Saving Designs to ENOVIA

You can save new or modified designs to ENOVIA database that is active in the current session using the Active option, or all new or modified designs that is in session using the All option. This section also lists the steps to peform when IEFClientWorkspaceService stops working during the file transfer process when saving.

The following are the conditions for which a design is considered modified, or whether the designs are selected by default in the ENOVIA Save dialog box:

  • Locked by Self: Designs are preselected by default.
  • Unlocked: Designs are preselected by default.
  • Change in Type: Designs are preselected by default.
User preference settings control the the behavior of the Save feature. For more details on setting up preferences, see "Setting Preferences" section in ENOVIA Collaborative Design for Inventor Installation and Administrator's Guide.

This task shows you how to:

Before you begin:

Ensure that the designs you want to save to ENOVIA is open in Inventor

  1. Click ENOVIA > Save > Active or All from Inventor toolbar to open the ENOVIA Save dialog box.


    • Active: Click to save new or modified designs that are active in the current session of Inventor.
    • All: Click to save all new or modified designs which are loaded in Inventor.
    Warning: An error message is displayed and ENOVIA Save dialog box does not open if there are no changes to be saved in the designs open in Inventor.


    Note: If only a iPartFactory file is modified by changing some iPart table rows or by adding some attributes or by changing the geomtery, it will not be saved. Atleast one more iPart file must be generated to save the iPartFactory.

    All the designs open in Inventor that are new or modified are listed in the ENOVIA Save dialog box. For each design, the ENOVIA Save dialog box lists,

    Option Description
    Selection check box A selection check box is available for the designs displayed in the ENOVIA Save dialog box. Select the check box corresponding to the required designs to select the designs for save. Designs corresponding to unselected check boxes are not considered for save.

    Note: The checkboxes are preselected for the modified (including Locked by self, un-locked, type-changed) and new designs.
    Alerts An alert is displayed for the designs corresponding to the check boxes that cannot be selected for save. For example, is displayed for designs that is locked by another user, in Release state, or obsolete. The check boxes corresponding to are grayed out and cannot be selected. Point to to view the tool tip. The tool tip displays the reason why the design cannot be selected for save.
    Displays the lock status of the design in ENOVIA. icon is displayed if the design is locked by you or any other user. icon is displayed if the design is not locked in ENOVIA. For a new design, no icon is displayed.
    Name Name of the design.
    This icon is displayed for designs that are saved to ENOVIA Workspace. Roll-over mouse to view the name of the workspace where the design is saved. For a new design, this is blank.
    Type The type of the design.
    Rev Current revision of the sequence. This is blank for a new design.
    Status Status of the design in ENOVIA. One of the following is displayed for each design:
    • New. Displayed if the design does not exist in ENOVIA.
    • Modified. Displayed if the design is modified in Inventor since the design was last saved or opened.
    • Obsolete. Displayed if newer version of the design exists in ENOVIA database.
    State Current maturity level of the design in ENOVIA lifecycle. This is blank for a new design.
    Locked By. If the Inventor design being saved already exists in ENOVIA, and is locked by any user, then this column indicates the name of this user. In the case of saving a new design, this is set to default value '--'.
    Description Description entered for the design by the user.
    CAD Attributes This column is displayed only if Show CAD Attributes check box is selected. See Viewing Attributes of a Design.

  2. Enter the following details for saving the design:


    1. Click to select all the new and modified designs from the listed designs.
    2. Select the ENOVIA workspace where the designs will be saved. For selecting a workspace, see Selecting a Workspace to Save Designs.
      Warning: When documents that belong to different workspaces are saved, the references are not updated upon save and is indicated by a red icon in Inventor. To keep the references updated when documents that belong to different workspaces are saved, add the different paths of workspaces to the workgroup search-path of project in Inventor.
    3. In Comments, enter comments for the design you are saving. The comments are stored as an attribute in the design in ENOVIA.
    4. In the View drop down, select a table defined by the Integration Administrator. The selected table is applied to the ENOVIA Save dialog box.

  3. Click Options to open the ENOVIA Save options dialog box. For details on setting the save preferences, see Setting Save Options.

  4. Right-click the design and select:

    Option Action
    Autoname Click to assign a name automatically to the selected designs. The naming is done for the selected designs as per the autoname series set for each type in the Save Options dialog box. See Using Autoname.
    Revise Click to apply the target revision specified in the Save Options to all the selected designs. The revision number or sequence is displayed under the Target Revision column. You can edit the values of the revision specified under the Target Revision column. For new designs, the first revision in the revision sequence is applied as the revision by default. For example, Rev A. Click Refresh to apply the revisions to the selected rows. See Revising Designs for more details.
    Undo Revise Use this option to revert the target revision added using the Revise option. This option is available only for nodes that were set the target revision using the Revise option.
    Include for Save Click to include the designs corresponding to the selected rows for saving to ENOVIA. The checkboxes of the selected rows is selected.

    Note: Rows with Alert icons cannot be included for saving to ENOVIA.
    Exclude from Save Click to exclude the designs corresponding to the selected rows from saving to ENOVIA.

    Note: Error messages are not displayed incase of any error in the inclusion or exclusion of nodes in the ENOVIA Save dialog box.
    Revise All Click to revise new and modified designs from the ENOVIA Save dialog box which are revisionable, in a single go. See Revising All Designs.

    See Read Only Behavior for details on read only behavior while saving designs.

  5. Optional: Click Refresh to refresh the rows in the ENOVIA Save dialog box if any changes to the target revision are made.

  6. Optional: Select Show CAD Attributes to add the CAD Attributes column to the ENOVIA Save dialog box. See Viewing Attributes of a Design.

    The CAD Attributes dialog box displays the attributes entered for the design.

  7. Click Save when done.

    Warning: An error message listing the mandatory attributes mapped by the Administrator in the global configuration object (GCO) of the designs being saved is displayed if the mandatory attributes are not set on the files or their values are Null. These mandatory attributes must be manually updated before saving the designs to ENOVIA. The error message displays the exact location to update the attribute. This message is also stored as a text file, MandAttributesError.txt, in the user profile folder.

    Note: Attributes defined as "mandatory" in the GCO use the value specified in the GCO. Attributes defined as "default" in the GCO use the values specified in the file properties. If no value is specified on the file properties, then the value specified in the GCO is used. Therefore values for such "default" attributes should be defined either on file or in GCO. Attributes defined as "null" in the GCO use the values specified in the file properties. Therefore values for such "null" attributes must be defined on file.

The new designs are saved in ENOVIA with the options selected for save applied.

IEFClientWorkspaceService Failure During Save

If "IEFClientWorkspaceService.exe" stops working when a file transfer which is in progress due to a Save operation, then some of the ENOVIA commands may not work as expected when you log in again. Use the following steps to refresh the session incase of IEFClientWorkspaceService.exe failure:

  1. Close Inventor.

  2. Kill any other running instance of "IEFClientWorkspaceService.exe".

  3. Open a new instance of Inventor.

  4. Login to the new session.