Eric's Take...

...on Autodesk Vault 4.0 and beyond.

We all know that Vault ships with all Autodesk Mechanical products (Inventor, Inventor Pro, AutoCAD/M and AutoCAD/E), but how many of you are using it?

Why should I, you ask?

Prior to Vault 3, I would have agreed. There wasn't much of an incentive to move to Vault. Those of you that did were brave and definitely were riding the bleeding edge of technology. Congratulations if you have stuck with it and have migrated through the releases. If you didn't, it is time to revisit Vault.

Vault 3 was enough of an advancement that it was usable by those who were willing to get it in place and rolling.

Vault 4 (the latest shipping version with the above-mentioned products) has advanced enough that you need to convince me you can't benefit from using it. With the inclusion of Copy Design, it sounds a death knell to my beloved friend the Design Assistant (it always worked for me!). While not perfect, but fixed in Vault 4.5 (ProductStream 4.5) and should ship with Vault '5', the ability to reuse an existing design and all its documentation for a new design without having those troublesome links back to the original should be reason enough.

If not, the superior Search capabilities just by having the data in a relational database instead of Windows Explorer has got to sell you. How about the ability to Rename to your hearts content with everything being notified automatically? Or the ability to Filter, Create Shortcuts, Save Searches, Create Labels, Auto-Publish .DWFs, & Show Custom Properties and Thumbnails.

Oh... did I mention you also get a history of everything done to your designs through the Check-Out / Check-In process. Hmm, it's there too.

Let's hear it, folks! Comments are welcome.