Topic: Civil 3D - Use Vault for EVERYTHING or Just the Bare Basics

[Dinosaur]

I am going to take advantage of this new influx of Civil 3D knowledge in TheSwamp with this question from my new position in the back of the room.  The problems encountered by John P. in deploying Vault on a large scale are legendary within the newsgroup and frankly, I have not heard of any successful implementation.  Vault seems to be an extremely heavy-handed approach to data management where a solid PROJECT management interface is what is really needed.  If said management included an easy means of changing paths from active design to an archive location I would be aesthetic.  I still haven't figured out how to do project management of phased projects or how to accommodate project name changes (a VERY frequent problem here) without major hoop jumping.

I am leaning toward a very minimal usage of Vault.  The only data shortcuts I used with 2006 were the point database, point groups and surfaces and I see no need to use Vault for any more than this in 2007.  I see no benefit at all including ANYTHING in a Vault project other than the basic elements that need to be shared by different drawing files.  The design documents and calculations for a project have lived happily in there own folders within the project without being attached by something like vault.

It seems to me that while Vault may be suitable for perhaps mechanical parts and assemblies with applications like Inventor, it is wholly unsuited for Civil type projects.  The last thing needed in subdivision work is a complete archive of every layout concept or submittal set for comments with all attached preliminary drawings and design files.  These plans were rejected for good reasons and will not be revived.  To store them is a waste of resources and to not store them seems to be a problem as well.

What are the implications of using Vault for only the few thing as I am proposing?  Will restricting its use in this way perhaps eliminate some of the problems being observed, or will they remain regardless?  What other words of Vault wisdom are there to hear?  For at least the 2007 release, Vault is the only viable option for data sharing with Civil 3D and the 800 lb gorilla must be tamed or this marvelous software's reputation is going to suffer even more.

[Jason Hickey]

Boy, you know how to ask the tough questions, don't you?   

Unfortunately (or fortunately, if you're an optimist like me), Vault is the price of admission for using Civil 3D.    That's a direct quote from James Wedding, who I'm really hoping shows up here to discuss this one, seeing as how he's the real Vault guru.  FWIW, you can find all of his nuggets of wisdom (trust me, those nuggets ARE wisdom!) at civil3d.com.

HOWEVER, with that being said......

To know whether Vault is for you or not, I'd need to know a few things.    How many Civil 3D users are in your firm?   What type of work do you do?  Things like this will be able to help us out.

As far as calcs, spreadsheets, contracts, etc., there is absolutely no reason to put them into Vault if you don't want to.   It makes for a handy storage location, but there's no requirement there.   As you said, it's a document management system, no matter what anyone says.

For the design components (surfaces, alignments, etc.), I'd say that if you're going to be sharing them with anyone else on your "team", then Vault will be a good idea.    Believe it or not, right now, I can see Vault working better for the smaller companies (<10 users) than the mega-40+ seat firm.   There are things to beware of, things to know, and things not to do (for example, a recovered file after a drawing crash - DON'T DO IT!!!)   The issue with 2007 is that data shortcuts are broken.   Vault is your only real option.

I've heard two stories from trusted sources about Autodesk's stance on Vault for Civil 3D - story "a" goes something like "You wanted project management, we gave you Vault, it's what we're going to use from now on, get used to it, and make it work."   Story "b" goes something like "wow, you REALLY don't like this, do you?   Well, let's see what we can do...."

Make your own assumptions.   

[Dinosaur]

I figure "why toss out softballs while the pro's are in town."

Just so you know better where I am coming from . . . I could be the prototype "Lone Wolf" from Dana Breig Probert's fine essay.  Resistance to Civil 3D in our office was so high in early 2006 that I had to arrange for training piggybacked into another companies class, all on my own nickle and vacation time because the 3 day session was several hundred miles away from my home.  I WANTED that training desperately and have never regretted the effort it took to get it.  I am still the only one in our small office that uses Civil 3D except for the engineer who insist on creating any design surface in the office himself.  We collaborate on the corridor and then I am on my own for the rest of any Civil 3D project.
Even though there are no other users sharing the data, I have several different drawings sharing it.  I prefer to have separate drawings for each of the street, sanitary, storm, water and grading sets with an xref to a non C3D layout sheet.  with 2006, I had data shortcuts to the objects I needed in the design model.  Much of this procedure is due to the wholly undisciplined drafting methods and layer management of the ITwit as it allows me to keep a betterr grip on the plotted output at any given time.


-EDIT-

fixed link to article

[jpostlewait]

Morning Dino,

Yikes " The problems encountered by John P. in deploying Vault on a large scale are legendary within the newsgroup and frankly, I have not heard of any successful implementation."

Probably shouldn't use the term Legendary when refering to my efforts.
A few late night e-mails to Jason among others is closer to the stuff of legend.

Implementing this product, training the users, setting up Vault, familiarizing the users with what kind of a curveball that is, and then trying to do the rest of what I have to do is a bit of a chore. Just reread this and I don't want to leave the impression that I am doing much of any of this stuff myself.  We are making progress. It's just slower and more expensive, in my opinion, than it should be. Autodesk is woefully lacking in providing any assistance other than to say, "You better go hire somebody to help you."

I have hired the Best, again in my opinion, and I can't imagine what I would do without him.

I'll try to check-in more often. Must get number of post's infront of Jason's.

[Dinosaur]

I will stand by my description . . . those threads are   L  O  N  G   and crammed full of things you and others have suggested and tried that don't work.  You are in the middle of probably the largest scale deployment of Civil 3D anywhere and identifying for the first time even for Manchester, some of the areas that it just doesn't do the job yet.  I just introduced this topic to see whether or not everyone was just expecting Vault to do too much.  I am content to use it as I have outlined although I think the Data shortcuts were better for my needs, but I think expecting it to do project management is asking it to do some things it was not designed for.  Some of the things I am curious about is how  Vault addresses archiving and phased projects.  When a project or phase has been built, but data and drawings must still be accessible, where can they go?  Do they just have to remain in the project list indefinitely?  I am on the other end of the spectrum with zero other users.  What I do have is about a dozen active Civil 3D projects which I would wager is near the top in that category.  I am seeing massive slowdowns whenever I work within a project environment when compared doing the same tasks when the drawing has been detached from the project.  File monitoring shows me Civil 3D doing an almost constant parsing through every project xml file whenever editing a drawing attached to a project and there seems to be little difference between master mode and active drawing mode.  If this behavior still occurs with Vault, I expect the slowdowns to increase with every new project unless there is an archival ability to get dead projects out of the system but still accessable.

[jpostlewait]

VAULT SUCKS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
OK got that somewhat out of my system.
Did I say PRIMITIVE, BROKEN, SCREWED UP PRODUCT THAT WAS BAND-AIDED ON TO CIVIL3D.
No I didn't really say that, did I?
I really don't know.
I'm telling everybody, better be prepared to swim in deep water if you want this stuff on the floor.

John Postlewait
IS Department
George Butler Associates, Inc.

[Dinosaur]

Well, I am certainly glad you were cautious with your response because you post under your real name and with your corporate header!

Well said, I could not have put it better myself - probably because you have been living with the 800 lb gorilla for several months now.  It is frustrating that they trotted out this turkey on top of some very significat additions to Civil 3D, giving us no choice other than take Vault or not get to play with any of the new toys.

[jpostlewait]

Hopefully the CEO doesn't know where the Swamp is.

BTW the CEO is a fanboy.
I convinced him that this is the direction of the future.
See the post about my neck on the line.
Anyway I may document my implementation adventure soon.

John P.

[Dinosaur]

I hope my boss never finds TheSwamp either . . .

[dgreble]

I will attempt to ease into the water with a hypothetical situation:

A small firm, 3-4 C3D users are getting by with 2006 for residential subdivision and some site plan work.  The current hardware is trembling and major changes are on the way.  The calendar is marked for days to close the office for major computer/server upgrades.  Along with the hardware comes C3D 2007 software.  There are major projects out the door at various stages ranging from preliminary plans to construction plans.  The dream scenario is to come to the office, turn on new computers, load new software and pick up projects and run without any headaches.  Does one vault or not vault?

[Dinosaur]

Is there any way to keep 2006 available for at least the construction plan phased projects?  2007 presented some problems loading up 2006 drawings in 2007 at first.  I don't remember if the service packed stopped all of that or not.  My choice in that situation would be install 2006 on all of the new machines and 2007 on one.  Even better, put the 2007 on a virtual machine on all of the computers for everyone to try out when time permits.  Keep all of the active projects in 2006 for now and use a clone of one of the preliminary stage ones as a pilot project in 2007.  The thing most important to remember is there is no effective way to take a 2007 drawing back down to 2006 without some major rehashing things from XML files.  Going backward will likely cost as much time as it would take to slog it through in 2007.  Eventually, even if 2007 is dealing tremendous fits, I am thinking as the number of projects grows, I think Vault will be mandatory (unless 2008 or 2*** brings a pleasant surprise for real project management).

[jpostlewait]

I will attempt to ease into the water with a hypothetical situation:

A small firm, 3-4 C3D users are getting by with 2006 for residential subdivision and some site plan work.  The current hardware is trembling and major changes are on the way.  The calendar is marked for days to close the office for major computer/server upgrades.  Along with the hardware comes C3D 2007 software.  There are major projects out the door at various stages ranging from preliminary plans to construction plans.  The dream scenario is to come to the office, turn on new computers, load new software and pick up projects and run without any headaches.  Does one vault or not vault?

You didn't mention anything about training.
And unfortunately dreams sometimes don't come true.
Vault changes everything you used to know as referencing doesn't work except through Vault.
If you try it without it you will need to reconnect every time you open a file.
I am taking a Sabbatical from editorializing upon the advise of a friend.
But you need to do some quick research if the Date is carved in stone.

John Postlewait
IS Department
George Butler Associates, Inc.

[Dinosaur]

A major problem when considering Vault is WHERE you are going to let it live.  I think that is has been determined that it will work best on a server (preferably its own if at all possible) rather than locally on individual machines.  Whoever is making the decisions on the upgrades should really try to get a handle for what Vault requires in both resources and management before any decisions are made.

[MMccall]

My needs for data sharing are fairly minimal as well so I paid little attention to the announcement of vault ... until I read that data shortcuts no longer functioned as they did in 06. There's no good reason for doing that. I think it was an intentionally move just the force people to use vault if they want to share data because they knew we wouldn't like vault.  It's more borrowed square code pounded into our round civil hole. I don't like being jerked around like like that. Holding back on my subscription is all i have to bargin with so that's what I'm doing.  .. and that's my thoughts on vault.

However, I installed a trial copy of 07 to see if there is enough new, and useful, stuff for me to overcome the 'bend over, here comes vault' tactics.

[Dinosaur]

You may not want to be too harsh on Autodesk for this one just yet.  In the first post on this thread I described a dramatic slowdown in performance editing project based drawings as my number of projects increased.  Essentially it appears from my file monitoring that Civil 3D 2006 is continuously parsing through ALL project XML files when editing a drawing attached to any project.  If the drawing is detached, the same operations produce zero performance loss.
I am wondering if this has become known in Manchester as some customers started having a larger set of projects stored and they had no solution handy except to push Vault.  As I read more about Vault and how it manages the data sharing and using local copies of the drawings, I think Vault will prevent this from happening.  If I am correct in this, I would INSIST that Vault be available for 2007 drawings at least and until a different solution is available.

[MMccall]

Too harsh, perhaps.  Maybe I expect too much from a mature software company. This isn't their first attempt at writing software, not their first civil design package and not their first release of a it. Having the software parse through all the xlm's for every project is a bit short sighted and something they probably could have fixed. (like restricting it to just the current project)  File and data management should have been higher up on the development list.

There are many things C3d does very well and it's pretty amazing.

[dbreigprobert]

I have yet to use vault in any way.

When we went to bootcamp this year, i got thrown on the sales track to fill a seat, so i didnt even see the technical presentations.  So I didnt use it then.

When Beth got sick and I had to do our road show, I blew off the vault parts since i had enough to worry about.

We have had a few people ask about Vault, and I usually take a good, hard look at why they think they need it, how they work now and what data they really need to share.

When it comes down to it, very few of the small to medium sized firms that I encounter really do much data sharing in Land Desktop.  

These are usually the big REAL REASONS:

1) The EG is in a survey base- so it needs to be sampled on all profiles
2) They separate alignments from profiles so that someone can be doing plan while other in profile

Here is why they think they need data sharing:
1) Because every drawing they currently have is associated with the LDT project even if it doesnt have data
2)They mistake XREF (pretty picture sharing) with DATA sharing (terrain definitions, points, alignments)  They think in order to see the alignmnet they need the alignment data, for example, when they could just XREF

How I handle the REAL REASONS
1) LandXML shuffle.  It isn't super tidy, but it works.
2) The reason they currently do this is because someone is manually drafting and manually (dtext) labeling pipes, or going through the cumbersome LDT vertical alignment tools.  That stuff flies in C3D and can usually (after a few projects and comfort increases) be eliminated all together.  Not to say tha a profile doesn't need to be "touched", but it isnt being constantly updated with the latest engineering whim

Other strategies:

I find that people are usually willing to sacrfice a little dynamic-ness for some cost savings.  Hmmm.... $60K plus in hardware upgrades, OR just wblock over some alignments every once in awhile.  No brainer.

Another thing that works also helps keep the sticky fingers of the EIT posse out of the precious "Final Drawings" is the idea of a redline scrap drawing.  Well managed, an engineer or designer can slop around with many different iterations of a design, then block or landxml over the final surface, etc to the clean drafting drawing.

I have a million ideas here because as I said, I am in Vault denial for the moment

As far as my own work, I find that my tolerance for drawing size ranges from about 10-20meg max. leaning towards the 10 meg mark.  I currently have a 120ish lot subdivision with a big ol' corridor, a few relatively large surfaces, several pipe networks, etc etc and it runs in the 10 meg range.  I separate out parcels since they usually just get in my way and i dont want them reacting to anything- so they get their own baseplan.  

I have an Ebase, a Parcel base and a Pbase.  That's it.  Sheets and layouts also on their own.  No viewports or layout tabs in any of my base plans.  The only data that is shared is a LandXML shuffle EG.

I also have another project- bigger- probably in the 200ish lot range with a corridor+more and it is about the same 10-12 meg

But the issue here is QUALITY drawing size vs. CRAPPY drawing size.

If I receive a project from a client as an LDT project- and they say- bring it forward and work your magic.

The first thing i look at is drawing size.  If this LDT drawing is more than a meg or two and they aren't mapping the grand canyon I look closer.  There are exceptions, but at this scale project the big culprits are usually things like aerial topo blocks that were never flattened, drawing errors, blocks that are in memory but not in use and have some blip or corruption or elevation to them, things like LDT TIN lines that are old, redundant or just not useful, etc.

If my drawing is large for no good reason before I start adding Civil 3D entities, things will get out of control fast.  A big reason why people feel they need Vault or some sort of whole hog project system i often because of things like "managing drawing size"

With all that said, there are certainly firms that really need robust data sharing, or really just want to use it for other reasons.  So Vault is a solution.

But I never would point people that way without a really hard look at HOW they really work and what we can do differently.

[Dinosaur]

The ony things I really need to share in a project are the surfaces.  I also use the project functions to store the points and point groups.  Alignments could also have usefull to share I guess, but I never felt it necessary.  Without Vault in 2007 does one just manually save the various XML files manually and place them somewhere logical?  Do you make a seperate XML for each thing or just one for the entire project data?  I am still a bit skeptical about XML frankly after my first project fiasco and have only tried a couple limited XML transfers since.

[dbreigprobert]

the quasi dynamic landxml shuffle only works for surfaces

how it works-

make a surface in your Ebase

landxml out just the surface

landxml in to the pbase

if the ebase surface changes, just export again OVERWRITING the original landxml surface file
rebuild surface in pbase.

just store it in a folder somewhere.  it behaves like an xref

done. 

surfaces maintain their association with the landxml file that created it.

nothing else to my knowledge works like that- once alginments are in, they are in, etc.

points- do you need them, or do you need to see them?  would an xref get you what you needed?

[Dinosaur]

Ebase & Pbase - I am lost, what are these terms?

Points are always in a state of flux - very piecemeal in their collection and when we export for staking . . . you just don't want to know . . .     Let us just say any project at any given time may generate points to contribute to the project and to export for staking, all control points must be included or our surveyor . . . it is just not a pretty sight.

[Jason Hickey]

See, this is where my mind diverges from Dana's in a way.    Of course, that's one of the reasons that we get along so famously.

I try not to let any customer or class escape my discussion regarding Vault.   As a matter of fact, one of my standard "marketing fluff" seminars (sorry folks, we're required to do them by the "Mothership") is "Project Management for Civil Engineers", and it's going to look strongly at Vault.

I use it a little for drawing file size management, but I also use it for something else - data redundancy.    Let's say that I use Dana's example of three drawings per project.    Parcels go into a parcels drawing, everything existing goes into an existing drawing, and everything proposed goes into a proposed drawing.     Now, I know we're all supposed to save early and save often, and we're supposes to Audit every so often to keep our data safe.   However, what happens if her proposed drawing crashes?   What if she doesn't have a backup on the server from last night?   That's a ton of work to have to go back and reproduce just because a drawing went wonky.    With Vault, I'd just go check out the latest version of that drawing and not have to worry about it, because the vault only moves a COPY OF THE DRAWING out to the working folder.    I've always got something as a backup.

Actually, the way I use Vault works much better for smaller offices than it does for larger offices.    Smaller offices (<15 or so, maybe more than that) don't necessarily have to worry about an entirely new dedicated server.   They CAN manage with the server that they've got.   Sure, a perfect world would see everyone running this on it's own box with Windows Server 2003 and SQL Server, but it can be run on a lesser piece of hardware.

To be perfectly honest, I feel as if I need to be pushing Vault RIGHT NOW, because I don't think it's going to go away.   It's going to be around for a while, and we have to get used to it pretty darn soon.   I'm not saying (by ANY stretch of the imagination) that there couldn't be a better option - certainly there could.   However, I am saying that I've been given a car to take to the race track, and I'm going to try my best to win with it 

[dbreigprobert]

so let's say that data sharing wasnt an issue at all.

What does vault bring to the table above what i could do myself by making a copy of my drawing at the end of the day in a second backup directory?  or running a little macro that copies my drawings to that backup directory?

I'm not against vault. in fact, I am all for data sharing.

But I am a realist- sometimes people aren't ready for more than one paradigm shift at a time if it just isnt necessary.

My principal mission is to get people into civil 3d, learning it and using it. 

if whenever they call to say something like "I'm trying out Civil 3D 2007 and I'd like to have labels at different scales..." and I go on a Vault tangent that involves me sending them an invoice for $20-100K worth of services, and they hang up the phone thinking- "OK, I guess I have to take this back to LDT since that sounds like too much for me"  I'd get nowhere.

So- that is why the four of us make such a good posse.

James would say "Change the entire workflow"
Nick would say "Customize the heck out of it"
Jason would say "Adjust your approach and work with what tools we have"
Dana would say "Just add another label and get back to work"

So somehow, those 4 minds meet and the client gets the solution they really need

[dbreigprobert]

Ebase & Pbase - I am lost, what are these terms?

Points are always in a state of flux - very piecemeal in their collection and when we export for staking . . . you just don't want to know . . .     Let us just say any project at any given time may generate points to contribute to the project and to export for staking, all control points must be included or our surveyor . . . it is just not a pretty sight.

Translation:  Dana speak for

EBase= Base plan containing my existing info
PBase= Base plan containing my proposed info

[Dinosaur]

I admire the restraint you had by NOT adding any comments John Postlewait may have included!

This is all great stuff from all of you . . . EXACTLY the type of input I was hoping to receive.

And thanks for the clarification on the terms . . . It was late and some of the brain circuits had fried already from some family issues.

[Jason Hickey]

I admire the restraint you had by NOT adding any comments John Postlewait may have included!

OK, you brought it out here.   Ladies and gentleman, you're now going to see the famous (or infamous) Postlewait impersonation, brought to you live for the first time on TheSwamp:

John will say "How the **** can I run it on **** Novell AND **** back it up every **** night?"

And now for a bit of legalese:

The preceeding impersonation was said in great jest with tongue planted firmly in cheek, and in no way reflects a bad opinion of John.   I told him a few days ago that I'd pick on him occasionally, and figure this is something good for him to come back to work and see, especially after a nice birthday weekend celebration   

[dgreble]

Thanks to all for the wonderful input.  After taking a holiday weekend semi-off and having the pleasure of seeing the Royals taking 2 of 3 from the Sox I am back to the grind. 
If 2007 can be loaded without the vault does everything still work smooth or is it a xref nightmare?  I am trying to pin down my re-seller to help with the installation of vault and they are talking to me like I must be crazy.  I ask my reseller for literature on vault and they tell me that it doesn't really exist.  Training is in the future and it seems that using 3D is getting better.  Still using the LDT crutch for grading and finished surface creation and not into parcels yet (darn lots & blocks) but with 2007 hopefully that will change.  I hate to take two steps back with vault but hopefully it will get me three steps forward.  There is only one project with a super huge drawing file (18meg) with a huge eg (120 meg) and data shortcuts.  Future projects should be smoother, cleaner, faster.

[Dinosaur]

You should not be tied into getting training from only your reseller.  If you are not satisfied with his answers now, it is doubtful if his training efforts will be any better for you than those feeble comments about vault.  Training can be contracted through whoever you choose and there are several sources for you to explore right here in TheSwamp.  You already know who I used.
I think all of the comments in this thread regarding implementing Vault are valid - Dana has offered up an method that will eliminate vault completely and it may well for work for you, provided you understand and follow the procedure absolutely.  The program is not updating your data for you and if you muff something . . . "oopsies" doesn't quite cover it.  I think Jason and James Wedding would both suggest embracing the beast and subduing it.  It will likely be around at least the next 2 releases anyway and that is a LONG duration for a PITA workaround.  I still prefer the very limited use of it that I outlined.  You know what your requirements are for sharing data and either one of these approaches or some twisted variant of one should work for you.  Keep the questions flowing and I think the solution can be nailed down for you, hopefully before you start gnawing at your leg and frothing at the mouth as has been reported in some extreme cases.

[Jason Hickey]

DG -

If you're not getting good answers from your reseller, then look for someone else.   I will say, however, that they are right on one count - there really isn't much info on Vault for Civil 3D out there, other than what people like James have written.   Autodesk just doesn't address it (yet.)

Note that you are NOT tied to one reseller in your area for services or training.   Find someone who can work with you and get you set up the way you need to be.   Civil 3D and Vault aren't some out-of-the-box solutions for most people.   If you're interested, there are quite a few people in here who would be willing to talk to you, myself included.

[jpostlewait]

I admire the restraint you had by NOT adding any comments John Postlewait may have included!

OK, you brought it out here.   Ladies and gentleman, you're now going to see the famous (or infamous) Postlewait impersonation, brought to you live for the first time on TheSwamp:

John will say "How the **** can I run it on **** Novell AND **** back it up every **** night?"

And now for a bit of legalese:

The preceding impersonation was said in great jest with tongue planted firmly in cheek, and in no way reflects a bad opinion of John.   I told him a few days ago that I'd pick on him occasionally, and figure this is something good for him to come back to work and see, especially after a nice birthday weekend celebration   

LMAO Buddy.
This goes down with Vaughan Meador and JFK
C. Chase and Gerald R. Ford
Rich Little and nearly everyone.

I couldn't have said it better myself.

[Dinosaur]

Dan Philbrick has provided some important news for those of us who have not yet tried Civil 3D 2007 because they were reluctant to embrace Vault for data / project management.  Autodesk has announced that it will be issuing a new service pack that will restore 2006 style data shortcut functionality and eliminate the need to use vault or remembering to do the XML shuffle each time a drawing is loaded.

[MMccall]

Kewl!     If your data sharing needs are simple, it makes a nice alternative to vault.


Not having my 2006 projects upgrade seamlessly into 2007 still irks me a little but I'll just have to keep a copy of 2006 around for when those projects need work , and the longer I put off moving to 07, the more 06 projects I'll have ... doh!

[dgreble]

Good catch Dino!  This may help me get 5 more minutes of sleep at night!