-
Brian Schanen joined Autodesk in 2005 as a Product Designer and currently is a Customer Success Engineer for Autodesk’s Data Management products. Brian has taught at Autodesk University numerous times and has authored white papers on Vault and Productstream. He works with customers to implement a complete digital prototyping solution specializing in Autodesk Inventor, Autodesk Vault and Productstream. Brian lives near Detroit, Michigan.
-
Off on Sabbatical
June 15, 2009 01:30 AMby Brian SchanenWell its finally come to that time - Sabbatical time. I will be off until the first week of August, and I have setup some time-release posts on Vault.
In addition, if you have not already seen this there is another Autodesk blog covering Vault issues called 'Cracking the Vault'. This is an excellent source of up-to-date tips and tricks, along with some best practices. Enjoy!
http://crackingthevault.typepad.com/crackingthevault/
-Brian Schanen
-
Mapping Revisions with Autodesk Vault Workgroup
June 12, 2009 10:33 AMby Brian SchanenOne of the powerful new features of Autodesk Vault Workgroup is the flexible Revision management on files. You can 'teach' Vault Workgroup your company's rev scheme, and let Vault take over revision bumping per lifecycle state change. But how do we get this Rev letter back into the CAD file? This is performed by setting up property mapping of Vault's revision to CAD's revision.
Introducing a video tutorial series for Revision Management and configuration with Autodesk Vault Workgroup. Through this series, we’ll examine the steps to map Revisions in Autodesk Vault to revision properties in Autodesk Inventor. This is a 9 part tutorial, so give yourself some time. Enjoy!
-Brian Schanen
-
Autodesk Data Management User Group - Web Chapter
June 10, 2009 01:25 PMby Brian SchanenFor you, by you. Expand your network of peers and solidify your data management issues by logging onto the TATA Technologies Autodesk Manufacturing User Group Webcast. Our goal is to enlighten and educate so you can see the best of the Autodesk Productstream and Vault products. At every meeting, we will host a roundtable discussion about common topics that impact you, the data management users. We will also spend a segment of the meeting doing a step by step workshop on certain features of the products. We will close the meeting with an open Q&A with the group to bring up any pesky topics or issues that you have not managed to solve on your own.
Sign up for TATA Technologies Autodesk Data Management User Group – The Web Chapter here
-
Autodesk Vault Workgroup Lifecycle video tutorial
May 28, 2009 12:46 PMby Brian SchanenAutodesk Vault Workgroup, Collaboration, and Manufacturing provide the ability to leverage Lifecycle states on files. These are typically ‘Work In Progress’, ‘In Review’, ‘Released’ and so on. These states set the security access to files, and are configurable to a company’s existing or desired process.Autodesk Vault Workgroup provides several out-of-the-box to use and modify as needed. I have created a seven part video tutorial on customizing your own Lifecycle Definition and posted it to Autodesk’s channel on Youtube. All total, this is a little over a half hour of tutorial, so prepare yourself for a deep-dive into Lifecycle configuration.
Also provided is a Microsoft Visio flowchart for those following along at home or work. This is a great place to begin your implementation, by outlining your company’s routing and examining it graphically before tailoring Autodesk Vault Workgroup’s Lifecycle to meet your needs. Enjoy!
-
Autodesk Vault Connect integration with Axapta
May 28, 2009 12:24 PMby Brian SchanenAutodesks Vault Connect is an Enterprise Application Integration (EAI) platform that facilitates the exchange of data between Autodesk Vault Manufacturing and other enterprise systems. These systems can include a wide variety of enterprise applications such as Product Lifecycle Management (PLM), Electronic Content Management (ECM) and Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP).The following video demonstrates the integration of Autodesk Productstream with an ERP system (Axapta) using Autodesk Vault Connect.
-
Assigning Categories with Vault Workgroup
May 14, 2009 04:01 PMby Brian SchanenToday’s post covers powerful functionality within Autodesk Vault Workgroup called Categories. Categories allow the user to create standard behaviors for a series of files. These include Lifecycle definitions, Revision Schemes, User Defined Properties, and ultimately Security.
With Autodesk Vault Workgroup, you can automatically determine a file’s behavior and characteristics based on categories. As files are checked into the Vault, a revision scheme, lifecycle definition, user defined properties, and property policies can be assigned based on configurable criteria.
The following video tutorial examines Category assignment in Autodesk Vault Workgroup. Please feel free to comment with any quesitons or suggestions. Thanks!
-
Custom Revision Schemes with Vault Workgroup
May 7, 2009 04:03 PMby Brian SchanenAutodesk Vault Workgroup provides flexible Revision Management, allowing you to capture revision history of your vaulted data, making audit and tracking tasks easy.As you make continuous improvement to your designs, Autodesk Vault Workgroup reduces the chance for design and manufacturing errors by applying security to the data revisions, granting access to the 'correct' revision of a design to those that need them.
Autodesk Vault Workgroup provides flexible Revision Management. From the initial installation, there are two schemes provided: Standard Alphabetical and Standard Numeric. Companies often use variations of these revision schemes, and many are based on legacy systems or workflows. Vault Workgroup provides the flexibility to define revision schemes based off of existing or import from a pre-defined file.
The following video outlines the steps to make your own custom revision scheme inside Autodesk Vault Workgroup.
-
Automatic File Naming with Autodesk Vault Workgroup
April 28, 2009 10:33 PMby Brian SchanenIntroducing a new feature within Autodesk Vault Workgroup - Automatic File Naming. Now, Auto File Rename for files has been in Productstream for a few releases, and the ability to auto generate Item number automatically has been there as well. The concepts in these featues have been combined into a new feature that assigns a filename during a Save on a new file from AutoCAD or Inventor. I have created some video tutorials on these new Vault Workgroup features. and these are posted to the Autodesk Channel on YouTube. Enjoy!
-
Official Autodesk Vault Podcast Episode 2 - Lifecycles and Security
April 15, 2009 09:47 PMby Brian SchanenBased off the previous write up of Lifecycles Definitions, this post will introduce the concept of Lifecycles and how they help control security on files with Autodesk Vault Workgroup.
Vault Workgroup provides control over the critical aspects of design data as it graduates through its stage of life ensuring people get access to the correct data at the right time. By applying lifecycle states directly on files, users can apply and change file security during state transition, providing an advanced set of access control.
Note: in this video podcast I am using Vault Manufacturing 2010 for the demo (you’ll notice it in the titlebar), but the features and workflows are available starting in Vault Workgroup.
Please download from either link below:
Please feel free to post a comment or email me with questions or comments.
-Brian Schanen
-
Lifecycle Definitions with Autodesk Vault Workgroup
March 30, 2009 11:59 PMby Brian SchanenWith the release of Vault Workgroup 2010, there are several key areas of the product that focus on Release Management at the file level. These include:
- Lifecycles and Security
- Revision Management
- User Defined Properties
- Categories
Now, it’s important to note that while these all go hand-in-hand, a company can ‘opt-in’ to this functionality at their leisure. In other words, you can utilize a phased deployment of these features, perhaps over several weeks. The first one we’ll cover is Lifecycles and Security, since this is an immediate benefit of Vault Workgroup. Lifecycle states make sure the right user gets access to the right files at the right time, protecting your data integrity.
Lifecycle Definitions
Autodesk Vault Workgroup comes with four Lifecycle Definitions out- of-the-box:
- Basic Release Process
- Flexible Release Process
- Simple Release Process
- Long Lead Time Release Process
Each Lifecycle Definition is a collection of Lifecycle states and rules built around them. These definitions ensure that files will go through the appropriate steps before getting Released. In addition,the provided lifecycle definitions can be copied and edited. In addition, customer lifecycle definitions can be created. They range from simple Work In Progress/Released up to multi-stage processes. For example, the Flexible Release Process is a manufacturing type workflow and is similar to Basic, with an additional state. This process uses:
- Work In Progress
- For Review
- Released
- Quick Change
- Obsolete
Lifecycle States
States declare the stage of work a particular file is in. Note that custom lifecycle states can be added to a Lifecycle definition for additional control over a product's lifecycle.
Transitions
Vault comes with a configurable transition from one lifecycle to another. Using groups and permissions, administrators can define what the next available state from a given Lifecycle is.
Each state to state Transition includes the ability to define Criteria, Actions, and Security control over which users or groups can perform the Transition. In addition, changes made by the Vault Administrator are immediately recognized by the users. This provides a flexible data management workflow tool that can work with a company's needs, not against it.
Security
The Security model of a lifecycle definition can be configured to meet the existing process within a company. Each Vault user or group can be allowed or denied the ability to read, modify, or delete a file. This provides a granular level of security for access to files. In the example below, the Engineering group has full control over all files in this particular state (Work In Progress).
Purge Control over Revisions
The Control tab sets the purge expectation for each Lifecycle state. In the image below, this tab contains the option to declare the state a 'Release' state, which has implications during the Purge command.
-Brian Schanen
