Vault Manufacturing How to:
Working with a previous version of a digital design…
During the process of product design engineering teams will build many iterations of a design model. That process will include operations to part and assembly models including reverting to an earlier version of a file managed by Vault Manufacturing. In the next few steps we will review that process and the steps to manage and use those files in digital product design.
While using Vault Manufacturing (VM) engineering teams will check out and generally work with the latest version of a digital model. Vault Manufacturing, by default, will always provide the engineering user the latest version of all design related files.
The next few steps will walk us through the process to get a previous version of a file to the user’s workspace:
Starting with a file in VM and with a state setting of Work In Progress (WIP)…

Let’s take a look at the design…

We can see in the above picture what the latest Version of the design appears to be. . Now if we review with VM we can see we have 9 versions of this part…

With this many design versions we might want to review and use an earlier iteration of this part for the design…
In order for us to see all the versions managed by VM, not just those linked to revised files, we will need to set the vault to show all versions; this will allow us to identify the version we need to work with..

Note: This check box appears in the upper right corner of the VM preview pane (see above picture)
So it will appear as shown below…

Checking this box will allow VM to display all the related file versions…

Lets open the file and use the Latest version from VM, we will open the file directly from within Inventor 2010 using the new Ribbon Interface and the Vault Tool Panel.

Using this method of operation the system will present the following dialog box, allowing us to identify the file we need to work with…

Selecting the file will result in Inventor 2010 opening that file and placing the latest version in the user’s Workspace, now work can begin on the file. When prompted we will select <Yes> to checkout…

Now what Inventor application sees as the latest digital model…

Let’s review the part browser panel, as you can see the only part checked out is the “GB Mach.ipt” and it’s not the file needed for the design. Let’s undo the checkout so we can get an earlier version of this file…

Now VM indicates we have a local file copy in our workspace since the circles remain in the Vault list pane as shown below…

Now we need to remove these files from our local workspace by right clicking the folder in the Vault and selecting “Go To Working Folder”. This will allow Windows access to the working folder to manually delete the files.

This will result in the identified files being removed from the local workspace…

The result…

And now VM knows the files have been deleted…

Now that we have removed the local copies to prevent user confusion (or at least my confusion) let’s get that earlier version. We will start from within the VM application to identify the file or files we need.
First we will highlight and right click the file to check it out (GB Cast, See Below), but we will not download the files to the local workspace…

Make the following selections in the dialog that appears, but make sure you uncheck the “Download Files check box…

Now that we have checked out the latest file set needed, but have not downloaded them to the workspace, we will need to replace them with the previous version to begin our work. Notice in the picture below how VM has highlighted the files selected indicating they have been checked out.

You should notice in the picture above we do not have a local copy (the circles are missing) present in the user’s workspace, this is the correct result for the operation we are currently performing.
Let’s take a look at the steps required to place an earlier design (Previous Version) in the user’s workspace…
First let’s identify within VM the actual version of the file we need, Version 6…

With version 6 highlighted in the file preview pane, right mouse click and select “Get/Checkout”

Now is the time to make sure the download file check box is checked…

Select <OK> to continue…
Notice how the VM list pane now appears, the checked out files will have the following symbols indicating their vault status…

Now let’s return to the Inventor application and open the files from the user’s workspace…

Select the exact files that were identified as the previous version file set…

Reviewing the file with Inventor we see a version of the file without the holes in the boss…

Also note the look of the Vault panel browser in Inventor 2010…

The indication shown above is correct for the current process we are working through; we will ignore the indications and save the file. The save operation will capture this design version as the latest to be used by the engineering design team. In order to make it the latest version in VM, all the changed files must be checked in.

Let’s go ahead and delete the local copy. This is the workspace copy, not the vaulted and controlled masters…

Deleting the local (workspace) copy will clear our local system of files no longer needed for our design work…
Let’s move back to the VM window and see what it looks like…
Version 10 of the file looked like this…

Version 11 looks like this, and is an exact copy of Version 6…

Now that the file above is our latest working master any user that needs to work with or use this file in another design is assured of having the latest digital prototype version of this design model. Users can get a previous version of any digital design files by using this process; if the files are not in WIP state then this process will not work. The files to be modified, by using a previous version operation will always need to be in a WIP (Work In Progress) state.
I’ve included a link to a video file that demonstrates the process reviewed in this blog, have fun…
Click here to see video…