Importing Autodesk Inventor files

Autodesk Inventor assemblies often have complex relationships with other Autodesk Inventor subassemblies and parts. Importing these relationships correctly requires special attention. Following are recommended guidelines for importing Autodesk Inventor files.

• Before you import Autodesk Inventor assemblies, resolve all subassemblies and part references first. There should not be any explicit references to local drive folders.
• There are two methods for importing Autodesk Inventor assemblies into TeamWork: drag and drop, and the Assembly Import tool described in About the Assembly Import Tool.
• When migrating Autodesk Inventor files between versions (for example, Autodesk Inventor 2008 to Autodesk Inventor 2009), the same fundamental principle applies: you must ensure the integrity of the assembly references first. There are three options:
• Open the assemblies in the new version of Autodesk Inventor and save them. This is fine for small assemblies and parts, but be aware that Autodesk Inventor can display warnings about property data not being stored due to the assembly or part not being migrated first. If you doubt that the data was saved, use the Synchronize Properties to File command to ensure that data stored in TeamWork is synchronized to the Autodesk Inventor drawing.
• Use the Autodesk Inventor Migration tool. This can present a problem because it does not use standard Windows file dialogs and therefore cannot access TeamWork vaults. We recommend you ask a system administrator to create a mapped drive to a share that represents the vault, as described in BlueCielo TeamWork Administrator’s Guide, so that your vault is exposed to Windows as a drive that can be used by the Autodesk Inventor Migration tool.
• Ask a system administrator to use the TeamWork Inventor Migration Tool described in BlueCielo TeamWork Configuration Guide.