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Under the Hood - All things PDM and PLM

Meet the New Project, Same as the Old Project

schanenb
September 21, 2011

Have I got an app for you. This is one of those utilities that Vault Admins cherish, as its benefits go beyond time saving, and onto company standardization. I’m talking about Clone Structure. The premise is simple, you have a folder structure, a hierarchy that you adhere to and you want everyone to use. This could be a familiar structure to all of your users, or a new one that you want to enforce. Either way, the Clone Structure allows you to copy a top level folder, change the name, and place it in another location in Vault.

Start by selecting a folder with some subfolders. In the example below, a right click on the folder displays Clone Structure in the context menu.

Clone Structure

When the dialog box launches, you have options to enter a new name in the Clone As field, a destination field, and an example destination path. In addition, two options are provided to copy folder properties and folder permissions.

clone structure dialog

Click ok to complete the command. The new folder and subfolder structure is copied with subfolders, permissions (Access Control Lists), and properties intact.

structure cloned

As an added bonus, there is an option to include ( in an .xml file) files of your choice from the subfolders. This is ideal if you have an application that needs to copy system files as part of the structure. Finally, this utility was created by and is available though Autodesk Consulting.

-Brian Schanen

schanenb

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