About Using Autodesk Vault with AutoCAD Electrical Toolset

In a collaborative design environment, several people can work on a project at the same time. You can use Autodesk Vault with AutoCAD Electrical toolset for drawing management, version control, and revision labeling.

Autodesk Vault allows you to:

• Keep a history of your design changes
• Review how your designs have progressed
• Rollback to a previous version
• Have a central shared secured repository of drawings and data
• Search for required information across multiple drawings and projects

Note: Autodesk Vault can only be installed on 64-bit systems.

Perform Vault Tasks with Project Manager

When working with AutoCAD Electrical toolset and Autodesk Vault, you check out projects or individual drawings from a vault location to edit. You can perform most vault tasks within Project Manager when you are logged into the vault.

Use Project Manager to:

• Log in and out of the vault

  You must log into Autodesk Vault to work with projects in the vault.

• Check projects in and out of the vault

  You must check out the project to the working folder on your local drive to edit it. When you finish working on the project, you must check the project back into the vault.

  Note: You must have all references of a project file downloaded to your working folder to edit the project file.
• Check out and edit individual files

  Select a file (or multiple files) within a project to check in, check out, or refresh to the latest version.

• View the status of files in a design

  Vault status icons indicate the status of your local copy of the files as compared to those same files in the vault. Pause the cursor over a status icon to see a detailed description.

Note: Access to vault folders depends upon the permissions you are granted.

Project Versions

Project versions are controlled by project file (.wdp) versions. The project file acts as the parent for all drawings in the project and each version of the .wdp is associated to the latest versions of the drawing at that instance. You can edit individual drawings of a project and create versions of the drawings as needed. When you want to create a project version, check out the .wdp and check it back in.

Automatically Check in Drawings

Some operations in AutoCAD Electrical toolset (such as project-wide or reporting tools) cause Vault to automatically check out all affected drawings. These drawings can be automatically checked in when modifications are complete. When asked whether to check the file in, click Yes or Yes to All. If you want the check-in to happen automatically, in the Options dialog box, select Check In dialog on auto check in.

When files are checked in, comments are added to help distinguish between the versions of the files. You can modify the comments as desired during check-in unless you suppressed the Check In dialog box.

Shared Sandbox Guidelines

A shared workspace is a working folder located on a shared server for all users to access. The shared workspace configuration can be used with:

• Autodesk Vault
• Autodesk Vault Explorer
• AutoCAD Vault Add-in
• Microsoft Vault Add-in

You can choose to work in a local or shared working folder according to your design requirements. A shared working folder is highly recommended for the AutoCAD Electrical toolset environment, especially in a multi-user situation, because it enables you and your design team to keep all files up-to-date.

To use a shared workspace, the system administrator should preset a consistent working folder for all project members to use. Assign the working folder location to the root level ($) of the vault. A shared working folder cannot be assigned to a subfolder.

Note: If Inventor add-in clients will access the same vault, do not enforce a shared working folder. If Inventor and AutoCAD Electrical toolset are sharing the same vault, the vault administrator cannot enforce the shared working folder. Each AutoCAD Electrical toolset user must set the working folder individually to point to a common network drive.

Rules For Using Shared Working Folders

Using a shared workspace means multiple users may be working on the same files. All your vault operations are protected as long as you log into the vault before working on the files. The following guidelines will help prevent you from overwriting the changes made by someone else, and vice versa.

• Remain logged into the vault at all times. You can use the Vault auto login option so you are automatically logged into the vault when AutoCAD Electrical toolset starts.
• You cannot check out a file that is currently opened for read-write by another user.
• You can still check out a file that is opened for read only by another user.
• You can open a file in read only when it is currently checked out to someone else using the same working folder.
• Ensure that the drawings are checked back into the vault after you finish working on them so they are available to other users who need to modify them.