By Chris Turner
When working with Autodesk Inventor I have always found a top-down approach to be the most suitable, most of the time. It makes sense and the same is true and not specifically any different when utilising Autodesk Vault with your Inventor.
For example: -
- Open the top level drawing
- Edit / Open the assembly
- Edit / Open the subassembly
- Edit / Open the part you wish to edit
- Make the required edits to the part
- Save it the file
- Work your way back up to the drawing and update the assemblies and drawing as you go
This methodology and workflow works exceptionally well with or without Vault.
In order to ensure the smoothest, consistent workflow and make life easier when using Vault, I certainly always recommend an Inventor Application Option setting – PROMPT TO SAVE FOR RE-COMPUTABLE UPDATES
This option is not set by default, but the behaviour of updating the Inventor parent assemblies are affected.
When selected, this notifies you of system-level file resolutions and the system resolves file references automatically with other information such as mass property updates.
When not selected, the information update does not occur and Vault does not prompt you to check-out the design / assembly (if you don’t have it checked out already).
Check out my video showing this on a very simple assembly using Vault Basic… I start with no files checked out and I automatically get prompted as I work.
I’m sure you will agree that my workflow looked easy and was hardly difficult.
With many users in an environment, set this so everyone is using it!