File Naming Schemes in Vault Workgroup, Collaboration and Manufacturing

I posted a few weeks back about the Vault product line to introduce the 4 different products that make up Autodesk Data Management. Today's post is on the Automatic File Naming in 3 of the 4 products. The products that have this feature are:

Vault Workgroup
Vault Collaboration
Vault Manufacturing

Automatic File Numbering
This is one of the first things I looked at because in a past career I helped to design an auto file naming tool so I wanted to see how this compared. So that I don't confuse anyone I won't talk about the other tool, only what's included with the application.

Numbering Schemes
You can define numbering schemes to help you automate the file naming process. For example you might have several different styles of naming for your Inventor files. For example you have a part numbering convention for weldments and one for standard make details. Possibly you have two different divisions of the organization that have recently merged, that previously had their own numbering conventions.

Defining a numbering scheme is really easy. The hardest part is understanding your organizations numbering scheme. In order to create or edit a Numbering Scheme you will need to log into the Vault product of your choice (those listed above). After logging in, you will choose Tools then Administration. After the Administration dialog box appears you will choose the Define button for Numbering Schemes.

After the Numbering Schemes dialog appears you will see an image like this:













As you can see I have two numbering conventions created, both are set to active, and one is set to default. The very cool things is it works with Inventor. When you click save (if you are logged into the vault through Inventor) the naming tool is activated. If you click Skip it allows you to change the file name (For R&D or concept parts). If you have two naming schemes it displays the default first and any other one under a drop down list. This provides for easy access to multiple numbering conventions. In a later post I will discuss how to configure these naming conventions but for now let's look at how they look.


In the image below the highlited area shows the drop down list. The "Number" field under the Scheme is displayed based off of the selected scheme.










In this image you see I have selected the "Weldment" numbernig scheme and I am getting a
different number generated.









As mentioned earlier, I will be posting more on this subject in the next blog post.