Lifecycle Definition Administration

Learn about how to make lifecycles work for your design environment.

A lifecycle definition is an engine that can be configured to automatically assign security, behaviors, and properties to Vault objects based on where the object is in the life of the design process. This functionality allows you to streamline your work environment by removing the overhead involved in managing groups of files, custom objects, or an entire project.

A lifecycle definition uses states to identify the object's status in the lifecycle. Examples of states are Work in Progress, For Review, or Released. An object moves from one state to another based on the lifecycle definition's transition rules. These transition rules determine when the state change happens, if it can occur manually or automatically (or both), based on criteria determined by the administrator. The lifecycle definition also determines if any other automatic behaviors occur based on a state change.

For example, a lifecycle definition can be configured to automatically revise a file when it moves from a Work in Progress state to a Review state. Or if a user changes a folder's status to obsolete, the lifecycle definition can automatically apply security settings to the folder so that only an administrator can modify the folder and its contents or reinstate it for use.

Note: You must have administrative access to perform these tasks.

Lifecycles can be used with files, project folders, items, and custom objects.

Several lifecycle definitions are included with the "out-of-the-box" install. These definitions will assist administrators in assigning definitions to Vault content without having to create them.

Lifecycle Definition	Description
Basic Release Process	Basic manufacturing lifecycle process for release control. This definition can be used with most manufacturing project content.
Item Release Process	Basic item lifecycle process for release control. This definition can be used with all items and includes the following states: Work in Progress In Review Released Quick-Change Obsolete
Flexible Release Process	Flexible manufacturing life cycle process for release control. This definition includes all of the Basic Release Process states as well as a Quick Change state for editing released data.
Long Lead Time Release Process	Best suited for long lead time manufacturing projects. This definition includes a pre-release state indicating that the project data has been sent to manufacturing but is still in a state of change.
Design Representation Process	All PDF files created for document control are automatically assigned to the Design Representation category. A dedicated category allows administrators to manage their rules, lifecycles, and properties independent of the associated design files.
Long Lead Time Release Process with Change Order	Best suited for long lead time manufacturing projects directed by change orders. This definition includes a work in progress, review, and pre-release state. The pre-release state indicates that a file has been sent to manufacturing but is still in a state of change. When there are no more change orders for the file, it moves to a released state. From there the file can return to the pre-release state through a quick-change.
<None>	This definition allows any category to assign a null definition to opt out of using a lifecycle definition but to still retain category behavior.
Simple Release Process	A generic lifecycle process for many different types of project data. This definition consists of a Work in Progress state and a Released state.

The Lifecycle Definitions are located in the Vault Settings dialog box in the Behaviors tab.