Vault for Dummies?

[tchads]

We recently upgraded from Autocad 14/Civil 8 to Civil 3D 2012. Needless to say, the learning curve is rather steep. In Civil 8 all the drawing info was kept in a folder on the server which was linked to each drawing. These were specific to each drawing, with each drawing having its own "project file" containing cogo, survey, DTM, etc. Where to look for the project files was easily changed by modifying the path on each workstation.

Now that we have upgraded, these project files are kept on the individual workstations and I can't find a way to set the path to the server. Is this what Vault is designed for? I've read the Implementation Guide and it appears that Vault is designed for larger companies. Our office has 3 workstations and a dedicated server where the drawing files are stored. There is no person trained in IT and I'm not sure if installing Vault is the way to go.

I did read through the forum and couldn't find any posting similar to my situation.

Thanks.

[jlucas]

The company that I work for has between 50-60 employees using Vault. I don't know anything about Civil 8, or Revit for that matter, but I do know that in order for Vault to work properly, each workstation needs to have an identical file structure as Vault. I believe the terminology used here is "Project File". Ours is set up simply as Project filename - 'CompanyName'-Designs, and the Project location is: C:\Workspace\. Vault contains all the files. All of the these part files, weldment files, and assembly files are organized in subfolders within an overall folder called "Design". This Design folder is what the individual workstations link their projects to. If a change to a file is required, then you check it out from Vault. The copy on your workstation is now the master copy and can then be changed. When the change is completed, then check it back into Vault.

I hope this helps you. I'm not a Cad Administrator, so I don't know any of the specifics, but I do use Vault everyday. Our system works pretty well. Setting up permissions is important to, but with so few people using your system, it's pretty easy to track things down. Good luck to you tchads!

[cadtag]

Sounds like a great title for a book. Anyone up to writing it?