Autodesk Vault is absolutely awesome when it comes to organising and collaborating on your designs, but its architecture and cross compatibility can be more than a little confusing. In this article, we will briefly look at how Vault software is organised, and explore which versions of Vault are compatible with which versions of Inventor.

Overview of Terms
• There are two core programs that make up a typical Vault system:
– Autodesk Data Management Server (or “ADMS”, or “Vault Server”)
This program runs on your server machine, storing and managing your Vault data. It talks with the Vault Clients when actions are taken, and exchanges data with them.

– Vault Client
This program runs on your user PCs (or “client machines”) alongside with Inventor and/or AutoCAD. When users are interacting with Vault, it is almost exclusively through this program.

The client program consists of:
– The “Thick Client”, which is the windowed Vault program.
– Various add-ins for Inventor, AutoCAD, Word, Excel, etc.

• There are three Vault products (or “flavours”) available:
– Vault Basic
– Vault Workgroup
– Vault Professional

• Vault has had many yearly releases:
– 2018
– 2017
– 2016
– etc…

• Inventor and AutoCAD have also had many yearly releases:
– 2018
– 2017
– 2016
– etc…

A Crash-Course in Compatibility
Below is a dot-point summary of the compatibility between the various Vault, Inventor and AutoCAD products and yearly releases.

• ADMS (or “Vault Server”) must be installed and running on the server.

• Vault Client must be installed on user PCs.
o Vault Basic installation is included as a part of various Autodesk suites and collections.
o Vault Workgroup and Professional installation must be downloaded and installed specifically.

• The Vault product (or “flavour”) on user PCs must be the same as that on the server:
o If Vault Basic is running on the server, user PCs must use Vault Basic.
o If Vault Workgroup is running on the server, user PCs must use Vault Workgroup.
o If Vault Professional is running on the server, user PCs must use Vault Professional.

• The yearly release of Vault Client may be at most 2 years behind that of the Vault Server.
o If Vault 2018 is running on the server, user PCs may use Vault Client 2018, 2017 or 2016.
o If Vault 2016 is running on the server, user PCs may not use Vault Client 2017 or 2018.

• When using Inventor, it is possible to install a previous yearly release of Vault Client or the Inventor add-ins.
o A user running Inventor 2016 may install either:
– Vault Client 2016 + Vault 2016 add-in for Inventor, or
– Vault Client 2018 + Vault 2016 add-in for Inventor.

• The yearly release of Inventor may not exceed the yearly release of Vault.
o Inventor 2018 will not work with Vault 2017
o Inventor 2017 will work with Vault 2018

Summary and Further Help
Installing and configuring your Vault can be a royal pain for inexperienced users, but the payoff makes it well-worth it. Whether you’d like some help with your Vault, or would like us to do the hard stuff for you, please contact Man and Machine, and we will use our great experience to craft you an airtight Vault, so you can focus on the important stuff faster.