Tech Tip: How to Rename Project Setting User Attributes in Advance Steel

If you are utilizing the User Attribute tokens in Project Settings to populate your prototypes in Advance Steel, it can be difficult to remember which user attributes are used to call out what property.

Following is the process to rename the User Attribute prompts to help you remember what info to input for each one.

NOTE: Please save a copy of your USA folder before editing databases (default location: C:\ProgramData\Autodesk\Advance Steel [year]).

Example: We will be changing User Attribute 1 in Project Settings to call out as Quote Number.

Go to Management Tools under the Home tab >> Table Editor >>. Click on Open Installed Databases at the top left corner >>. Type “error” in the filter field at the bottom left corner >> expand AstorControlStructure, and select the ErrorMessages table.

Sort by the ErrorNumber column (click on the column if it is not in order). Then find the rows with the ErrorNumber values 32771-32775 (in Advance Steel 2023); 32771 is the prompt that calls out User attribute 1 in the Project Settings. This has been edited to call out Quote Number in the screenshot below.

The ErrorNumber values 32753-32762 are the prompts that call out the User attributes in the objects’ Advance Properties dialog box.

Close Management Tools, and be sure to hit the Update Defaults button under the Home tab to apply the changes. You can then check Project Settings to see if the prompt updates accordingly.

Keep in mind that this only changes the prompt text you see when filling out Project Settings and not the token/attribute name itself.

You will also need to make this change with every new year’s release of Advance Steel, since the AstCrtlDb.mdf does not automatically migrate.

It is not recommended to copy this database from an older release to a newer release, since the prompt text for new commands will be missing in the older AstCrtlDb.mdf database.

Check out this customer story about Lawton Welding to learn how Advance Steel can help you improve accuracy and react faster to project changes.