Most of us in the manufacturing sector understand the need to manage engineering and design data, and Vault is a great solution for that. It is perfect for keeping file references, revision and version management and alleviates the “last one in wins” issue. However, Vault doesn’t assist with challenges like bulk loading data with rules, exporting various files to downstream users and connecting to other business systems such as ERP.

coolOrange is a company that helped develop the Vault. As a matter of fact, if you use the Vault data standard you are already using code written by coolOrange. Their team understands the need to help Vault users with a variety of day to day challenges.

One challenge our users face is the ability to import large amounts of data into Vault in a reliable way. AutoLoader is great but it doesn’t help with understanding the history of the files, the Bill of Materials and, most importantly, keeping the related links intact. If you have the files in the Vault but the metadata in an outside spreadsheet or system export, do you really want to copy and paste this data into every file?  Not unless you are a glutton for punishment and don’t want to concentrate on your “real” job of designing!

Another challenge our users face is the exporting of different file types to be used in downstream processes. Most people outside of design and engineering don’t use Vault but need access to the data in the most useful format. Vault Professional has the capability of producing .pdf files if you follow the rules, but that doesn’t always work. Many companies ask designers to save a copy of a .pdf to a specific location and file name. Have you ever forgotten to do that on a Friday morning because you are getting ready for a design review, not to mention the weekend? Oops! The ramifications might not be apparent until something is built to a wrong revision or the wrong parts are ordered.

Designers generally hate working in the ERP system, but that is the master source of data, unfortunately. Magically connecting Vault data to our ERP systems so we avoid multiple entries, look up searches, BoM consistency, etc. used to be a pipe dream. What if I told you that we have an elegant solution to this problem?

At Hagerman, we understand your data management needs and are one of the largest Vault systems integrators in the world. Our team is second to none at writing custom code on an individual basis, however, we value having toolkits at our disposal without the need to worry about the next version of Vault.

As we partner with coolOrange to make Vault work for you, we look forward to being able to more easily assist you in helping your Vault do what you need it to do, not force you to work around its capabilities.

These engagements will always start with a discovery call to completely understand your use case and then develop a cost-effective solution to solve these very real-world issues.