Overview of projects

Project Management

Create a new drawing

 

About collaborative design

Concept

Quick Reference

In a collaborative design environment, several people can work on a project at the same time. The project file (.WDP) lists all the drawings that are part of a project. You can use Autodesk Vault with AutoCAD Electrical for drawing management, version control, and revision labeling.

You must install Autodesk Vault to vault projects. Autodesk Vault prevents engineers from working on the original version of a project in the vault. To maintain the relationship between the drawing files that are defined in the project file, you must check out all files specified in a project file when you need to modify one or more files. When edits are complete, the project can be checked back into the vault.

AutoCAD Vault ARX adds vaulting functionality to the Project Manager. Upon initial start-up of AutoCAD Electrical you are not logged into the vault. You must log into Autodesk Vault using the File Vault menu to vault projects. The vault commands are available by right-clicking a project or drawing within the AutoCAD Electrical Project Manager. You can use the Project Manager to:

• Check projects in and out of the vault

  The most basic requirement of the vault is that you never work directly on a file in the vault. The projects in the vault are the Masters and cannot be edited. 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.

  TipIf you want others to view updates you made to a project and you want to continue modifying the project, select the Keep Checked Out option on the Check In dialog box. This checks in the updates you made to the project and keeps the project checked out to you.
  NoteYou must have all references of a project file downloaded to your working folder to edit the project file.
• View the status of files in a design.

  Vault status icons indicate the status of your local copy of the files as compared against the master copy of those same files in the vault. The vault status icons indicate when the local copy is in sync with the master and when it is not. Tooltips provide descriptions of the icons. Pause the cursor over a status icon to see a detailed description. The tooltips also help guide you to the next logical steps, especially when the local copy is no longer in sync with the master. The vault status icons are crucial to the overall understanding of how to work in a vaulted environment.

  NoteThe vault status icons are only available in the list view and only appear when you are logged into the vault.

Key Concepts

• The master files are stored and maintained in the file store on the Vault server. The vault database is also located on the server. It can be on the same or a different server from where the file store is located. The database maintains the metadata for the files in the file store and the relationships between those files.
• The vault is referred to as the virtual location of the files. Users do not work directly on the master files. A file must be checked out from the virtual location in the vault to a physical location in the working folder before it can be modified.
• Each user must have a physical location on their disk mapped to the corresponding vault location. A folder that has been mapped to the root folder ("$") in a vault is called a working folder. Each Vault user can optionally set a local working folder (physical location on disk) for the root of the vault or just rely on the default one (C:\My Documents\Vault) provided by Vault. Setting up a working folder creates a user-define virtual-to-physical mapping that is maintained for as long as the user works with the vault. The working folder can be changed, but the mapping itself cannot be removed.
• When you check out a project, that project is copied from the virtual location in the vault to the physical location in the working folder. When you are ready to check the project back in, the mapping tells the vault where to check the files in from.
• Opening a project from the vault checks all files out to the working folder of the Vault user. In addition, you can open a file in a checked-in state as read-only.

The essential rules to remember when working with AutoCAD Electrical Vault ARX are:

• The projects in the vault are the masters.
• You can check a project or a single drawing out of the vault to modify it.
• To check out a project for editing you must set up a working folder on the disk.

Refer to the Managing Your Data book for more information on AutoCAD Electrical Vault ARX.