How to migrate user settings from Advance Steel 2014 to Autodesk® Advance Steel 2015?

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When upgrading from Advance Steel 2014 to Advance Steel 2015, it is possible to migrate almost all the customised user settings (drawing styles, newly added bolts etc.) by performing the following steps - depending on the type of customisations:

Any setting made in a "User" category, like Drawing Styles, Drawing Processes, Manual label configurations, Prefix settings, BOM templates and preferred sizes are saved in the "AstorAddIn" database (AstorAddIn.mdb). To transfer the settings to Advance Steel 2015, the database must be copied from the AS 2014 location:

Copy
C:\ProgramData\Graitec\Advance Steel\2014\User2\Data
to the equivalent folder in Autodesk® Advance Steel 2015
C:\ProgramData\Autodesk\Advance Steel 2015\User2\Data

If the modification appeared in a different database other than "AstorAddIn", for example:

To transfer the settings made to these databases, it is necessary to merge the databases with a utility provided in the "Advance Steel Management Tools". The "Advance Steel Management Tools" can be found in the "Tools" tab of the "Tools" ribbon menu (Fig 1.)

Figure 1 - Management Tools icon

Open the "Advance Steel Management Tools" and select "Convert Databases" (Fig 2.)

Figure 2 - Select 'Convert Databases'

Click on the "Open database" button and then select the old version of the database (for example the AstorBase.mdb) from Advance Steel 2014 - located in C:\ProgramData\Graitec\AdvanceSteel\2014\User2\Data (Fig. 3)

Click "Open" to complete the selection.

The convert tool will automatically find the equivalent Advance Steel 2015 database on which the merge will be performed.

The database will be evaluated for changes and the database will be listed on the left under the "Databases" heading. Clicking on the name of the database will display a list of tables that can be merged (Fig 4.)

Figure 3 - Use the "Open database" button and then select the old version of the database

Figure 4 - Selected database is listed on the left of the window. Select the database to display the convert dialogue.

To complete the merge:

The merge operation will compare all entries that exist in both databases. Any entries that have been modified from the default in the old database are updated in the destination database.

Bolts, anchors and shear studs are transferred from Advance Steel 2014 to Advance Steel 2015 through the import/export option in "Advance Steel Management Tools" as follows:

Open the "Graitec Advance Manager" in Advance Steel 2014 and select "Bolts" (or "Anchors" or "Shear studs" – the process is the same)

Highlight the bolt (anchor/shear stud) you want to transfer to Advance Steel 2015 and click Export (Fig 5.)

Figure 5 - Select 'Export' and select a path for the exported database file.

Select a path where the exported (mdb) database file containing the bolt (anchor / shear stud) is to be saved and press "Save".

Open the "Advance Steel Management Tools" in Advance Steel 2015 and select "Bolts" (or "Anchors" or "Shear studs" – the process is the same)

Press Import and select the previously exported/saved (mdb) database file from Advance Steel 2014.

Custom connections (user joints) are saved as AutoCAD (dwg) drawing files. For the files to be available in Autodesk® Advance Steel 2015 it is necessary to copy and paste the files from the 2014 file path to the 2015 file path.

Advance Steel custom connections are stored in the following path:
C:\ProgramData\Graitec\Advance Steel\2014\Shared\ConnectionTemplates

The destination path in Autodesk Advance Steel is:
C:\ProgramData\Autodesk\Advance Steel 2015\Shared\ConnectionTemplates

To convert the drawing to AS2015 format open each file in turn in Autodesk® Advance Steel 2015 and the file will be updated automatically. Save the file and close.

User Profiles (custom sections created by the user) are saved as AutoCAD (dwg) drawings. There is not a default path for saving "User profile" drawings so the file path will vary. To make the sections available in Autodesk® Advance Steel 2015 it is necessary to open the "user profile" drawing and use the "Generate all sections" tool in the "Extended Modelling" ribbon menu (Fig 6.)

Figure 6 - Generate all sections

"Generate all sections" will add the sections to the Autodesk® Advance Steel 2015 database.

Drawing Prototypes in Advance Steel 2015 do not have the same dimension styles as those in Advance Steel 2014 so it is not possible to copy Advance Steel 2014 prototypes directly into Advance Steel 2015 without modification. All dimension styles in Advance Steel 2015 have been modified to begin "AS_" instead of "DSC_" (DSC_ in Advance Steel 2014)

If the prototypes have been extensively modified in Advance Steel 2014 it may be preferable to re-use them in Advance Steel 2015. The prototypes directory can be copied from one version to another as follows:

Locate the Advance Steel 2015 Prototypes folder and create a backup by changing the folder name. The folder name can be anything other than "Prototypes" – "PrototypesBAK" would be fine.

The Autodesk® Advance Steel 2015 folder location is:
C:\ProgramData\Autodesk\Advance Steel 2015\Shared\Support\Prototypes

Copy the Advance Steel 2014 prototypes folder and paste it to the Advance Steel 2015 prototypes location above.

The Graitec Advance Steel 2014 folder location is: C:\ProgramData\Graitec\Advance Steel\2014\Shared\Support\Prototypes

When Advance Steel 2014 prototypes are used it is necessary to open each prototype and modify the dimension styles. Having opened the prototype, type "DIMSTYLE" at the command line. In the "Dimension Style Manager" edit the name of each dimension style starting with DSC_ and replace DSC_ with AS_. For example change DSC_DIM_STYLE1 to AS_DIM_STYLE1 (Fig 7.)

Save and close the prototype.

Figure 7 - Modify dimension style name from DSC_ to AS_