Have you noticed? I didn’t initially either. It just so happened that this year I’m doing the Autodesk Vault Workgroup and Vault Professional courseware for CADLearning. As a result I was going through the Vault prompts with a fine tooth comb, mainly so I could capture imagery. The first thing I noticed was I couldn’t trigger a number of the prompts to appear anymore, which struck me as odd… Its distinctly un-Vault like right? Vault’s an application which is infamous among its users for bombarding users with prompts. So I was wondering, what has changed? Or have I suddenly lost my Vault geek? Thankfully something has changed, the download behaviors. It turns out the Vault Development team have made Vault even smarter this year. So what have they changed?
This took me ages, so I really hope you guys, the everyday Vault users find this useful. I’ve prepared three tables, one for Get/Download from within the Vault Client, another for download behaviors with the Autodesk Inventor Vault Add-In and finally, back in the Vault Client, a table displaying the variations in the download behavior when using the new Force Overwrite option in the Get/Check Out dialog.
| Version on Disk | Get from Vault Client | ||
| Download? | Prompt? | Prompt/Status Image | |
| Same version | NO | N/A |  |
| Same version (+) | NO | N/A |  |
| Same version Checked Out | NO | N/A |  |
| Same version Checked Out (+) | NO | N/A |  |
| Different version | YES | NO |  |
| Different version (+) | YES | YES |  |
| Different revision (+) | YES | YES |  |
| Different version Checked Out | YES | YES |  |
| Different version Checked Out (+) | YES | YES |  |
| Unknown version | YES | NO |  |
| Version on Disk | Get from Inventor Add-In |
||
| Download? | Prompt? | Prompt Image | |
| Same version | NO | N/A |  |
| Same version (+) | NO | N/A |  |
| Same version Checked Out | NO | N/A |  |
| Same version Checked Out (+) | NO | N/A |  |
| Different version | YES | NO |  |
| Different version (+) | YES | YES |  |
| Different version Checked Out | YES | YES |  |
| Different version Checked Out (+) | YES | YES |  |
| Unknown version | YES | NO |  |
| Version on Disk | Get with Force Overwrite |
||
| Download? | Prompt? | Prompt Image | |
| Same version | NO | Yes, Generic Prompt |  |
| Same version (+) | YES | Yes, Generic Prompt |  |
| Same version Checked Out | NO | Yes, Generic Prompt |  |
| Same version Checked Out (+) | YES | Yes, Generic Prompt |  |
| Different version | YES | Yes, Generic Prompt |  |
| Different version (+) | YES | Yes, Generic Prompt |  |
| Different version Checked Out | YES | Yes, Generic Prompt |  |
| Different version Checked Out (+) | YES | Yes, Generic Prompt | |
| Unknown version | YES | Yes, Generic Prompt |  |
So what do you think? Did you notice that what were once treated as ‘dirty’ files are now treated as the latest version. Dodgy? Well I suppose that depends how you look at it. Lets look a two scenarios.
Jimmy is working away on Assembly 1, he has it checked out along with Part 1, one of its sub components. Cletus has Assembly 2 checked out, which also happens to use Part 1 as a sub component. Even though Cletus was warned by the Vault add-in when he tried to edit Part 1, he ignored the warnings and insisted he edit the file.
What happens next time he opens Assembly 2 or Part 1 from Vault, either via the Inventor Vault Add-In or the Vault Client? NOTHING! Inventor will open his version of Part 1… NOT Jimmy’s version. WHAT? you might say? Well hang on. So far as Vault is concerned, it’s still the same Vault version, in other words, the current version in Vault is still the same as it was when he downloaded it prior to ‘illegally’ modifying it.
Right, so what happens when Jimmy finally checks Part 1 back into Vault? He may still also have it checked out by the way. Jimmy’s like that you see, even if he doesn’t need it, he has a habit of hogging files. Anyway, back to the point. Now Jimmy has created a new version in Vault, Cletus’ local Vault version number is now out of date. So the next time he opens Assembly 2 or Part 1, what happens? Both the Vault Add-In and the Vault Client will ask Cletus what he would like to do… reminding him that his version has been locally modified. Lets hope Cletus says Yes again.
What if Jimmy does check in Part 1? Then Cletus Checks it Out having already modified it locally? Bearing in mind the Local Vault version won’t match the vaulted Vault version.
He gets prompted in the same way. Once again, hopefully he says Yes or Yes To All.
The only thing I wish was more clear, is when you Open from Vault, and your local version is the same as the vault version… but its been modified. Both the Vault Add-In and the Vault Client give the impression the file has been downloaded, when in fact it hasn’t. All in All, the Vault team have done a great job of dramatically reducing the number of prompts the end user receives while interacting with it out of the box. You just need to make sure you and your team are well aware of these new changes.
Special thanks to Allan O’Leary and Anil Chintamaneni for helping to clarify this for me and putting up with my whining.
Update: Just in case anyone is offended, the use of Cletus in the images above is to raise awareness, in a humorous way, of the need to pay attention to the dialogs within the context they are appearing. Take the time to learn them!
