Configuring Vault with Inventor

Vault is a complicated piece of software and nothing is simple with it. And it starts right from the setup. Let's see how to properly configure Vault with Inventor.

The first step is to create the vault. Nothing complicated here, just open Autodesk Data Management Server Console on the server and choose Create.

It's actually the creation of the Inventor project (.ipj) that has a pitfall.

Start by choosing the Vault type:

Then the project name. Typically, you choose your organization's name. Here for the example, I'll name my project WIIP:

This will create a file C:\Users\Maxence\Documents\Inventor\WIIP\WIIP.ipj and the workspace will be set to C:\Users\Maxence\Documents\Inventor\WIIP\. Often, people prefer a shorter path like C:\WIIP, it's up to you.

On the next screen, you can choose libraries, but I won't go into detail on that — it's not where the problem lies.

The issue comes next, with folder mapping. To start working, you need to map local folders to Vault's virtual folders.

At this point, you'd think you can just map the project root to $, but you get the infamous message:

Invalid selection. You cannot map a Vault project to the root if the project does not contain a workspace.

And that's where it all goes wrong. What does this gibberish even mean?

Why this error?

The problem is that you cannot place your design files at the vault root. You must place them in a subfolder. The only file that should be at the root is the .ipj file. This is because of the library folders. They must start from the root and not be mixed with standard files. So you need a structure like this:

$
  +-- Designs
  +-- Content Center Files (Library)
  +-- Templates (Library)
  <Your organization>.ipj

You can name this subfolder whatever you want, but you need one.

This subfolder must also exist in your local workspace. After creating the project, you need to modify the workspace so that it includes the subfolder:

Once this is done, you can then create the mapping Project root → $

After that, created files will go by default into the Designs subfolder. When checked in, they will be placed in $/Designs. Your .ipj file will remain in $.

Finally, don't forget that in the Vault client, you also need to set the working folder (File, Set Working Folder...) to make sure both applications use the same folder.

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