New Copy Design Tool For Vault Workgroup and Professional 2016

Posted on November 18, 2015 by Synergis Applications Consultant Joe Corson
New to Vault Workgroup and Professional 2016 is the completely redesigned Copy Design Tools with a ton of new features and capabilities.
One of the new features is it can be used as a standalone application, without entering the Vault Pro client. The external application resides in the Autodesk – Data Management – Tools folder inside your start menu. The copy design can still be accessed inside the Vault client with a right click on the desired file, Edit – Copy Design, or by clicking the Copy Design icon.
Inside the Copy Design Tool you have more options than previous years. All columns here are customizable by right clicking on the column header, and customize columns just as you would inside the full Vault client. You can do this to see needed information for your copy process. If you select to see the thumbnail of the files you need to Refresh to populate the preview.

Log In / Log Out:

When launched from within the Vault client you will not be prompted to log in and you will be unable to log out. These options will not be available.
When launched through the standalone Copy Design you will be prompted to log into the desired Vault. This does not take another seat of Vault.

Refresh:

Used to refresh the Copy Design.

Drawing View:

With this selected you have the capabilities to assign individual actions to reference files.

Automatically Copy Parents:

When this is selected all Parent files (idw, iam) will be assigned to ‘Copy’ when you assign a Child (ipt, iam) to be copied. When this is not checked you will notice the Parent file will be ‘Edited’ when you copy a child file.

Link Drawings and Model:

When Link Drawings and Model is selected each drawing related to a model is copied into the same location and shares the same new file name as the model.

Action Rules (Administrative Function):

Here is where Action rules can be created, edited, or deleted. Action rules are set to alleviate multiple steps post copy design. Example: Properties filled out in an original file can be reset for new files. This rule can be setup to reset the ‘Description’ property so the new files you are creating are not filled out with the old file’s data, mitigating the problem of forgetting to change iProperty data on new files leaving them with old/incorrect data.

Numbering Schemes:

Here is where you select which naming schemes will be shown during the copy design process. You cannot create Numbering Schemes here, which has to be done by an Administrator in Tools – Administration – Vault Settings.

Panels:

This is where you select which panels are to be shown on the right side of the Copy Design Tool.

About:

Here is where you can find the Build Number (##.#.##.#) for service packs and updates, license agreement, and the Trademark and Credits.

Add Objects:

When starting a new copy design, add objects is where you add files to be copied. This nice new feature with the 2016 Copy Design tools lets you add multiple datasets and non-cad files to your copy process. This will help with copying entire designs with non-related datasets, alleviating multiple copy processes. New to the copy process is the ability to add non-CAD files such as Word documents, PDF’s, and html files.

Include Children:

With this feature you can include attachments and library files.

Select Copy Settings:

Copy Top Nodes: This will assign all parent files to be copied.
Copy All: This will assign all current files to be copied.

Select Rule Set:

Here you can determine which rule you would like to be applied to the files being copied. By default the ‘Default’ rule is selected. This rule us set to automatically set the ‘Part Number’ property to be the file name, Category will be reset to Base (or whichever is set to your default category), all iLogic rules will be removed from the new files.

Create Copy:

This button you will use once you are ready to start the copy to create your new files. This is the last step of the copy process.

Panels Window:

This window is by default docked to the right side of the copy design tool. It can be docked on the left, right, bottom or not docked and just floating. The columns inside all panel tabs are customizable, you can right click on the column header and customize columns just as you would inside the Vault client.

Where Used Tab:

This tab shows you the parent files of the soon to be copied files. The Source will show you original files parents and the Destination will show you the new named files parents.

Actions Tab:

With the actions tab you can double check your assignments to see which files are being copied, reused, replaced, excluded, removed, and edited. From here you can also edit the assignment of the files. Example: A file being copied can be changed to reuse by right clicking on the file and selecting reuse. A file currently being reused can be changed to copy, replace, or exclude.

Numbering Tab:

Here you can set the new file names or set them to use a numbering scheme currently setup in Vault. For no numbering scheme you can set the Prefix, Base Name, and Postfix for all files. Easily change ALL prefixes, base names, or postfixes by selecting all files, right click, Set Values, select Prefix, Base or Postfix and in this window you can set the value for all files selected. To change a file to use a numbering scheme select all files you want to be in a certain numbering scheme, right click, Change Scheme, and select the desired scheme.

Folders Tab:

Here you can see where your files are going to be copied to and set where you want your files to be located. By default they will be copied to the folder location where their original file is located. You can place files in a different location by right clicking, Copy To. Here you can select the new location for the file or files you selected. You can create folder structure here by clicking the New Folder button and adding a new folder. Once you have placed your file in its new location you can drag and drop other files into the new location.
Once you have your copy design settings completed you can now start you copy by selecting the Create Copy button. Unlike previous versions of Vault the new copy process uses the Vault server hardware to run the copy as the old version of the Copy Design used your local machine’s hardware. This new upgrade will assist in speeding up the copy process.