Setting up WebDAV access to Vault Professional is relatively straightforward, in that no additional client software needs to be installed. However, since the setup is not as automated as connecting a Vault Professional Windows Client to the server, the details must be handled carefully.
All WebDAV access to Vault Professional is via URLs. A Vault Professional WebDAV URL is composed of 4 parts:
This is almost always on the same host as your Vault Professional server, at
/sgdav/wd.ashx.
For example, if Vault Professional lives at
http://example.com/VaultService, WebDAV lives at
http://example.com/sgdav/wd.ashx
The host name where Vault Professional resides.
For example, if Vault Professional lives at
http://example.com/VaultService, the host name is simply
example.com
Note: Vault's WebDAV does not support SSL. The WebDav URL can be configured to use http:// but not https://.
The specific repository with which you'll be working, as it appears in your Repository List.
For example, "Initial Repository" or "ERP".
The full path to the file or folder we're after.
For example, to access the $/bigproject/trunk/includes Vault Professional
folder, we would use /bigproject/trunk/includes
Although file-by-file access is possible via WebDAV, when configuring a client it is much more common to pick the high-level folder corresponding to the project or group of files you're working with.
Example 8.1. A complete Vault Professional WebDAV URL
Let's say that Vault Professional, and its WebDAV component, reside on
scc.example.com; that we're using the "Initial Repository"
repository there; and that we wish to work within the $/myproject/trunk/
folder.
This URL would be built as follows:
http://scc.example.com/sgdav/wd.ashx/scc.example.com/Initial%20Repository/myproject/trunk
If your repository name or folder path contains special characters (spaces, punctuation other than "/", etc.) you'll need to URL-escape those characters.
For example, "My Repository" would be escaped as "My%20Repository"; "/trunk/Odds&Ends" would be escaped as "/trunk/Odds%26Ends".
See the Percent-encoding Wikipedia page for more examples and further reading on URL encoding.
You'll need to login via WebDAV, using a valid Vault Professional username and password. Some clients will also want you to use a "check out name" or "scc username" for WebDAV's own purposes -- in this case, you should use the same username as you do for Vault Professional. (See the Dreamweaver example)
To ensure that your WebDAV URL is correct, it's a good idea to use the built-in "sanity check". This will give you a quick overview of what WebDAV sees, and note any errors that occur if the URL is incorrect.
Use the same URL as discussed in Constructing the Vault Professional WebDAV URL, but replace the folder/file portion with "SanityCheck". Using the previous example, this would be:
http://scc.example.com/sgdav/wd.ashx/scc.example.com/Initial%20Repository/SanityCheck
If all goes well, you'll see something like:
Request URI: http://scc.example.com:80/sgdav/wd.ashx/scc.example.com/Initial%20Repository/SanityCheck
Vault/Vaultpro server: scc.example.com
Vault/Vaultpro repository: Initial Repository
Vault credentials: minion722/*********
Working folder: C:\Windows\TEMP\
Top-level folders:
$/wdom2
$/WorldDomination