Today’s tip is an answer to a common post-implementation question: “How can I share these Saved Searches with my team?”
For review, a Saved Search within Vault is a set of queries based on Vault properties. This can include User Defined Properties and System Properties. These are useful for a variety of Data Management tasks, as in my example where I need to capture files with non-compliant properties.
Once you run a search, you can store that off to a folder that will appear at the bottom of your navigation tree. This is great functionality and I used it daily. I suggest it for all Vault and CAD Admins as well. It’s a powerful way to quickly access what Vault already knows about your data.
So the next question that quickly comes is how to get this broadcast to the design team. All searches are stored on your client machine under your profile. This varies on different operating systems (XP, Vista, Win 7). I have Vault Pro 2011 on Win 7 here, so for example, if I make a saved search, it places that info under:
C:\Users\<profilename>\AppData\Roaming\Autodesk\VaultCommon\Servers\Services_Security_1_25_2010\localhost\Vaults\<yourvaultname>\Searches
Replace <profilename> with your Windows login, and <yourvaultname> with the Vault database name you’re using, and you should be set. In that folder are a series of extension-less files.
Now, simply copy this to other machines and you have shared saved searches with others. Finally, consider making a startup script to automate this procedure.
-Brian Schanen