It's a bit of a long one this but please bear with me as I'm sure you will find it useful......
If you are using one of the Autodesk Vault products to manage your 2D, 3D and non-CAD data within the design engineering process, you no doubt know how important it is to keep track of who's done what, when, where and how.
Autodesk Vault Professional allows a manufacturer to securely manage all of their data so that users can see full version history of documents as well as revise data based on company lifecycles and permissions. But what happens if you need to share data outside of the business with customers, suppliers and contractors? Taking design data out of a secure managed environment means that the document(s) are no longer managed - you can't track the versions and are unable to determine where the documents are shared.
A new addition to the Autodesk data management solutions now gives manufactures the ability to share their data with customers, suppliers and contractors but still keep control of their data using Autodesk Vault Professional and the new Autodesk Project Sync tool.
Autodesk Buzzsaw and Autodesk Streamline are the same thing, they are both cloud based project collaboration services that have been available for around 8 years or so. Functionally there's no difference between the tools, it's just that Buzzsaw is branded for the AEC industry and Streamline is branded for the Manufacturing industry.
The new Project Sync tool works with Autodesk Vault Workgroup, Collaboration and Professional and allows a manufacturer to connect their internal data management with the external secure, managed environment of Autodesk Streamline. It's quick, simple and very, very effective! This is how it works...
Once downloaded and installed Autodesk Vault Professional will have a new Project Sync toolbar and a new Project Sync Settings option in the Tools menu which allows the user to determine the site, username and project folder settings:
Once the settings have been completed you are ready to share data with your Streamline\Buzzsaw site. Just slect a folder, file or group of files and click on Share to Buzzsaw:
This will start the Vault Job Server and will automatically upload the selected folder or file(s) to the secure, managed environment of the Streamline\Buzzsaw cloud based site:
Now that it is on the Streamline\Buzzsaw site, anyone internally or externally can access the data as long as they have the correct permissions to do so. And anything that happens to the file e.g. download, edit, upload etc will be tracked within the version history.
Assuming a contractor, customer or supplier the correct permissions within the Streamline\Buzzsaw site they could Edit the document(s) which will lock it to them and download to their local hard disk drive so the data can be worked on. Whilst it is locked to that user others can view but not edit it.
When the customer, supplier or contractor has finished making their modifications to the document they can Upload the data to the Streamline\Buzzsaw site. During this process a new version of the document(s) is created ensuring that there is an externally managed and recorded audit trail:
As well as creating a version history, the Upload process can also automatically send notifications to users of Autodesk Vault Professional that a new version of their documents has been uploaded and is now available. From within Autodesk Vault Professional they can then use the Update from Buzzsaw tool to update the version within their Vault with the modified version from the Streamline\Buzzsaw site.
When the version is downloaded using the Project Sync tool it doesn't overwrite the file within Autodesk Vault Professional but creates a new version containing the modifications created outside of the company and adds it to the version history with a comment of "Updated from Buzzsaw":
One of the key components to this process is ensuring that whilst the data is being managed and modified outside of the business, that no-one inside of the business accidentally checks-out the data and modifies it. This can be quickly and easily solved using Autodesk Vault Professional lifecycles and permissions.
Just create a new lifecycle state called something like "Customer Review" and remove Modify permissions for all users whilst the document is in this state. This will ensure that whilst the data is outside the business and being managed using the cloud based Streamline\Buzzsaw site no one internally is making changes when they shouldn't be:
Using Autodesk Vault Professional with Streamline\Buzzsaw and the new Project Sync tool allows manufacturers to extend their data management quickly and easily with customers, suppliers and contractors.
Click here to learn more about Autodesk Streamline and set-up a 30-day trial....
