Autodesk Vault

Vault is a simple document management system from Autodesk.
It allows design teams to store and manage their work-in-progress drawings and related documents in one central and accessible location.
Autodesk Vault is available free toAutoCAD subscription customers.

So Autodesk Vault is easy to use, powerful and best of all, free.

Have you ever: Wasted hours searching for files? Re-created data that you know must already exist somewhere on your companies network? Been working on a project, only to the phrase “didn’t they tell you, its been changed”? Accidentally overwritten good work? Wished you could go back to a previous version of a design? If your answer to any of these questions is "Yes", then you need Autodesk Vault.

Autodesk Vault

Autodesk Vault provides a single, secure repository for design data and is tightly integrated with all Autodesk software products. By storing designs in a centralized location, designers can find, reference and reuse that design data. If you’re a user of Autodesk Inventor Series, Autodesk Inventor Professional, AutoCAD Mechanical, or AutoCAD Electrical software, you already own Autodesk Vault. If you are a user of AutoCAD and have an Autodesk Subscription contract you are now eligible to download and run Autodesk Vault for free.

Work Better as a Team
As your design evolves, more people contribute to the data, increasing the chance that work in progress will be inadvertently overwritten. Autodesk Vault software’s version management capability protects work-in-progress data; minimizing the risk of overwriting work. Design team members can instantly access the most current design data. Design efforts are synchronized, and costly mistakes are reduced.

Manage Work-in-Progress Data

Version Management Autodesk Vault offers safe storage for all versions of data, so you can track design data and prevent overwriting good work. Autodesk Vault offers complete dependency management to help prevent mistakes, such as deleting related drawings or other files. Plus you can track file versions as well as dependencies such as assemblies, parts or drawings. Multi-user File Management Multiple users can simultaneously interact with the same design data set, but only one user at a time can edit a file. File management enables users to add files, check them in or out, and move them.

Automated DWF Publishing With Autodesk DWF files, your team can easily share the latest design information in a compact, non-editable, secure format. Autodesk Vault automatically creates a DWF file for each file you designate, and then updates the DWF file whenever the parent file changes. Automated DWF publishing eliminates the extra work needed to create and manage DWF files as well as the errors inherent in the manual updating process.

Microsoft Office Integration
Access files stored in Autodesk Vault directly from within Microsoft Office applications. Now all team members can easily access and store supporting engineering documents from their desktop environment.

AutoCAD, Autodesk Inventor and AutoCAD Mechanical Add-ins
Continue to work in a familiar 2D or 3D CAD environment, and access Autodesk Vault for secure storage, file protection, versioning, and retrieval. Vault access is built into the AutoCAD and many other applications interfaces, with easy-to-use colour status indicators, cross highlighting, and xref management.

Labelling Labels - such as “Design Review” or “Sent to Client” - provide a quick way to take a snapshot of your complete design data at any phase of the project. Using labels enables you to capture the exact state of your project data at specific milestones and can restore the project from any of those milestones if required. Organize and Reuse Your Data Support for Any File Type Consolidate design data in one place. Manage versions of any file type, including Microsoft Word, PowerPoint, and Excel. Attachments Manage all related product information by creating parent-child relationships between files. For example, create a relationship between an assembly file and a corresponding specification in Microsoft Word.

Property Based Advanced Searches
Find related data quickly to promote design reuse. Search design information using properties such as designer, description, and material.

Full Content Search
Many users want to search for information that is contained in file content, rather than just the file properties. This content includes information that is embedded in drawings and supporting documents. Autodesk Vault uses standard iFilter technology to search and index the contents of DWG and Microsoft
Office files. A new Advanced Find option is available for searching file content, and content indexing can be switched on or off for each vault.

Where-Used Feature Analyze which files (CAD and non-CAD) a design drawing or assembly uses. If a related data set is being modified, enable change management and quickly learn the impact of changing a data set. History Audit the change history of a file to make informed decisions when going back to a previous version of a file. Use this feature to display a file’s complete version history. Quickly view any version by simply selecting it and using Autodesk Vault technology’s built-in viewing capabilities.

Copy Design
Design reuse keeps your team productive. Now you can copy an entire design, including all related files, to create a new design. You choose which files to copy, which to rename, and which files will be reused as they are, saving hours of unnecessary effort.

Rename
Rename files as needed to conform to your part-numbering conventions or other processes. Rename AutoCAD and Autodesk Inventor files without breaking dependencies with other files.

Easily Use and Administer

Web Services (.NET) Foundation
Take advantage of a high-performance and scalable foundation based on Microsoft Web Services that integrates easily with other business systems.

Application Programming Interface (API)
Create customized applications or integrate with other systems to meet customer needs using the powerful Web Services-based API. Programmatic access to data via the API means you can safely read and write data to items stored in Autodesk Vault.

Saved Searches
New search functionality in Autodesk Vault enables you to quickly view project information by saving commonly used searches. Save any search criteria to either a saved search or a new search folder for easy access to all files currently in design or related to a particular project.

Shortcuts Put design data at your fingertips by creating shortcuts to common files or folders stored in Autodesk Vault. Shortcuts are displayed in the user interface and provide easy access to stored files, parts, or assemblies at any time. Quick Project Loading Load all related AutoCAD or other files into Autodesk Vault without having to open individual files. This capability speeds up loading of existing data and greatly reduces errors, such as missing files, common to a manual loading process.

Property Management
Administrators can remove unused properties from the server, reducing storage requirements and improving the overall performance and scalability of the server.

Purging of Unwanted Version History
Administrators can remove outdated and unwanted version histories from Autodesk Vault, improving both performance and scalability while reducing the amount of disk space required for data storage. This process automatically retains versions that have been marked with the label feature used to identify project milestones.

Pack and Go
Package all related files into a single location. This feature provides easy portability for users who don’t have access to Autodesk Vault, as well as a way to manage archives of related data.

Protect and Secure Your Data

Access Control
Control access to data based on user roles: Consumer (read-only), Editor (read and write), and Administrator. Allow access to design information based on need and job function.

Version Management
Protect and track design data to prevent overwriting of work in progress. Manage file versions, and use Autodesk Vault to retain related information such as assemblies, parts, and drawings. Retrieve previous or current versions at any time and perform “Where-used” and “Uses” analyses to view complete histories.

Multi-user Management
Enable multiple users to safely and simultaneously interact with the same design data. Autodesk Vault software’s check-in and check-out capabilities enable multiple users to work on the same design without overwriting each other’s work.