File storage for new user

[aepeszel]

I am trying to setup Inventor for my company. We make architectural products and have several dozen parts, which can make as many assemblies. These assemblies will be driven per job.
I am setting up these base models for production use and am trying to figure out the best way to organize them. Vault is not currently being considered for certain reasons.

The first idea I had is to have a host of folders nested, but this would be a nightmare to find parts manually.
A quicker alternative was to assign a value to all parts and styles. Then using this to make folder names for quicker search. This would give a folder a name similar to a serial number. The problem with this is possible confussion and wasted time hunting for the desired file.

These files are to be pack'n'go to a designers drive, and assembled per job.

Any ideas short of vault?

 

[DesignerMike]

Only question is why not Vault?

I'm just in the process of implimenting it, and could use your feedback.

 

[aepeszel]

The Inventor disk is on the network here, and it takes awhile to download. We have not gotten to it yet. I would like to have an idea of how to setup for vault and w/o vault in case we have issues setting it up.

 

[DesignerMike]

Do you understand projects? Are you an experience user? How many people will be working on the same project? Do you have standard parts (which could be put into a library) and then custom parts and assemblies? Do you want to store everything on a server and share the files over a network? How many total parts do you expect (tens of thousands is not uncommon)?

I'm only a single user, and have only ever used the "single user" project. If you have multiple users, and want to restrict access you would need to use "semi-isolated", "shared project" or struggle with "single user" project environment.

There are MANY ways to set up projects or the Vault. Everyones use requirements, network arrangement, project types etc are so different you could probably find a hundred different configurations.

http://www.sdotson.com/tutorials.asp

has a tutorial about project files, but it's pretty old. There are a bunch of other tutorials and information on the subject, just check some of Sean's links, try the Autodesk discussion group, or a google search will turn up others.

Sorry there is no simple answer, except to have your dealer come in and help set it up.

 

[aepeszel]

DM
I have used projects quite a bit, both single and multi user. The number of people may vary and I am not sure on the final total, besides it will likely increase. I will be using the server and share files over the network. I think I will most likely use vault, but require more information on it to make a final judgement.

Adam