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In the last post we discussed Autodesk Job Server, how to enable it, create a new account for it, and log into the Job Processor client. Next let’s take a look at how we can leverage a Job Server as part of your Vault network. Starting with the Preview tab within Vault, if you go to view an AutoCAD or Inventor file, it may return a message the the file cannot be viewed. This is because there may be no visualization (DWF or DWFx) associated to it. This is the file format that ‘shadows’ the native CAD file and is the currency within Vault for viewing, makrup, and printing.
To remedy this situation, select the drop down to the right of the Update button. The two options are:
- Update Locally: generates a visualization file (DWF/DWFx) immediately using the appropriate CAD software loaded on your machine.
- Queue Update: sends the task of creating the visualization to the job queue for any Job Server to work on.
The above workflow is great for file updates one at a time. But what if you have multiple CAD files to update? Quick tech tip: make a saved search for these types of files using Visualization file = None.
However you get them, select all files and go to the Actions menu>Update View>Queue Update. All the CAD files will be loaded into the Job Server queue.
Next, to see what is in the queue, go to Tools menu>Job Queue. This launches a new window that displays all existing jobs in the queue. At this point, whether there is a Job Server logged in or not, you should be looking at several rows of jobs waiting to be processed.
Now to get this to start. If it’s not running, start the Job Processor client (on your machine or another) and go to the File pull down. Click Pause, then Resume to get things going.
The first job in the queue is now running. From here, as jobs are finished, the next one will load into the Job Processor.
Meanwhile, back in the Vault, a quick look at the Job queue echoes what we saw in the Job Processor. From here you can see the whole queue, refresh, remove jobs, etc.
Finally, there are a couple things to remember. You can have multiple Job Processors connected to your Vault server, and each one polls at a preset frequency (default is 10 minutes). During the poll, it does not consume a license, only when there is something to do (DWF, synch properties) does it pull a license – but it returns the license when finished.
-Brian Schanen
