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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.
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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
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First Official Autodesk Vault Podcast (Episode 1)
March 20, 2009 04:09 PMby Brian SchanenWelcome to Episode 1 of the first Official Autodesk Data Management Podcast! This inaugural podcast includes an overview of the new Revision and Release management functionality.
Following the last few posts on the new releases of the Vault 2010 Family of Products, I thought it was time to start podcasting about all the great features coming in Vault. With episode 1, I cover the new Vault lineup from Vault to Vault Manufacturing, then onto a demonstration of a day-in-the-life with Vault Workgroup.
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 2010.
Stay tuned for more podcasts covering Vault product functionality. You can download the video from the link below:
Please feel free to post a comment here or email me with questions for suggestions.
-Brian Schanen
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Revision Management on Files with Vault Workgroup 2010
March 15, 2009 08:19 PMby Brian SchanenRevision Management of FilesManufacturers commonly track their designs based on a revision – either following a numeric or alphabetical format. Revision values are used to signify an important change or milestone of the design. Vault Workgroup delivers the ability to track and manage revisions (not just versions!) of vaulted design files, no matter what format or file type. This provides the ability to access the appropriate revision of a design during an Open, Place, Attach, etc.
A revision level can be alpha, numeric, or a custom scheme – though only one revision can be applied to a file at a time. Files can switch between rev schemes depending on a company’s workflow. The revising of files is recommended to be controlled by Vault, but this is too is configurable with Vault Workgroup. The rev level is also mapped back to Inventor iProperties or AutoCAD attributes/fields to display on titleblocks.
The Revisions assigned to files follow a pre-defined scheme, and are guided by Categories that work similar to the categories found within Microsoft Outlook. This provides yet another way to easily find and structure your data.
In addition to revisions, the Category drives a number of other behaviors within the files in Vault Workgroup such as Lifecycle Definitions. These are collections of lifecycle state transitions and rules that provideeveryone within the organization access to the right data at the right time. Remember that Vault Workgroup can be a stand-alone application for non-CAD access. This helps avoid unintended access by managing the lifecycle of your design files. As a design file transitions through the different stages of its life, Vault Workgroup’s configurable security model can be tailored to grant or deny access to the data.
Now, within the Lifecycle Definitions there are configurable actions on transitions from one state to another. Typically, a state change from Released to Work In Progress will ‘bump’ the revision level one primary. This changes the rev level in Vault Workgroup, and therefore in the CAD file – and we’ve come full circle back to Revision Management of files.
We’ve taken a closer look at the new paradigm of File Management with Vault Workgroup. Coming up we’ll deep-dive into these features and explorer best practices. Remember that this is available only in the 2010 release of Vault Workgroup, Vault Collaboration, and Vault Manufacturing. Stay tuned for more exciting news within the world of Autodesk Data Management.
-Brian Schanen -
New Data Management Packaging for 2010
March 6, 2009 10:49 PMby Brian SchanenWith the upcoming release of the Vault 2010 Family of products we’re introducing two new applications that help bridge the gap between Autodesk Vault and Productstream today. These two new applications, Autodesk Vault Workgroup (Introduced in a prior post) and Autodesk Vault Collaboration,are the perfect solution for those customers whereVault does not have quite enough functionality yet Productstream provides more than they need. Autodesk Vault continues to ship with Inventor, AutoCAD Mechanical, AutoCAD Electrical, etc as they did before. For the next level of Data Management, Vault Workgroup adds Revision management and a Security model at the file level.
Autodesk Vault Collaboration includes all the benefits of Vault Workgroup, and adds functionality needed for larger design teams across multiple sites. Features include: multi-site replication, Web client access, Sharepoint integration, and Active Directory support.
Finally, in order to ensure that we have a single, consistent brand throughout the product family, Productstream has been renamed to Autodesk Vault Manufacturing. Note that this is only a simple name change; it remains as the solution for extending Bill of Material data to enterprise systems and automating the Change and Release process.
Each product within the family builds upon the previous as illustrated below, with Autodesk Vault providing the platform for the technology.
Stay tuned for more exciting news and details about the Autodesk Vault family of products.-Brian Schanen
