Where are the user selected section and material mapping settings saved for STAAD.pro?

Section mapping in STAAD.pro, using Struclink works as follows:

This is expected according to design.
Basically, the system works like this,

1. First, STAAD looks into its mapping table to check if its section is associated with ISM.
2. If not found, STAAD sends the section name to ISM for a lookup.
3. If not found, then it pops the mapping dialog for the user to map. 

But one thing can be done to avoid the mapping dialog. If you refer Shapes19S3.mdb, Table ‘StaadToISMSectionMaps’, you will see the following entries in the table:

& ‘StaadSectionMaster’:

The default location for the file is:

V8i - C:\SProV8i SS5\STAAD\Plugins\StrucLink\Data\Shapes19S3.mdb

CONNECT edition - C:\ProgramData\Bentley\Engineering\StrucLink\Data

If one can create entries for mappings in the above tables, then this can be avoided. We suggest using the user interface to map sections and avoid potential errors manually entering data into the tables however. (Please do not refer to the ‘Shapes’ table in the database. It is used by ProSteel.)

UPDATE:

Since STAAD.Pro CONNECT Edition Update 2 this database file is located in C:\Users\<User_Name>\AppData\Local\Bentley\Engineering\STAAD.Pro CONNECT Edition\Default\PlugIns\StrucLink\Data and it is stored in SQLite database format (.db3).

See Also

ProStructures ISM Section and Material Mapping