Creating a Vault Property

Since Autodesk Vault is run on a SQL database, it is a very powerful tool for keeping track of CAD files and their associated data.  The ability to search on the properties of Vault is one of the best ways to find and reuse designs.  Even though Vault is loaded with a variety of existing properties, it may become necessary to create your own Vault Properties.  So I wanted to dedicate one blog post, in this series about Vault Properties, to how to create a Vault Property.  Before I get into the steps in the process, I want to remind you that only users with an Administrator role will be able to do this.

The first step is to open the Property Definitions dialog, which is located on the Behaviors tab of the Vault Settings dialog, which can be found by going to Tools> Administration> Vault Settings.

Property Definitions Dialog

Once you are to the Property Definitions Dialog, it is just a matter of click on New and entering the desired information.

For the most part, some of these options are straight forward.  For example, Name is the name of the property.  As long as you are not using special characters or duplicating an existing property name, there shouldn't be any issues here.  Type is just what type of data is going into this field.  Is it text, a number, a date, or a true/false value?

The Associations are a little more in-depth.  When it comes to Vault Basic, Vault Workgroup, or Vault Professional, there are different functions inside of Vault and the new property can be associated with any one of those objects.  The Associations get into is this going to be a property for files, if so, which categories?  Is the property going to be associated with Items, if so, what kinds?  And so on.

After Associations, the user will need to define some of the specific settings for that property.  One option is to have this property included when someone does a basic search.  There are also additional options to set an initial value, force a list of values, require a value, etc.  Each association can have these set independently from one another.

There is a tab for Mapping.  This will allow users to create a mapping between the Vault Property and properties of the actual CAD files, such as Inventor's iProperties.  Property Mapping should really be a post of its own.  So I will cover that is my next post.

Here is a video demonstration that I have posted to YouTube.

So with these steps, you should be able to create your own properties inside of Vault.  Which will enable you to keep track of all the important information about your designs and related files.  Some of this information will be best mapped to your CAD files.  I intend to cover property mapping in my next blog post, so be sure to look for that post within the next week.