Configuring AutoCAD document property synchronization

Similar to attribute synchronization, Meridian can synchronize vault properties with the document properties of AutoCAD files: Title, Subject, Author, Keywords, Comments, and so on. These properties appear on the Summary property page in Windows Explorer. Synchronization of document properties shown on the Custom property page are also supported.

To configure document property synchronization:

1. In Configurator, expand Environment in the configuration tree and select Application Link Settings. The settings for each link appear in property pages in the right pane.
2. Click the AutoCAD tab. The AutoCAD link’s settings page appears in the right pane.

3. Click the Edit button to modify the settings.

   Tip    To export the settings file to your computer, click the Export button. This can be useful if you would rather edit the file in your favorite text editor. You can then copy your changes to the Clipboard and paste them into Configurator.

4. Locate the section of the file that begins with [Settings] and locate the DocumentPropertiesSummary setting if you want to synchronize properties that appear on the Summary property page. The value of the setting is the name of a section in the file that specifies the document properties that you want to synchronize, as shown in the following example. If the setting does not exist, the default name of the setting is the same as the name of the setting, DocumentPropertiesSummary. If the section does not yet exist, you can create it. If you want to use a different name, create the DocumentPropertiesSummary setting and set its value to the name you want. Then create a new section with that name.

   The configuration is the same for properties on the Custom property page but the name of the setting and the default section is DocumentPropertiesCustom.

   DocumentPropertiesSummary=MySummarySection
   DocumentPropertiesCustom=MyCustomSection

5. Locate the section of the file specified by DocumentPropertiesSummary or DocumentPropertiesCustom surrounded by square brackets, for example, [MySummarySection] or [MyCustomSection] or the default sections [DocumentPropertiesSummary] or [DocumentPropertiesCustom]. If the section does not yet exist, create it. You can type comments in the file by beginning each line with a semicolon (;). Use the default sections in the file as examples.

6. On consecutive lines in the section, list the document property names that you want to synchronize, one line per property. For each property, specify the vault property set and property name to which you want it synchronized.

   Tip    You can find the names of property sets and properties on the Properties page of each document type, as described in Creating and editing document types.

   Also specify a flag if the property should be read-only (RO) or write-only (WO). Use the default lines in the file as examples. By default, document properties are read/write. Use the following format for each line:

   <DocumentPropertyName>=<PropertySet.PropertyName>,<Flag>

   The following example maps the document property Title to the Meridian property Title such that the document property is written from Meridian and not vice versa:

   Title=Custom.Title, RO

   Note    Although Meridian internal properties can be synchronized to document properties, you should never attempt to update internal properties or else Access denied errors can occur. Only write to Meridian properties in the Custom property set. Flag all document properties that are linked to Meridian internal properties as write-only (WO) as in the following example:

   Revision=AMVersionablePropertySet._VERSIONNUMBER, WO

   If you want to synchronize a document property with a parent folder (routed) property, you must specify the folder type name from which to get the folder property as in the following example. <DocumentPropertyName>=<FolderTypeName:PropertySetName.PropertyName>,<Flag> And if you want to synchronize one document property with one of several possible routed properties, you must specify a unique identifier for each of the properties on the left side of the setting as in the following example. <DocumentPropertyName,ID>=<FolderTypeName:PropertySetName.PropertyName>,<Flag> The value of ID is insignificant but must be unique among all of the lines in the same section. Using this syntax, you can map the same document property to multiple folder types and the value will depend on the document’s actual parent folder. The following example uses three different folder types NewProject, UpgradeProject, and RepairProject.

   PROJECTNUM,new = NewProject:PSProject.ProjectNum,WO            
   PROJECTNUM,upgrade = UpgradeProject:PSProject.ProjectNum,WO            
   PROJECTNUM,repair = RepairProject:PSProject.ProjectNum,WO

7. Click OK to save your changes.
8. Test the link thoroughly by synchronizing each document property. You can do this by changing the Meridian property values for a drawing in the vault and document property values in the same drawing and confirming that the synchronization occurs the way that you expect. You can manually synchronize properties with the Meridian client applications as described in the BlueCielo Meridian Enterprise User’s Guide.