SOLIDWORKS PDM Standard and Pro are both robust data management solutions. However, PDM Pro has a number of exclusive features, any one of which could be a significant piece of a company’s data management solution. Let’s look at some of those features. Replication This feature allows companies to share data across multiple locations. Each location has its own archive server, this is where all vaulted files, both CAD and other, are stored. Data created each day at one location can be shared, via a set schedule, with each other location. Because files are local they are fast to retrieve. Each archive server works in conjunction with a single SQL database […]
InFlow Technology PLM Technical Blog
Technical tips and best practices for the SOLIDWORKS PDM and ENOVIA User & Administration
DriveWorks 16 Now Available!
Just Released: DriveWorks 16 In DriveWorks 16 we’ve built on our extensive Design Automation capabilities, greatly enhanced our 3D capabilities and made sure DriveWorks is positioned as a powerful configurator and CPQ solution company-wide for manufacturing companies. This release focuses on enhancements to stability and performance, scalability and usability alongside new features. Many of the enhancements in DriveWorks 16 have come from customer suggestions. Thank you to everyone that has submitted requests & suggestions to suggest@driveworks.co.uk. Here’s just a few of the enhancements/new features in DriveWorks 16: Performance Enhancements Timers Insert position and mate in a SOLIDWORKS assembly Dynamic 3D Preview including Layout New Specification Tasks, Functions & Generation Tasks The DriveWorks […]
SOLIDWORKS Manage Dashboards
Ever since SOLIDWORKS Manage was introduced at our Design Innovation Summits last fall, People and companies have been interested in finding out more about this product. For those of you who attended one of our Design Innovation Summits, or have done some self-guided investigation, you are probably familiar with the 4 main Pillars of Manage. For those who are not, those Pillars are: Dashboards and Reports Project Management BOMS and Records Process Management In this blog post we will take a look at one area in Manage, the SOLIDWORKS Manage Dashboards. SOLIDWORKS Manage, along with it’s integration into PDM, provides a comprehensive tool to help you keep track of documents […]
3DEXPERIENCE & CATIA V5-6: Data-Driven vs File-Driven Platforms
Whether your company is planning on migrating from CATIA V5-6 to 3DEXPERIENCE or is in the middle of the process, there are a couple of fundamental differences between the platforms that will ease the transition for you and your company. Dassault Systèmes developed the 3DEXPERIENCE platform to create a Cloud-Based, Data-Driven, and all-in-one PLM experience that better organizes workflows and streamlines development. If you have done any research, watched promotional videos, or listened to anyone talk about 3DEXPERIENCE, you will have heard the term “Data-Driven” ad nauseam (and for good reason). Most of the benefits that 3DEXPERIENCE has to offer comes from this “Data-Driven” approach. Having the platform set up […]
Automating Vault View Distribution Using a File Vault View Setup File
When it comes to installing SOLIDWORKS and PDM on multiple client machines, the process can be tedious depending on how you approach it. Using a SOLIDWORKS Admin Image is a great wait to deploy different components of the installations to different machines, but because the View Setup for PDM is outside of the installation, it can’t be included with the main part of the image. Whether you are planning to install a new PDM Client on five, fifty, or five-hundred machines, walking through the View Setup Wizard on every machine that needs to connect can be very time consuming. By creating a File Vault View Setup File (.cvs), this time […]
Solidworks PDM Vault Maintenance: How to split your archive onto mulitple discs
Is your Vault Server (known as the Archive Server) nearly out of space? PDM has functionality to help you make space temporarily until the situation can be rectified or simply choose to span files across multiple drives. **WARNING** Due NOT relocate Files while users are in the vault. Doing so could risk file or data corruption. Preparation Ensure User activity is stopped. Logins may be blocked from the admin tool and License usage may be checked from the Licensing section of the admin tool for Solidworks PDM 2015 and up. If possible, having users check in files is always a good precaution. Backup Solidworks PDM Recovery Files in the event […]
DriveWorks Best Practice: Renaming SOLIDWORKS Files
When working on a new or existing DriveWorks project, SOLIDWORKS practices need to be considered as well. Unfortunately not everything can be fully determined prior to setting everything up, so changes are bound to happen, such as renaming SOLIDWORKS parts, assemblies or drawings. Below is an outline that will allow you to rename your parts and assemblies without losing any information that was created or captured. Before we begin, make sure that SOLIDWORKS has the ability to rename parts from within the feature tree by enabling Tools > Options > System Options > FeatureManager > Allow component files to be renamed from FeatureManager tree. A full link to the instructions for renaming SOLIDWORKS files can be found here. http://help.solidworks.com/2017/english/solidworks/sldworks/HIDD_RENAME_COMP.htm […]
Automatic Part Numbering – SOLIDWORKS PDM Professional
In this post, we are going to look at automatic part numbering in SOLIDWORKS PDM Professional. The setup takes a few minutes, but the benefits are long-lasting. For this setup, we will be creating a sequential serial number to drive our SolidWorks components (1XXXXX), a numbering system to auto number SOLIDWORKS assemblies (6XXXXX), and a list of numbers for tooling creation (T-XXXX using a pre-defined list). In this example, our engineers will utilize the numbering for SOLIDWORKS parts and assemblies. However, the tooling numbers will be setup primarily for a tooling designer. Let’s go through the setup. (IMPORTANT: ALWAYS TEST CHANGES TO FEATURES IN A TEST ENVIRONMENT BEFORE ENABLING IN […]