Enhance Collaboration with Autodesk Vault Peer Review

Autodesk Vault 2024 introduces a powerful new feature: Peer Review. This functionality is designed to enhance collaboration and ensure quality control by incorporating peer review feedback into the lifecycle state transitions of your engineering designs. Here’s a comprehensive look at how you can leverage the Peer Review Feature in Vault 2024.

What is Peer Review?

Peer Review in Autodesk Vault 2024 is a mechanism that enforces a review process during critical lifecycle state changes. It ensures that no single user can move a file through its lifecycle without oversight from another team member. This feature is particularly useful for maintaining high standards of quality and accountability in your design processes.

How Peer Review Works

The Peer Review feature checks that the current user is not the same as the user who executed the previous state change. This prevents a single user from creating a drawing, sending it for review, and then releasing it straight after. If the user does try to release their own work, an error message will pop up in Vault, stating that they cannot release the file because the peer review is in effect for this file.

Benefits of Peer Review

• Enhanced Quality Control: By requiring peer reviews, you ensure that multiple sets of eyes evaluate critical changes, reducing the risk or errors and improving the overall quality of your designs.
• Increased Accountability: Peer reviews foster a culture of accountability, as team members are aware their work will be reviewed by their peers.

Setting Up Peer Review

1. Access Peer Review Tab in Lifecycle Definitions: Navigate to Tools > Administration > Vault Settings and select Lifecycles in the Behaviours tab.
2. Configure Lifecycle States: Choose the lifecycle definition you want to modify and select the state transitions that require peer review.
3. Enable Peer Review: In the state transition settings, open the Peer Review tab. Set up a rule that determines the criteria for which files need to follow the peer review process. In the below image, the rule enforces that all Inventor and AutoCAD files required a peer review process in order to be released.

Conclusion

The Peer Review feature in Autodesk Vault 2024 is a significant enhancement for teams aiming to improve collaboration and maintain high standards of quality control. By ensuring that no single user can move a file through its lifecycle without oversight, this feature promotes accountability and reduces the risk of errors. Setting up Peer Review is straightforward and can be tailored to your specific workflow needs, making it a valuable addition to your design processes.