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Under the Hood - All things PDM and PLM

Vault 2020 includes powerful design re-use and documentation capabilities to help users cut out repetitive tasks and put more focus on value-added work. Additionally, Vault customers in the infrastructure and civil engineering market can set up a bi-directional connection with BIM 360 for streamlined collaboration with extended project teams.

Design Re-Use

Copy Design helps you to automate design re-use by automatically creating new files and linking everything together. Copy Design is one of the most widely used features in the Vault, and last year’s polling within our Feedback Community indicated many customers were looking for improved usability and feedback during the copy process. Over the past year, we worked with several customers to transform Copy Design into a more powerful, easy-to-use tool. Copy Design is now a modeless dialog allowing access to information in the Vault client while setting up a copy. You can easily navigate back to the model in the Vault client by selecting the file in the main grid and selecting the new command Go To Source for or Go To Destination Folder after the copy operation completes. The Copy Design dialog can now also remain open while you use the Vault client for other commands. These changes make it much easier to set up, copy, and verify exactly what is being copied. Additionally, we made several other tweaks to provide more feedback during the copy process:

  • A new documentation folder for drawing and presentation files is associated with the parent file.
  • The Folder and List views are available in the main grid.
  • You can set the numbering scheme for files in the main grid.
  • Files can be pre-checked for errors before the copy process.
  • New Copy Branch To command keeps the folder structure during the copy process
  • Find and Replace enhancements were incorporated into the main grid

All in all, Copy Design in Vault 2020 makes it much easier for engineers to copy exactly what they need and effectively re-use existing design data – saving time and money in the process.

Copy Design 2020

 

Design Documentation

Many companies are using 2D PDFs to facilitate communication among various departments. Vault 2019 introduced the ability to create PDFs automatically during the release process. Vault 2020 now provides more options for taking advantage of PDFs throughout the development cycle.

Users can now create PDF files on demand through the Vault client, without having to open the CAD application. The PDF creation process synchronizes the lifecycle state and revision of the source file with the PDF file. Vault 2020 also provides the option of creating a PDF file during any lifecycle state transition, providing more flexibility. Finally, you can share and publish the 2D PDFs outside Vault so that other stakeholders can have access to it. Configure the PDF Publish Location to a network share or any local drive location which connects to any cloud services like OneDrive, Dropbox, or Box.

 

Aside from PDFs, Vault 2020 also makes it easier to determine where drawings are available. A new property, Has Drawing, helps identify whether a model has one or more associated drawings. This property provides the ability to list all models within a project that are missing drawings by searching the property. Also, you can make sure models are only released if there is an associated drawing by leveraging the property check in the lifecycle transition and finally be able to identify and filter within the Inventor Browser the components without an associated drawing.

Has Drawing Property

Streamlined Internal and External Collaboration

Project Sync within Vault Professional 2020 has been extended to support Vault customers in the infrastructure and civil engineering market. The expansion of Project Sync in this release enables more streamlined collaboration with their extended project team by having a bi-directional connection with BIM 360. Project Sync allows a Vault customer to selectively exchange data with outside suppliers and contractors in a controlled way that’s more automated and secure than email. A change made in BIM 360 can be reflected in Vault and vice versa, keeping everyone on the same page.

BIM 360 Connection

Other Benefits

Inventor Read-Only Mode Support

Inventor 2020 now includes a “read-only” mode to provide a richer viewing experience than what was previously offered in Inventor View. The new read-only mode provides navigation and visualization consistent with the main Inventor application, better large assembly performance, and access to 3D measure capabilities. Vault 2020 now includes a new configuration option to help customers leverage Inventor read-only mode. Depending on what you install first (Vault Client or Inventor Professional 2020) and what you have available on your system, you can either open files in the Inventor View or Inventor read-only mode.

Language Switching Support

Vault is in use by several customers spread across multiple countries, with users collaborating in multiple languages. The Vault 2020 client enables you to switch the Vault client user interface to a preferred language with no need to install full localized versions of the Vault client. Language packs allow the user to select the interface language used for menus, dialog boxes, help files, and so forth by selecting the corresponding shortcut for the specific language.

Thanks go out to all of you who have participated and provided valuable feedback in our alpha and beta programs, posted ideas on our forum pages, and engaged with us at user events. Your input drives a huge amount of our planning, and we appreciate all the insight and thoughts that went into this release.

Irvin Hayes Jr.
Product Manager

Irvin Hayes Jr.

Irvin is a Product Manager on the Autodesk Vault team based in Novi, Michigan. He helps partners, consulting and sales develop Vault deployment plans in enterprise environments and system requirements. You can find multiple classes Irvin has presented at Autodesk University, (au.autodesk.com) on a wide range of Vault topics. Irvin is a technology geek and loves sharing with the community on Twitter (@ihayesjr) and Flipboard Magazine. Disclaimer If you need an official Autodesk company response or a contact for press-related activities please contact Autodesk Public Relations. The posts on this blog are the authors' own personal opinions and do not represent their employer's view in any way. In addition, their thoughts and opinions often change, and as a weblog is intended to provide a semi-permanent point-in-time snapshot you should not consider out-of-date posts to reflect their current thoughts and opinions.

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  1. Avatarherzogh

    Great summary of Vault 2020 Irvin! I would like to thank all customers/users on our feedback communities for taking time to provide feedback that shaped this release.

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