of "True" for 'Has Parent Relationship'. I would like to be able to easily identify these 950 files that are now orphaned in Vault, and use the Lifecycle to transition them to Obsolete (we have this state setup as being hidden for all non-admins). This means that the orphaned files would no longer be visible in Vault to users (and therefore unlikely to be consumed), which is the end goal. Hope this makes sense.