What’s new in Vault 2019
Vault 2019 has been released, with numerous enhancements focused on facilitating external collaboration, handy design workflow improvements, and more administrative control features.
Project Sync 2019
One of the most exciting updates, Vault 2019 Project Sync enables several workflows for collaboration with people outside your organisation. Whereas the previous iteration of Project Sync was used to link Vault to Autodesk Buzzsaw, the new Project Sync allows you to send design files to your personal Autodesk Drive or your company’s Fusion Team project hub. From publishing PDF’s, DWG’s and DXF’s* for read-only viewing of suppliers and customers, to uploading Inventor models to allow sub-contractors to work on the models, the new Project Sync functionalities open up possibilities for external collaboration.
Watch out for succeeding episodes of our blog where we take a deep dive into the different use scenarios for Project Sync.
- Fusion Team is a cloud-based subscription service that allow multiple organisations to work together in a collaborative workspace.
- Autodesk Drive is a subscription entitlement that is included with Vault and Inventor. Please see this link for all subscriptions which include Autodesk Drive.
* automated DXF creation requires a 3rd party add-on for Vault.
Check Out from the Inventor BOM Editor
A long time coming, you can now check-out files from Inventor’s BOM Editor. This is great in scenarios you want to make bulk changes to like iProperties, Materials, and the like.
Send Hyperlinks for Vault Folders
Vault has always been able to send an email containing a hyperlink for individual files, but with Vault 2019, you now have the ability to send a hyperlink for an entire folder. When the recipient receives the link, it will open up the Vault Client (or Thin Client) and navigate it directly to the selected folder.
Note: If after clicking on the hyperlink for the Vault Thick Client you are prompted to download an ACR file – choose to do so and run the ACR file. This will open the Vault Client. You can also configure your browser to always Run files of type ACR so that it will automatically run the Vault Thick Client, but check with your IT policies if this can be allowed.
Show only the latest Revision in the Vault Thin Client
The Vault Thin Client can now be configured to show only the latest Revision in the History pane, preventing users from seeing old Revisions of the files. This prevents confusion in cases where a released Revision contains multiple versions – for example when Job Processor is used to update certain properties of a Released file).
Autoloader Enhancements
Autoloader has finally gotten more loving. For those not familiar with it, Autoloader is a good tool to use when you’re doing a bulk upload of files into Vault. With Autoloader 2019 users with Document Editor (Level 2) permissions can now use the tool (whereas previously you needed to have Administrator permissions). The 2019 release also has features that make it easier to see the problematic files:
- Where Used tab to show file dependencies
- File dependencies can now be filtered
- Progress bar during file upload
Custom Roles
Vault had a set of pre-defined roles, with each role assigned a certain permission set. With Vault 2019, you can now create a custom role, and assign specific permissions for that role. A good example of this would be if you wanted to allow a user only to Check Out and Check In existing files from Vault, i.e. preventing them from adding new files into the Vault.
Lifecycle Transition Criteria Boolean Operators
When transitioning files or Items from one state to the other, Vault allows you to check certain criteria before allowing that transition. For example, check that the Drawing Number field is populated, or that the Revision Scheme is the Alpha revision scheme and not the Numeric Revision scheme. Vault 2019 now allows you to use Boolean operators AND, OR & NOT when specifying this criteria. For example, if you wanted to check if the file was checked by Engineer 1, or by Engineer 2:
Disable Check In of Design Files – additional file types
Vault has always been able to work with Solidworks, Pro-E, Creo, and Microstation files – and now the coverage of the Disable Check In of Design Files option includes files coming from the above-mentioned products. This means files from those applications need to be checked in using the CAD application itself, and checking in of those files can no longer be done via the Vault Client.
Data Standard Installation
Previously, this needed to be downloaded from the Autodesk Knowledge Network. With Vault 2019, this is now included in the installation package under “Install Tools and Utilities”. If you want to include Data Standard as part of the Vault Client Deployment image, follow the instructions on this link.
Data Standard is a great add-on to Vault, allowing you to control how data is added into Vault, and also create customised tabs to show you more information about files inside Vault.
Item File Link State
In the Item Master, items that have files linked to them now display an icon indicating whether an Item Update is needed for that specific Item. You can also display this icon in the Bill of Materials view of the Item.
Obsolete Items don’t show in Inventor Place from Vault
In Inventor, when doing a Place from Vault and searching for an Item, a filter now prevents the user from seeing Files that are in an Obsolete state.
Note though this only applies to the workflow where you search for the File or Item, then the search results show the Inventor file links of that Item. If you Browse through the Project Explorer folder structure, you will still be able to see files that are in the Obsolete state.
Vault Reports in Microsoft Report Viewer 2015 format
Long overdue and awaited, you can now use Visual Studio 2015 to create or edit your RDLC files. You’ll need to make sure the SQL Server Data Tools component is installed.
