We are making the jump to SW 2015 from 2011.  Currently we have two engineers (myself included) with plans to add another.  Right now, my computer acts as a server of sorts.  I access work files on my local E drive and my partner also accesses my E drive but, obviously, as a mapped network drive.  For the most part we do not have any conflicts.  The bulk of our work involves large water chillers for printing presses.  There are many subassemblies that are common across projects in addition to a common library of parts.  Like I said, for the most part, we do not have many issues with read only parts etc, especially because it is just the two of us.

In a general sense I am looking for some guidance in setting up a vault for the very first time.  I am also looking for information as to how we would start working in this vault.  Im asuming that it is going to be quite a change for us and we will have to get used to doing things differently.  For instance, we may be working on 'Machine A' but need to also work on 'B' and 'C'.  Would we need to check in and out of projects before working on the others?  Right now we would just open up whatever assemblies we would like to work on.

If I were to zoom in a little, I would have the following question:

I see a need for better revision control.  Right now, if we need to revise a common subassembly, we 'save as' while working on the main assembly (so that we capture the reference change).  Usually, a project that we have finished wont need to use the newer revision because the machine has already shipped, but if we want to make the machine again, which happens semi-frequently, we would, of course, like to make sure we are using all of the current revisions.

So, one of my understandings with the wPDM is that when you make a revision then you can update and revise all of the assemblies that reference that subassembly.  Is that correct?  What if there are assemblies that reference assemblies that reference that subassembly?  Would they also get revised?

I hope that I dont sound too scattered here and I appreciate any feedback you all can give me.  The last thing I want to do is start off unprepared and have this turn into a half-baked cluster!  If I think of any other questions I will post them here.

Thank you in advance!

-Nick