Intro
In a continued effort to refine Vault and implement customer requested functionality, Autodesk has brought out numerous updates for both Basic and Professional 2025. The areas of improvement for the 2025 update can be summarised by these these 3 points below.
- Enhancement and Ease of Administration
- Communication through updated email notifications.
- Quality of life improvements.
These improvements are outlined in the following sections: Administration, General, Lifecycle Email Notification and Thin Client.
Administration
Password Policies (2025.1)
Administrators can now enforce password policies and customise what is required to qualify as an acceptable password. This applies to the built in Vault user authentication. After the policy is enabled and configured, users who’s passwords don’t qualify will be prompted to change their password on their next log in.

Purge (2025)
It is now possible to purge old versions of files contained in a folder. The purge action is available in the right click menu on a folder, or in the Edit menu when a folder is selected.
When setting up life cycles and in the Transition dialog box, Purge is now an “Action” that can be applied to a file when it’s state changes.
Only files that are controlled by lifecycles are purged.

Backup (2025.1)
Administrators have been able to do database only backups, however this has not reset the “Number of days since the last server console Backup” counter. After the 2025.1 update, doing a database only backup now resets the counter. Prior to this update, only a full backup (database and file store) would reset the counter.
Distributed Options (2025.2)
In an effort to make standardisation easier, Autodesk have introduced “Distributed Options”. This allows an administrator to set default options that get rolled out to users on initial log in. Once users have logged in, they are able to customise as required.
Distributed options are available for Vault Client, Copy Design, AutoCAD and Inventor Add-ins. The options shown below are for the thick Client.

General
Copy Design (2025)
The “Old” copy design functionality, that has been the default in Basic, has now been replaced with the “New” Professional style copy Design functionality. This brings Basic more inline with Professional, easing the user’s transition when upgrading to Professional.
What does this give the Vault Basic user? They now have more flexible control over the Design Copy process with a modeless dialog (can be minimised and Vault still used). Files can be added and removed as required with a host of actions that can be applied to each file. The Copy Design dialog box is customisable with more features and panels to provide the user with all the information they need to easily copy existing assemblies and files.
In the 2025.1 update, the ability to reuse library files was added, further streamlining the Copy Design Process. Where the 2025.2 update saw the introduction of an “Always Reuse Library Files” option.
Criteria Based Basic Search
As the heading suggests, criteria can now be saved and applied to a basic search, the example below shows the criteria of “No Desc” being added to a basic search. This criteria comes from a previously saved search where it will find files with an empty description property. Create these criteria in the Find window and create a saved search, it does not have to be a search folder.


Thin Client Reset Password (2025.1)
Thin Client users can now reset their password using the Thin Client and are no longer required to use a Vault Professional client installation to do so.
Reset Dialog Box Locations
Users can now make use of command prompt to reset the dialog box locations. This is to assist in retrieving lost dialog boxes that may be off screen and not reachable. Users can also use command prompt to do a complete reset of the Vault Client, this assists with any crashes or issues caused by missing or corrupt configuration files.
Synchronise Properties
This command is now available within an ECO, streamlining the process of ensuring property compliance during the ECO process. Users no longer have to exit the ECO to run this command within the required Vault folder(s).
“@me” Search
“@me” is now a search criteria that will be replaced by the logged in user’s display name. This simplifies the creation of distributed searches and allows multiple users to use the same saved search, but get results specific to them. This search term can be used in conjunction with the “is”, “is not”, “contains” and “does not contain” operators. It is also available in all clients (thick, thin, mobile and add-ins).

Lifecycle Email Notification
This enhancement improves the level of communication automation within Vault. Administrators can configure emails to automatically be sent out when specified lifecycle transitions take place. The feature includes the ability to set the transitions, who the recipients are and what email they receive (customisable templates). Multiple transition triggers can be set, ensure only those impacted by the specific transition are notified, reducing the amount of spam sent to non-stake holders.

Thin Client (2025)
Administrators can now turn work spaces (Files, Items and Change Orders) on or off in the Vault Thin Client. As well as set the default landing page workspace (if more than one is available). Giving more control over security and limiting access through the Thin client.
Summary
We see that, overall, the updates bring more flexibility and control in administration and security within Vault, while giving the end user more options to save time within the client and improving communication. This content was also covered in a live webinar on our YouTube channel, access this with the link below.
The enhancements listed in this blog is not a complete list, but a highlight of the important points. For a complete list of enhancements, broken down by release and update, visit the help web page linked below. Here you will find more information with regards to these enhancements and more. Along with links to the detailed help pages for each enhancement.
https://help.autodesk.com/view/VAULT/2025/ENU/?guid=GUID-E7952218-BF45-4D4B-A497-781538FE792D

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