Autodesk Vault houses all your important CAD data and sometimes that data needs to be adjusted or extracted on a large scale. This could be due to new CAD properties that need to be added, updates to costing, vendors, part numbers or a whole host of other reasons. Maybe you need to map your Inventor revision to your new Vault Professional or Workgroup Vault Revision. Maybe you need mass update Part Numbers that are not in sync with your filenames. Since Autodesk does not have a global export of UDP (User Defined Properties), IMAGINiT has developed tools to aid in these endeavors. In our IMAGINiT Server Utilities we have a tool called IMAGINiT Metadata Update which will perform full exports of any UDP to an Excel spreadsheet and then after modification push the spreadsheet back into Vault and make the changes to the files including mapping new Revisions to the files based on your input. We often call this process mastering your data when perform Vault Workgroup/Professional Implementations for new or existing clients.
PDF: IMAGINiT Server Utilities
IMAGINiT Server Utilities Info Page
This process begins with launching the tool and choosing your action...
When choosing the File Metadata Export option you are presented with a scope of the extraction in regards to root folder selection as well as which Vault UDPs are required for the Export.
Once extracted you can edit the file in Excel and make any changes required. The only thing we currently do not allow direct modification is the actual Lifecycle State. I usually create a placeholder UDP and then use that to make my Lifecycle changes in Vault afterwards.
To import the data, choose the File Metadata Update option.
Then ensure the mapping is consistent and columns MATCH exactly with your desired UDPs (below you can see one of my columns does not find a matching UDP in Vault so it will essentially do nothing with the value). You will also have to choose a filename to allow the mapping to take place. I generally use the full filename that includes path to ensure I am getting the right file. If you have duplicates in Vault it will choose the first one it finds in your directory without doing this extra step.
This is just one of the many tools that make up our Vault Server Utilities and as you can see it has many uses and scenarios where it can benefit keeping a Vault healthy and accurate.
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