What’s new in Autodesk Vault 2008

Hagerman & Company, Inc. Technology Bulletin

What’s new in Autodesk Vault 2008

by Junn Badua
Senior Solutions Engineer - MCAD

Are you wondering what’s new with Vault 2008, because you have not yet installed it? Then read on for an overview of … “What’s New in Autodesk Vault 2008”

The first thing I noticed about the latest edition of Vault was “Remove Reservation.” As I was looking for an Administrative command to Undo Checkout, I stumbled on Remove Reservation instead. This is what everybody has been asking for, and Autodesk finally came through!

Administrative “Removing file Reservations” (Undo Checkout)
Administrators can now remove the reservation on a file checked out to another user, making the file available in the vault for other users. Unlike Undo Checkout which is restricted to the current user’s files, removing a file reservation can be performed by the administrator on any file checked out to any user.

Inventor DWG Support
Autodesk Vault 2008 provides direct support for Inventor's new DWG drawings. This is transparent to the end-user, as all normal operations such as rename, copy, and property editing remain the same.

Automatic File Naming Tools
Vault 2008 delivers new capabilities to quickly and easily rename design files and supporting documents. Administrators can now set up and define naming schemes for files and users can apply naming schemes to any file type using the existing rename wizard.

Content Center
Management of Inventor content has been significantly improved with:

Improved file/data transfers

Server-side copy of content families from library to library

Support for table of contents/category merging

Support for multiple versions of content libraries on one server

Updated workflow support

Localized display names for libraries

Removal of source dependencies between client and server

Improvements in search and installation improvements

Inventor Integration
Vault 2008 now provides the ability to automatically retrieve files from the vault when they are missing locally. You now benefit from performance improvements when leveraging Inventor's Level of Display (LOD) for large assemblies. And, when you need to get the latest version of parts within an assembly, you can now update on a per file basis rather than closing and opening the session again as in previous versions of Vault and Productstream. Common operations including Rename, Copy Design, Move file and Edit Properties can now be performed without the need to migrate the Inventor files to the latest release.

AutoCAD Integration
Vault 2008 now provides the ability to check-in with "Delete Local Copy" support. In addition, many new ease-of-use features are available:

	Open from Vault and Check Out All no longer download files that already checked out by the user
	Select either model or paper space for DWF publishing
	Support for DGN files along with the DWG that references them. This will also support attaching DGN files from vault using "Attach from Vault"
	Support for multi-line text attributes in AutoCAD 2008 with Property Write Back
	A new option to ignore AutoCAD view only changes and not trigger a check out and file save
	DWF publishing 'progress' dialog no longer exists
	When a user checks in a file that has unloaded or unresolved references, a new dialog provides a warning preventing partial data sets from being added to the vault.

AutoCAD Mechanical Integration
Vault 2008 delivers new out-of-the-box property mappings for all default AutoCAD Mechanical attributes and an improved Bill of Materials (BOM) integration that includes reference component support.

AutoCAD Electrical
Vault 2008 now provides the means to automatically check in AutoCAD Electrical files after modification .

Performance Improvements
Many areas such as search (basic and advanced), Inventor integration, ACAD integration, etc. have undergone major performance-improving changes, providing a better experience when using the vault.

User Interface Consistency
Several small inconsistencies have been addressed in the various Check In and Add File dialogs. These changes directly benefit all the various add-ins and clients including Office, Inventor, AutoCAD, and Vault Explorer. You can now expect the same look and feel for basic operations whenever you interact with data in a vault, regardless of the application you are using.

Backwards Compatibility
Vault 2008 continues to support the current version of the CAD application plus one version previous.

Office Integration
Overall application performance for the Microsoft Office integration has been improved significantly.

Copy / Send URL
All files in the vault can now be referenced via a URL that can be automatically e-mailed or simply copied to the clipboard, allowing you to link to files in the vault (Vault Explorer will be needed to get access to these links as well as a valid user name and password.)

Autoloader
The Autoloader has been enhanced to support the bulk loading of AutoCAD and Inventor DWG drawings. It can now also be used to support other types of flat files such as TIF or PDF. There is no special support for
ACE, ACM or MDT.

64 Bit Support
Vault 2008 is a 32 bit application (server and clients) that supports both 32- and 64-bit operating systems. It also provides support for 64-bit CAD applications including Inventor, AutoCAD, AutoCAD Mechanical and
AutoCAD Electrical.

Vault Explorer (Separate Purchase)
The Vault Explorer client can now be purchases and installed for non-CAD users providing full access to the Vault.

Autodesk Productstream Replicator 2008 (Separate Purchase)
Autodesk Productstream Replicator 2008 is a new, additional product that works with Vault 2008 databases. It enables file store replication at each site with centralized metadata to ensure all designers are working from the most up-to-date design and provides the benefits of local storage and performance. It includes:

	Full per site scheduling
	On demand pull of missing files
	Client-side enhancements to notify users when local files are not up-to-date
	Management of settings across sites

Autodesk Productstream Explorer (Separate Purchase)
Autodesk Productstream explorer (web client) can be added to your vault environment to provide a simple web-based search, view and print application for non-Vault users.