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Under the Hood - All things PDM and PLM

Getting Started with Autodesk Vault Customization

Markus Koechl
March 12, 2024

Autodesk Vault is the most used on-premise data management solution for Autodesk CAD tools like Inventor or AutoCAD. One of the reasons is the capability to adopt customizations.

Are you familiar with Autodesk Vault Professional, and would you like to get started to extend with custom features?

The Vault product family offers access points to merge tailored commands or functionality with our default capabilities.

  • First, you can leverage the Vault Data Standard (VDS) extension. It is a customization layer that allows you to edit the layout of dialogs and detail cards. You can also add business logic or rules to auto-fill metadata, guide users to manually fill them, and much more. And you can even add new commands and UI elements.
  • Secondly, you can leverage the Vault Software Development Kit (SDK). It is the first access point to Vault application programming and provides the needed libraries, documentation, templates, and samples. This API shares almost everything you need to build standalone Vault applications, extend the main Vault Client application (Vault Explorer), or extend the Vault Job Processing environment with custom server and client jobs.

While Vault Data Standard added a step-by-step learning path (accessible from Vault Help System), you might see the Vault SDK as a jump into unknown waters… This blog and a series of posts will fill this gap.

If you need to start today, jump to the AU class Autodesk Vault Programming 101. Fast-track readers might prefer the YouTube playlist to the one-hour AU-class recording: Autodesk Vault API | SDK. This class introduces all base concepts and tells you where to navigate for installers, templates, and other tools you need. It also shares a sample application for each of the templates. Don’t mind that it lists the 2020 release; everything is still valid if you take the templates or samples of a newer, matching SDK version.

Happy coding!
Markus

Learn more

Leverage the Vault Customization Forum whenever you have questions about programming Vault APIs or customizing Vault Data Standard.

To learn more about Autodesk Vault product data management, visit our product center here.

Join our Vault Communities

You can join the following communities to share feedback and product improvement requests with our Autodesk Vault product team:

Vault Ideas – Submit your ideas for improvements and new features.

Vault Forum – Discuss Autodesk Vault’s current workflows with our technical teams and your peers.

Feedback Community – Test Autodesk Vault alpha and beta releases and give your feedback directly to the Vault product team.

Markus Koechl

Markus Koechl is a Solution Engineer for PDM|PLM based in Central Europe. In this role, he focuses on Vault software, its interfaces, and extensibility. He supports Autodesk resellers, prospects, and customers in analyzing and optimizing workflows and practical approaches to managing design data and downstream processes. Markus is often found on the Vault Customization Forum - always ready to share experiences and best practices.

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