Using Vault Data Standard for Organizing Your Data

Having a company data standard allows administrators to customize dialogs that enforce a standardized workflow for entering Autodesk Vault data across the Vault Client, AutoCAD and Inventor applications.

In the 2023 on-demand Applied Software, Graitec Group webinar, “Vault Data Standard: Directing Users, Organizing Data, and Ensuring Compliance,” Dave Morse explained what Vault Data Standard can do for your company and how to make use of it.

Autodesk Vault

Vault provides data and documentation management. It integrates with Autodesk design tools and other CAD systems to keep everyone on a project working from a central source of organized information. Vault automates processes for manufacturers, designers, engineers, and extended teams. It increases collaboration and streamlines workflows, while offering a flexible system for controlling what people can access and edit. It can automatically track revisions and design history. Vault uses lifecycle definitions, revision control and PDF automation to release and distribute engineering design data. When engineering data is set to a Released state, the data is locked, preventing users from editing the data in this state. The released version is forever protected by Vault and is never deleted.    

Pain points

Sometimes companies don’t have data and document management standards, but that control is important to ensure that data is complete and accurate. Some of the pain points companies can face using Vault out-of-the-box are:

• Users with too much freedom to create data without restrictions and save it anywhere they want.
• Users that deviate from company policy and standards by accident or purposefully, requiring reviews of metadata for accuracy and completeness.
• Users modifying properties, resulting in inconsistencies.
• Users going outside established naming schemes.

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Download the free resource “Improve Your Manufacturing Processes Using Autodesk Vault” today and start developing products faster through enhanced engineering productivity and digital prototyping.

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Vault Data Standard

To solve these pain points, your company can utilize Vault Data Standard for data control. This allows administrators to enforce the way users enter Vault data. It makes the out-of-the-box installation of Vault more robust, and the feature works with:

• Vault Client
• Inventor
• AutoCAD

Vault Data Standard has enhanced features to create folders and files directly from the Client within Vault for Inventor, AutoCAD and Office documents. Data sheets can be created and saved in AutoCAD and Inventor for the files.

When saving a file, Data Standard presents a new file dialog box in AutoCAD or Inventor where administrators can set parameters so only certain data can be input by users. The settings include:

1. Folder location
2. Category
3. Numbering scheme
4. Number
5. File name
6. Comments
7. Properties

Once the information is entered successfully by a user, Data Standard creates the file name and location based on the data. Once the document has been saved, the data that has been entered is mapped to all the file properties involved. Data Standard takes care of generating a file name, the project folders and revising the file.

Two tabs are displayed by default in Vault Client and Vault Office Client when Data Standard is installed:

• CAD-BOM Preview Pane – displays the BOM details for a selected file, including data gathered from outside applications.
• Data Sheet Preview – displays standard file properties determined and customized by the administrator.

The tabs may change, or more tabs may be added at the administrator’s discretion.

By enforcing data standards and a standardized workflow, companies can have reliable data and documentation management. By keeping everyone working from a central source of organized information, manufacturers, designers, engineers, and extended teams can benefit from better collaboration and workflows.

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