Can't see AutoPLANT SS7 database project properties on Navisworks

Hello everyone, good day,

In my office, we currently use a combination of the following software:

  • AutoPlant Modeler SS7 (8.11.12.242) for 3D modeling, material reporting and isometric drawing extraction.
  • SQL Database in Central Single-Project mode for AutoPLANT.
  • Navisworks Manage/Simulate 2015 for model review and to generate the shareable 3D file with embedded database information.

In the past, we worked with AutoPLANT SS2 (8.11.07.60), and we could easily see in Navisworks products the AutoPlant database information in the properties panel for each component. All this after doing some configuration in the Data Tools options in Navisworks.

But now, using AutoPLANT Modeler SS7 (8.11.12.242), the database information appears to be inaccessible from within Navisworks, at least not in the same way than before.

With the older version (SS2), we used Navisworks  “Data tools” configured as AutoPLANT Central Single-Project, and edited the Connection text box as

  • %autoplantprj("\\Server\AutoPlantProject","CONNECTIONSTRING")

The rest was untouched, and remained as default.

Only with doing that, in the properties panel appeared a new tab called “AutoPLANT Central Single Project” with all the relevant information of the selected component.

 

 

Doing the same with AutoPLANT SS7 does nothing.

Does somebody have a similar problem?

Thank You

  • Hello Juan Pablo,

    Seems like it is not connecting to your database correctly and can't get any data from it. Might be that this Connection string is not correct anymore. From this screenshot, I see that you need to select ODBC driver for this string. Did you had any special ODBC drivers installed for your older AutoPLANT project? Or maybe you had to create new SQL server ODBC Datasource and connect it directly to older AutoPLANT Project's SQL server database?

    More information about what was done earlier could help us to identify what is causing this issue.

    Thank you in advance.

    Regards,
    Kestutis Mitkus

    Best Regards,
    Kestutis Mitkus

    Application Engineer, Building, Structural & Plant

     

  • Thanks for your time Kestutis,
    To make the connection with Data Tools, Navisworks have a few pre-configurated templates for Autoplant. I selected the one with a description that matched exactly what we have, a Central Single Project database.
    The only thing I edited was in the connection string, the path to our project. I already double checked that this path were correct for our newer projects.
    I can repeat this test for any project in our older server in any new machine, but the same test fails with our projects in the newer version.

    I did not install any special ODBC driver for either our older, or our newer AutoPLANT database server, but I should ask our IT dept to check for this, since our older projects have their databases on a server with Windows Server 2003 and SQL server 2005, but the newer ones are in a Windows Server 2008 with SQL server 2008 R2.

    Regards,
    Juan Pablo
  • Hello Juan,

    Please create Service Request and in problem description add link to this thread. This issue must be investigated.

    Thank you in advance.

    Regards,
    Kestutis Mitkus

    Best Regards,
    Kestutis Mitkus

    Application Engineer, Building, Structural & Plant

     

  • Hello all,

    I have found, that one user posted solution to this issue on Autodesk forum.

    " Hi, I found a solution for this problem.

    Instead of leaving the default ODBC Driver (AutoPLANT Project), I choose the SQL Server one, and configured it with the “Setup…” Button, its server and database names, user, password, etc.

    Doing that worked perfectly, now I have the same functionality than before.
      "

    Hope this will help for other users as well.

    Regards,
    Kestutis Mitkus

     

    Best Regards,
    Kestutis Mitkus

    Application Engineer, Building, Structural & Plant

     

    Answer Verified By: Kestutis Mitkus