iParts and iAssemblies can be a valuable tool in the Autodesk Inventor products, but anyone who has used iParts or iAssemblies in Vault might have become a bit frustrated. Due to the complex file references between all of the members in an iPart and its "Factory", it can be challenging to load these into Vault in a fully "up to date" fashion. This can lead to Inventor thinking the iPart needs to be updated and checked out each time it is inserted during regular design use.

There is a relatively simple way to keep track of the updated status of all iPart members using a container assembly. The same technique can be used with iAssemblies nested multiple levels deep. I have created a video of the technique using the Engine MKII sample data set which contains multiple levels of iPart and iAssemblies.