Importing assemblies

The Meridian Enterprise Assembly Import Wizard can be used to import a variety of CAD assemblies into a vault. After you select the top level file of an assembly, the tool scans the file for links to other files that are referenced by the selected file. It then imports all of the files and creates Meridian Enterprise references that represent each link found. The Assembly Import Wizard supports the following CAD drawing formats:

• AutoCAD/Mechanical Desktop
• AutoCAD sheet sets
• AutoCAD Electrical projects
• AutoCAD P&ID projects
• Autodesk Inventor
• SolidWorks
• MicroStation

Notes

• Importing an assembly that has circular references will create matching Meridian references correctly except for the returning references to the main assembly.
• The Assembly Import Wizard is not capable of importing assemblies that were last saved in an older version of Autodesk Inventor than is currently installed. For example, if the assembly was last saved in Autodesk Inventor 2011, and the installed version is Autodesk Inventor 2012, the assembly first needs to be migrated to Autodesk Inventor 2012, before the Assembly Import Wizard is capable of importing it. For assistance in automating this task with Meridian Enterprise, consult a system administrator.
• Before importing SolidWorks assemblies, disable the SolidWorks option Search file locations for external references.
• Before importing a large assembly or many smaller assemblies to a vault that has been configured to use Local Workspace, temporarily disable local workspace synchronization as described in Configuring local workspace until the import is completed. The synchronization could interfere with the import and result in error messages like The specified file cannot be opened.

To import an assembly:

1. In the Meridian Enterprise program group of the Windows Start menu, select Assembly Import Wizard. The Welcome to Assembly Import Wizard wizard page appears and lists the types of assemblies that you can import.
2. Select an assembly type and click Next. The Assembly Location page appears.
3. Click Browse and select the assembly that you want to import. If you want to import all assemblies in the selected folder, select Import Folder. Click Next. The Vault Location page appears.
4. Click Select and select a vault or work area for the destination of the assemblies. If you want to create a new subfolder for the imported assemblies, type its name in the text box. Click Next. The Manage Preferences page appears.

5. Click options or type values using the descriptions in the following table.

   Assembly import options

   Option	Description
   Raise new object events	Causes the VBScript events that are related to new document creation to occur. Select this option if you want the vault script to react to the imported assembly files the same as if the files were imported using other methods.
   Import title blocks	Imports title block properties if they have been configured in the vault by a system administrator.

   Click Next. The Completing Assembly Import Wizard page appears.

6. Click Finish. The import status of each assembly is shown along with a progress bar while the files are imported.

   When the import is finished, the results are shown on screen and saved in the file BCAssemblyImport.log located in the same folder as the program. By default, this is C:\Program Files (x86)\BC-Meridian\Program. If any errors occurred during the import, you can click Add to log to append the error messages to the log file for later analysis.

7. Click New Import to repeat the process with a different assembly. Click Close to when you are finished.

Notes

• If the Assembly Import Wizard appears to have stopped working, it can actually be because another application that is used during the import has stopped and is showing messages that are hidden behind the visible windows. Minimize all visible windows to expose these messages, or use Alt-Tab to switch to the other application.
• If there are no references created between the parts of the imported assemblies and the BlueCielo File System is enabled for the vault, the Assembly Import Wizard may need to be slowed down to allow time for the AMFS to react. A slight delay can be set with the DWORD value OnImportAssmTimeout of the following registry key. The default value is 1000 milliseconds.
  
  HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Cyco\AutoManager Meridian\CurrentVersion\InventorLink
• To correct an imported assembly that does not have Meridian references, use the Synchronize References from File command as described in Synchronizing references.