Vault 2018—What's New

PRESENTER 1: The three areas that we have done enhancement with respect to Vault 2018. So we have enhanced the design experience. And we have increased the engineering efficiency by introducing PDF. And we also now enabled the task delegation. We added some few admin roles in 2018. So let's look into it one by one.

And the enhanced design experience, this is one of the most asked features before 2018. You have Vault browser. You have Inventor browser. And you want to undock the Vault browser from Inventor browser, so that you want to see both, side by side. Thanks to the Inventor team, they did for us.

Now, Vault browser can be undocked. You can dock, undock. You can float. You can float to a secondary monitor. And you can do more. Like you can do search inside the browser, using your file name, using the properties, iProperties as well as the Vault properties.

The other enhancement is AnyCAD for Inventor. With 2017.4 Inventor, you can open Inventor 2018 file using AnyCAD technology. So 2018 will support that workflow. So you can check in the files. When you open the 2018 file inside 2017.4, you can check in the files. You can, now, also extract the bill of materials as well as the properties.

With respect to the performance enhancements, Inventor has changed their Open from Vault dialog to support the express mode. You can open the files in express mode. That Open from Vault dialog also enhanced to support files to open in express mode.

With respect to the drawing, the Inventor Open has now defer mode. So when you open drawing files using Open from Vault, you can also open in defer mode. So I'll demo you in a while.

We have added a new command, inside Vault browser, called, Go to Vault Folder. You select the file and say, Go to Vault Folder. And a Vault Explorer client will open and a specific file gets highlighted in the client. And then, you can continue your Vault commands inside the Vault Explorer.

Insert into CAD-- this used to be an app in 2017. Now, this is part of 2018. So in the Vault Explorer client, select the file, say, Insert into CAD, and that particular specific part or assembly or sub-assembly gets inserted into your assembly or in the drawing.

So let me quickly demo. So, you have now Vault browser. Now you can undock it. You can dock it here. you can dock it here. You can even dock it in the secondary monitor.

So, with respect to the search, so, here, you have a Search button. Let me go and search for the file name. And then I go with the Properties. And I'll look for the steel. And then it goes to the Vault Properties. I want to see only the Released files.

And select the file, Right-Click, and say, Go to Vault folder. So this will fire up the Vault Explorer client. And then, the specific file gets highlighted. You can see that the file is getting highlighted. And then it--

AUDIENCE: It goes to the client, regardless whether you have a client open already, right?

PRESENTER 1: Right. And then you can continue your Vault Explorer commands into the client.

Now, let's talk about the insert into CAD. So I select a file and Right-Click and say Insert into CAD. So the file gets downloaded and gets opened up into that existing assembly. All right?

So the next one is, if you go to Open, Design, and to Open dialog, and you select the Assembly, and if you go to Options, you have this Full and Express. So same thing, like now, if you go to Open from Vault dialog and select Assembly, and you have the same options available in the Open from Vault. So open the file in Express mode, and you can see that the file is getting opened in the express mode.

Similar to that, now you have the drawing. There's Inventor Open, go to the Options. You have Full and Defer mode. Same thing, like now, if you go back to the Open from Vault, select the drawing, and you have Options like Full and Defer. And if you open it in Defer mode, the file gets open in Defer mode.

So if you want to open it fast, like you don't want to have all those updates, so you can open it in Defer mode to see that. Right?

AUDIENCE: Yes, a question about [INAUDIBLE].

PRESENTER 1: You have a part file open?

AUDIENCE: There. And you choose a component assembled before and sent it to CAD. What would happen? Nothing or--

PRESENTER 1: It will get Drive.

AUDIENCE: Get Drive?

PRESENTER 1: Right, yeah. And if you have a drawing, then it creates a base view out of it, yeah. All right, so let's move on to the next one.

So the next poll, like now which industry you are from? Pretty good. So most are in industrial machinery.

So there are a few other enhancements that has been done in 2018. The first one is displaying the number scheme description. This is, again, one of the topmost idea. So when you have a list numbering scheme, and if you have a description, now, you will not see that when you use that numbering scheme inside Inventor. So now that has been enabled.

When you have a released file, which is logged AutoCAD file, and, if you try to do something, it will ask you to check out. So you might be wondering like, now, my file is locked. Why are you asking to check out? So now that check out command is being removed. So you will not be asked to check out the file if the file is locked or released.

In 2017, if you are using Vault Professional or Vault Workgroup, you will not see check out dialog inside the Inventor. It will be a quick check out, Right-Click and Check Out. It will be a quick check out. It will be on a single file.

But now, a few of you asked us, why you removed it? It was disabled. The dialog was disabled. So we enabled that one now. So now, you have the check out dialog when you are connecting to Vault Pro or Workgroup. And it's going to behave, like, when you bring the check out dialog, you can check, uncheck the files that you want to check out.

The next one is Inventor has introduced-- to display, when you open a file, it will let you know, in the open dialog, what version of that file has been saved. So you have a small text to let you know that this file is saved in 2017 not 2016.

So this information now we have in Vault. We are extracting as a property. You can add as a column, property column inside Open from Vault dialog, also, in the Vault Explorer client. So let me show you quickly that.

So if I go here, and I say Create, now, this is the numbering scheme. Now, you have this list property. And you can see those displayed. So the description has been getting-- as a tooltip, you can see those. Go to the next one, and you can see that.

And the one I talked about, the application information, you can see that. So this is a property that you can get an add using the columns. By default, you will not see this property. So you can add it as a column.

And if we go to, let's say, select a sub-assembly, and if you say, Check Out, so, right now, this is quick check out. So that's, right now, a single file has been checked out. So if you go here, go to Options, this was disabled in 2017. So now we have enabled it. And it can include the children. Go back here, and then, if you say Check Out, it brings you the dialog. Right? Let's move on.

So the next enhancement that we did is introducing PDF. You can create PDF for 2D drawings, for IDW, DWG files, when the files are getting released. So let me demo that.

So we have a few options for creating the PDF for AutoCAD as well as Inventor. So these options are similar to the options that you see inside Inventor or AutoCAD. And also, if you go to the Behaviors, you have a category.

And we have added a new category called Design Representation. This is just for PDF. And whenever the PDF is getting created, this will be assigned to the Design Representation category. And you have this new rule. So you can see that, as soon as the classification is Design Representation, the PDF gets assigned to that category.

So let's go to a drawing. So you have this drawing, which is in Released. And the revision is F. Let me make that into a Work in Progress. Now, changing to Released. So I'll go to the job queue. You can see that there is a job. Now let me go to the Job Processor. I render job. And you can see that it's synchronizing the properties and then creating the PDF.

You can attach the PDF to the source file, or you can remove it, and then you can store it in a different Vault folder. So we can see that the new PDF has been created with revision S and G.

Whoops. Sorry about that.

So where do you set this PDF creation? So go to your Lifecycle States. So I'm using the Flexible release process. And if you go to Edit, from Work in Progress to Released, so take that transition, go to the Edit, and go to the Actions, and you can see that you can create PDF in two ways, Update Properties and PDF or Update Properties, Update View, and PDF. So you need to check this to create the PDF.

So while we are running the beta for PDF in the last year, a few of you asked us to remove the extension. Right now, the file name dot DWG dot PDF used to be created. So they wanted to remove that DWG or IDW from the file naming.

So we have done a configuration. So you have these config keys that needs to be added to the Job Processor config key, so that, when you create a PDF, the extension DWG or IDW will be removed for the PDF. You can also add a prefix and suffix to the PDF file naming.

One other thing is like, now, we are releasing 18.2 today. And with 18.2, you can add Vault properties to the PDF naming. Let's say, if you want to add revision, you can add it. If you want to add any other Vault properties, you can add it to the file naming using these config options. And also, I can combine the rules for different actions. And if you want to have one rule for both IDW and DWG, you can have it.

And we have a separate class. Peter is there, who is going to teach, only about the PDF, tomorrow, at 3:30 PM till 5:00 PM.

PRESENTER 2: Raise your hand, Peter. he's in the back of the room. Peter's teaching this class.

PRESENTER 1: He is teaching that class. So if you want to know more about how to set up the PDFs, attend this class.

PRESENTER 2: So along with the other areas that we've improved, we improved the copy design, in this particular area, where, in previous versions of Vault, you can only start a copy design from the tip version of the file. So what we did was we went on ahead and enhanced this.

Let's go ahead and show the video. And what we made an option to do is to go to a selected one or select version, and then pick it. So what we're showing you, here, is 2018. And when you go on Copy Design, you see I selected B. And now, I can actually pick a specific version or revision and start my copy design from that.

This is an enhancement in 2018. Anything earlier than 2018, we didn't have that option. So copy design starts from there. You can continue on. And then you also can go and reset your copy design rules.

Now, one of the problems with previous copy design, also, is we used to delete the iLogic rules inside of your files. In 2018, we changed the default rule. Yes, we make mistakes. We changed it. And so, therefore, the default does not delete-- thank you-- the iLogic rules from your copy as it's starting to copy. You'd have to create another action rule to make that happen if that's what you want.

The other thing that we've added is the fact that you can, once you created an action rule, also add a couple of other properties down here. So that one's the one that removed the rule. We are going to go in here. We're going to select a different property. I can set it to empty out the value, or I can set it to a specific value, as well.

Why are you shaking your head? It's OK. Yeah, right?

So here, what we're showing you here is a problem that we've had before. When you actually do a copy design, the new copy of the file actually never had the create date reset. So now, if you actually want that to happen, within your copy design, you can go into the rule, add this one particular rule, where it says, Date File Created, map it to Copy Date. It will set the new date, the create date for that file to today's date when you actually made the copy. That one's been a specific ask or request from you, the users. So we went on ahead and added that to the copy design in 2018.

Yes, a question?

AUDIENCE: Is the rules stored inside Vault now?

PRESENTER 2: So the question is, are the rules stored inside of Vault now? The answer to that is, no, not right now. That has been another common request that we wanted. People have asked for a centralized location, so you can push out the rules to everyone. We haven't gotten that far yet.

AUDIENCE: Also, the default settings.

PRESENTER 2: Also, the default settings? No. We don't have a centralized push, right now, for all the rules.

Now, along with that, again, I told you before, I'm an IT administrator by trade. So we added some more roles to the Vault starting in 2018. And these three roles are the Security Admin Role, the Project Admin Role, and the Configuration Admin Role.

So going into the next one, the Project Admin Role. So the key behind these three roles is the fact that, if you have an administrator, today, prior to 2018, the administrator was a god administrator. He had rights to do everything.

And if you only have a few of those people in your building, you don't want to give that particular role to everyone, right? But you also don't want to be the administrator that everyone goes to for some simple thing.

So what we've done was we allowed you to have these particular roles, so you can delegate some of that administration to other users. So with the Project Administrator Role, this particular user can go in and remove the reservation from any particular file that has been checked out. So if a user left the company, and they have a bunch of files checked out, again, your other users don't have to go to the administrator. Anyone that has Project Administrator's Role can go in and remove that reservation, undoing the check out, so that other people can start working on that particular file. So that's, again, another role that we've added.

Security Admin Role, so this particular admin role is a very powerful role. Now, I would probably say that this rates just underneath the full administrator's role. And the reason why I say that is this user can reset the security on any object inside of Vault. see This user can also see cloaked objects inside of Vault.

So let's just say I'm a regular designer. But I'm not supposed to have access to certain files, because you've locked me out, security-wise, from those particular files. If you give me this particular role, I will be able to see those files. I'll be able to reset the security on those files. So this one is a very delicate role that you want to take caution with assigning it to specific users.

But again, if you want to delegate the role of security to someone you trust, you can go ahead and give them this particular role. And they can reset security on objects inside of Vault.

Go on to the next. The Configuration Administration, again, this one, here, is the role where a user can go in and start configuring Vault to work as they need. Again, the administrator usually is probably a CAD admin and/or an IT person. They don't know, sometimes, the ins and outs of Vault. They don't know about how to configure the lifecycles and things of that nature.

This particular user can go in and start managing Vault as a Configuration Administrator. And what this actually is, is the Tools Administration Vault Settings dialog. In that dialog, this user can go in and configure anything in there. So the visualization files, the items, change orders, behaviors, some lifecycle definitions, categories, rules, things like that, anything within that dialog, this user can go in and configure. And, therefore, the full administrator doesn't have to be bothered all the time. So you can delegate this particular permission off to someone else.

So that's the three new roles, that we created in 2018, that you can take advantage of, that wasn't there before. So that wraps up this particular area on 2018. So let's jump over to the next one.

We'll talk about 2018.1. 2018.1 was released--

PRESENTER 1: In September.

PRESENTER 2: --in September. So we'll talk about what's new there. So as you're getting used to a new way that we deliver Vault and Vault updates, 2018.1 was the next major update where we added new features as well as we did some fixes to Vault.

So let's go into there. We're continuing on the same theme of process efficiency, expanding interoperability, as well as quality inside the product and productivity. Let's go on to the next one.

So with that, we're talking about shared views. How many of your are familiar with shared views? A few people. So shared views, which was also mentioned in an earlier class, it's the ability to share a particular view with a user that is possibly not inside of Vault. Maybe it's a third party. Maybe you have a customer or a collaborator outside of your organization that you want to show what you're working on and show your versions or how you're progressing within the design. So the shared view allows you to do that.

Go on to the next one. And also, what we're doing here is we have a couple of different areas, other areas of improvement. How many of you are familiar with Vault Ideas, the Idea Station? A few of you are. If you're not, I would say that this is one of the most important things that you can do, as a user, to get what you need inside of our products is to start voting on ideas.

We have implemented a lot of ideas that came straight from you, the user, over this particular release as well as previous releases. One of those was the sort options. And these could be small things. But the sort options are on the far-left side. When you're creating a saved search, we weren't sorting it alphabetically. So an idea was posted. We went in and fixed it. And now, once you do a saved search, we will sort it appropriately.

Open from Vault inside the client, downloading library files. So previously, when you're doing Open from Vault, we thought that you'd already have everything in your library down in your local workspace. So we weren't downloading the library file. We found out, from you, the users, that that is not the case. Our previous assumption was not true. So now, when you do an Open from Vault, we will download those files that are part of your library, that you don't have on your local workspace.

PRESENTER 1: A video on shared views?

PRESENTER 2: Yes. So the shared views here is up at the top-left on the toolbar. You can select a particular assembly. You share it out by giving it a name. What it's doing here is it's creating a view of the particular object that you're looking at or that you've selected.

You're going to go out to a website. And what you see is that it's a view, a viewable of the object that you selected or the assembly you selected, in this case. You have a parts list off to the left. You can do multiple things on the bottom of the view. You can comment and everything else. Can you pause it, right here, for me, Senthil?

PRESENTER 1: Sure.

PRESENTER 2: The nice thing about the shared views, as well, is you, the user, who's actually shared the view, don't have to leave your client to find out what comments have been done on that shared view. We've added an additional pane, on the right side, where you can see the shared view. You can see the comment, that someone externally has commented on that shared view. You can then react to that shared view. You can do whatever it is they said needed to be done, whether it's a fix, changing whatever object. They can do markups and things of that nature. But you don't have to leave your client to actually see that shared view. You can send that information off via a link to that user. And again, the best thing about this is it is not the actual assembly that is being sent out. It's just a viewable. Yes?

AUDIENCE: Is that viewable file a DWF file?

PRESENTER 2: So the question is, is that viewable file a DWF file. The answer to that is, no, it is not. It's actually a translated, different type of file that we send out. And it's shown out on the web.

So if you've seen this, it also makes it very nice, because it's mobile. So if you don't have, particularly, a laptop or a computer that you need to see this view, you can actually open up this view on your cell phone and see it from there, turn it around, do various different things. Now, the mobile version of the shared view is a little bit limited. But if you also go onto a tablet, you can also see it, as well. So you don't need a full computer to actually see this. You can use any type of mobile device, with a web browser, to see the shared view.

Go ahead and continue on with the video.

AUDIENCE: But really, where are these files stored?

PRESENTER 2: So the question is, where are these files stored? This is stored in Autodesk Cloud. Thank you. And it is on a viewer.autodesk.com. Now it is not public, by the way. So other people have asked, is it public? Can anyone go up there and see a whole list of shared view things?

No. I don't see your shared views unless you share the link with me. I will see all of my shared views once I log in. Your third party does not need an Autodesk ID to log in to see the shared view. All they need is the link. If they want to comment on it or mark up that shared view, they will need an Autodesk ID to log in, mark it up, and say what comments that they have. Yes?

AUDIENCE: Is there a limitation to the amount of files I publish?

PRESENTER 2: The question is, is there a limitation to the amount of files that you publish? I believe the answer to that is, no, there is no limitation. You can share as many views as you like.

AUDIENCE: Without paying you guys?

PRESENTER 2: You're going to pay me money, but no one else is going to.

[LAUGHTER]

I'll send you the bill. Yes?

AUDIENCE: So you're saying, if somebody wants to comment or markup, they need an Autodesk ID. So if we share this with a customer that has nothing to do with any CAD software, he cannot actually give us feedback?

PRESENTER 2: He cannot give you a comment. And Autodesk ID is free. It's just an Autodesk ID. It's like signing up for Google or something, right? But yes, that way you know who gave the comment to you.

AUDIENCE: Can you print it like a drawing?

PRESENTER 2: Can I bring up the drawing?

AUDIENCE: Can you print?

PRESENTER 2: Can I print the drawings? So the shared view does have a Print command. So once you share it, yes, you can print it from the shared views window. There is some limitation in the shared views. The comments and the markups, they haven't put in the ability to print those yet. We have put in that request, ourselves, to that particular team. So they've taken that and put that in their backlog to be done later.

Because the other question that has been asked is, once somebody's marked it up, I want to save it and put that file in the Vault. Currently, again, you can't do it with the comments. You probably just have to do a screen grab until that option is there and available for record.

So the question is how many of you are using Cloud Services now? So we talk about shared views. This is another cloud service. No, you're not using the cloud service. Why not?

AUDIENCE: Can't.

PRESENTER 2: Can't? Why not?

AUDIENCE: I'm in security and government work.

PRESENTER 2: Security and government? Anyone else?

AUDIENCE: Yeah, government, too.

PRESENTER 2: Government. I heard another same thing.

AUDIENCE: I have a question.

PRESENTER 2: Yes.

AUDIENCE: In the shared view, is there any capability of not on the cloud?

PRESENTER 2: The question is, with the shared view, is there any capability of not being on the cloud? No, it is a cloud service. All right, great. We'll collect more later. Let's go ahead and go into the next slide.

What's new for 2018.2 Now, literally, about an hour ago, we released 2018.2, all right?

[APPLAUSE]

We were pinging back and forth e-mails to our Singapore team saying, did you get it live, did you get it live? We've got to present this thing. Come on, get it live. So they got it live an hour ago. So here is 2018.2. How many of you use the job server today or Job Processor? Great.

So this one, I want to tell you this. On the survey that you take at the end of this class, there's an option that says-- I think it says something about, I can do something when I return. You're going to have to put a five on that one, because, when you want to go back to your office, you want to get 2018.2, because, now, the Job Processor will no longer use a full version of Inventor, which requires an additional license. Very good.

We use what's called Inventor Server. Now don't get mixed up with the name "server" when I say this. It is actually a headless version of Inventor, that runs in the background, that will process the exact same jobs. It will create the DWFs. It will create the PDFs. It'll update the properties and everything else. It does not require an additional Inventor license. So no more purchasing additional licenses of Inventor. We do this behind the scenes. Yes?

AUDIENCE: Do we still need a Vault license?

PRESENTER 2: The question is, do you still need the Vault license? Yes, you will still need a Vault license, but you don't need an Inventor license. You will still need, by the way, an AutoCAD license. We have to work with the AutoCAD group to figure out what we can do for those AutoCAD files. But for Inventor, no more Inventor licenses required.

We've also continued on improving the quality of the product by your ideas. So we've implemented more ideas in 2018.2. So just go ahead and go to the next. So this was the number two idea, currently, that has not been implemented, again. So we said no Inventor license is required. You do not install a full version of Inventor alongside.

I will tell you that the update for 2018.2 is rather large, because we're now installing Inventor server on that, so I think it's 1.2 gig download. But it's well worth it. It's faster to process those jobs. So when it creates a DWF and everything else, it actually goes faster than using the full version of Inventor. We've done quite few tests on that.

Improved error handling and messaging-- so we tried to go in, based on, again, your feedback, and fix some of the erroneous error messages that we were putting into the product, which didn't help you. You probably logged a product support request trying to find out why a DWF didn't created or whatever. So we tried to improve our messaging handling, there.

Here's another improvement, the job queue. The job queue is now modeless, which means that you can open up the job queue, you can move it off to a second screen and leave it open and still work within the Vault client. Ah, yes.

[APPLAUSE]

Great. This was requested by you. So this is an idea that was requested by you. So you can set it up. You can open it up. Put it off to the side. The other thing you can do is, if you have an error in there, Right-Click on the error, select, Go to Folder. It will go into the folder, straight to the file associated with the job, and select it. And it will find it for you. So no longer hunting and pecking for anything else, as well. Right-Click, Go to Folder, it'll go straight to the file associated to the job.

Properties, we've added more properties. We've actually allowed you to add file properties to the grid in the job queue. Before, we were only putting properties that were related to job. Now, you can add these other file properties, such as, maybe, the category, the lifecycle it's in, whatnot. But you can put any of those things, that you put in your regular file grid, right into the grid with the job queue.

So we got a demon on this, real quick. Let's go ahead and start that demo. So we Right-Click on an IDW. We're going to change the state on it. Let's change a couple of things here in our Options, put in Released.

I'm going to open up the Job Queue. So here is our job queue. And the job queue, now, is modeless. So you can see. We can scroll down, do whatever we're seeing in here. I can minimize it. And now that I'm minimized, I can go right back to the Vault Explorer and start working while it's still open and running.

Now, what we're showing you here is that I can add or I can select Go to Folder. So here's my Right-Click, Go the Folder. And now, it's already taking me straight to the file associated to the job. I'm going to go ahead and add the properties or customize my view fields, so you can see all of the fields that you're used to in the file property grid. It's here, now, available to you in the job queue, as well.

And that's it. So you got the revisions. We added categories and everything else. So now, I know what's going on with those particular jobs. Just go ahead and jump out. So that's just the-- oh, that's the end of the video. Go ahead and pop out to the next slide. There we go.

Now some other ideas-- whether they be large or small, we have implemented other ideas. This one was a very small idea that was asked for. Put the button, as a default, on a particular grid. This is a Save to Vault. Previously, when you were in the Plot Manager and you wanted to save the configuration, and you wanted to Save it to Vault, you had to go into the file menu.

A simple request was, put that on the toolbar, so I don't have to go into the file menu. Save me some clicks. So we went on ahead and put the button, now, as default on the menu bar.

Sorting-- we were having some erroneous sorting with file names that had numbers. It did not match to Windows Explorer sorting, natural sorting order. So now, with 2018.2, the sorting order matches. So whatever you see in Windows Explorer, you can now see inside of the Vault client with the grid. So it's the natural sorting order. As you see, this one had 76 votes of requests that people wanted to have it done.

AutoCAD date-- this was another request here. Inside of AutoCAD title block, what we've added is the ability to only record--

[CLAPPING]

Thank you. All right, now you don't have to pay me for that previous one.

[LAUGHTER]

So this is the date. You can do a date only without timestamp. So it's configurable. Do what you like for that particular field or that entry. So we've added that ability, as well. Let's go onto the next one.

Inside of AutoCAD, when you actually wanted to grab a few different drawings and make them references to the current drawing that you had open, previously, you'd have to select them one by one. Now, what we can do is go in there and select the references from Vault. You can do a multi-select now and put them in as multiple cross references. Again saving yourself time and efficiency when you're doing multiple files, as well.

So with that-- well, first, actually, before you answer this question, jump back, real quick. Go back. Yeah, here. So with that, before we jump in to that, are there any other questions on dot 1 or dot 2 or any of these? Yes.

AUDIENCE: Real quick, how is that going to affect migration and upgrades? Are those both embedded releases?

PRESENTER 2: Wow. And the reason why I say, wow, is that was a very good question. I think you'll be the first one I'll give something to in the classroom. I like swag. That was a very good question.

So the question was, how will these updates affect your migration? When we do the updates, when we do these dot release updates, we have made it, pretty much, as much as we can, a hard, strict rule that it will not affect your server migration or anything else.

So the updates, for the most part, will always be on the client side enhancements, where there is no migration of the Vault server. You don't have to do a bunch of changes, like you'd be going from one release to the next, where it takes a long time to redo your server.

Now, the updates also contain fixes. So it doesn't mean that there won't be fixes, for the server, on the server side. It just doesn't go through that migration process, like you'd be going from 2017 to 2018. Any other questions? Yes.

AUDIENCE: What's the preferred method for installing the client to a server, from the desktop app or downloading the dot releases from the website?

PRESENTER 2: So the question is, what is the preferred message, from downloading and installing the updates, from the Autodesk desktop app or going to the web? Right now, Vault, you can't get your updates from the desktop app, currently. We are working on that. We have some backend issues that prevents us from publishing our updates to the Autodesk desktop app.

And we also have one additional problem. We're really sorry, but we're working very hard on this. When you go into your managed account, you got to hit the link on the left-hand side that says, Product Enhancements, and you'll see it on the list. I know this is terrible. And trust me, we've been working on this for months.

We are told-- and don't hold me to this. I know it's recorded. But--

[LAUGHTER]

--the team who-- I know, because we took out the other slide, so don't hold me to this. Because I have no control over this. But anyways, the team that controls all of that has told us, by the end of this month, we will show the product updates in the other section of the managed accounts, not in ADA, but just like all the other ones, when you hit Updates on a particular product, our product updates will now show there just like all the other products. So we've asked for that. And hopefully, they can deliver at the end of the month.

AUDIENCE: So I got a question about [INAUDIBLE]. If you're trying to put the updates in the app, that's probably not good. I mean you don't want people to update their clients if the servers haven't been updated, because then you have a mismatch of server and client.

PRESENTER 2: That's correct. That's correct. So the statement was-- and this is very true for Vault-- is that you don't want clients to update their clients without you updating the server. That is absolutely correct.

What the team that owns that desktop application manager should be doing soon, in the future, is they should allow you control of what updates are available through that app by that user's log in. I don't think they've gotten that far yet. But I know others, who have done deployments, will not allow the desktop app actually being installed.

How many of you actually do use the Autodesk desktop app to do updates and everything else? Right. So larger environments, [INAUDIBLE], you guys, when you create your deployment images, you take that out, right?

AUDIENCE: Yeah.

PRESENTER 2: Yeah, so a lot of you do. Yeah.

AUDIENCE: We have two people in my company that have the desktop app. Everybody else, we can get rid of it.

PRESENTER 2: Everybody else, they get rid of it. So that's what we've been hearing the majority of. And I know that the team that owns the desktop app is supposed to be making a managed section, so that you can manage who can do updates and see what they can do on that app. So absolutely true. Yes?

AUDIENCE: I'm just freaking out.

AUDIENCE: I don't know if anybody else has said this, but that desktop app, if you even click to not install it, it gets installed anyhow.

PRESENTER 2: OK.

AUDIENCE: We don't want it.

PRESENTER 2: OK. All right, well I don't want to harp too far on that. I can't control that guy. Let's go ahead and do the next survey, real quick. Some people have jumped in. If you didn't get a chance to do that, how many of you participate in our beta program? If you want to see what's coming soon, you want to be in our beta program.

We have been very active, this year, in the beta program. A lot of things have changed because of the activities you have told us in the beta program. As a matter of fact, those three admin roles, one of those roles were on a request by Tim.

He was in my office. He said, I need to take that out of there. I need you to take that out of there. Immediately, I had it taken out and created a new role, because he told me to, right? He has that power, I tell you.

[LAUGHTER]

I think he's the only other person that has power besides my wife.

[LAUGHTER]

AUDIENCE: The beta program, is it a licensed program?

PRESENTER 2: The beta program is not a licensed program. So you just got to go in to-- if I can remember the URL-- auto.sk/vaultbeta is the link. You get a participation response there, hit that you want to participate. And we'll let you into the beta program.

AUDIENCE: It has nothing to do with the license.

PRESENTER 2: It has nothing to do with the license. As long as you have an Autodesk ID, you'll get into the beta program. Yes?

AUDIENCE: Could you talk, maybe a little bit, just on what they'll see in the betas as far as interacting with the software?

PRESENTER 2: Sure. How much time do we have?

PRESENTER 1: We have time.

PRESENTER 2: Oh, I got time, great. So the question is, what will you see, as an interaction, in the beta program? So what you will see or what you will hear is webinars. We produce a lot of webinars. And what we start off with is blank formats.

We will probably start off with a very lightweight draft of the next idea. And we want you to tell us, is this the right direction? Do we really want to go in that direction and whatnot? Once we get that feedback, we continue on. And we will continue on in the progression based off of also your feedback.

Now, the other thing that's in the beta program-- and we know that this is very difficult for you, the Vault users-- is installing the beta software. You do not have to install the beta software, anymore. We use-- and I think they actually have a booth here, somewhere.

PRESENTER 1: Frame.

PRESENTER 2: Frame, right? So we install beta and alpha in Frame, so that you can actually run it from a web browser and never have to install any software. That's for Vault as well as Inventor. I think AutoCAD is in there, as well. So don't worry about having another machine dedicated, for beta installation, so you don't have to mess up your production.

But, again, when we're thinking of ideas of what next to put in the product, we will send out an email, with a webinar, saying, here's our next idea. Give us feedback. We'll show you a bunch of PowerPoint presentations. It may be magic stuff that might be happening in the PowerPoint that's not true. But you could tell us, yeah, you're smoking dope. What are you going? Or whatever the case may be, right?

So that's fine. We'll take that feedback. We'll get a better quality of dope and then keep going.

[APPLAUSE]

But we need we need your feedback, right? We absolutely need it. We have done a lot of improvements based on your feedback. The security that's changed in 2017 was all based on the beta participants' feedback. We didn't do anything that the beta participants didn't want in the security chain, starting in 2017. And we've heard no complaints about it.

So that was because of your participation. And we did what you wanted to do, not what we wanted to do. So that's what's in the beta program. Let's go on to the next slide.

Ideas, again, we've implemented several. You can see four, here, in the 2018 release. In the 2018.1, there's two. And here are the ones that we've released, now, in 2018.2. We've probably got-- what have we got, one, two, three-- six that are sitting up there. And obviously, in the future, we're going to have some more and probably some bigger ones.

Now, I will promote-- is that slide in there about the next class? Let's talk about this, right here. This is the Vault Ideas and the Inventor ideas. Again, we want those-- I don't know why that slide went quickly.

But again, Idea Station, lots of you post ideas, vote on the ideas, post your own ideas. We look at those, quite frequently, myself, Senthil, and several others. So we are looking at them, constantly, to make sure we get clarity and understand your ideas. And some of the easy ones, regardless of votes, we might end up implementing them, right away.