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 […]
InFlow Technology PLM Technical Blog
Technical tips and best practices for the SOLIDWORKS PDM and ENOVIA User & Administration
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 […]
Transition from CATIA V5-6 to 3DEXPERIENCE: At First Glance
3DEXPERIENCE is Dassault Systèmes’s answer to the ever-growing and ever-demanding marketplace of today. While the main difference between Dassault’s CATIA V5-6 and 3DEXPERIENCE is their adaptation of a Cloud-Based & Data-Driven platform, there are some significant changes to their 3D Modeling Interface layout as well. We will cover those differences here. Upon opening the platform, you immediately notice that the interface has been completely re-vamped and has adapted a more sleek and modern look. CATIA V5 Interface 3DEXPERIENCE Interface Another striking difference is the new Top Bar. Instead of the typical Top Bar Menus (Start, File, Edit, View, Insert, Analyze, Window, and Help), you are left with some icons, a […]
Configuring Copy Tree: Making Sense of all the Options
Configuring Copy Tree: Making Sense of all the Options At first glance, the SOLIDWORKS PDM Copy Tree wizard can be somewhat daunting with all the buttons, check boxes, and drop-down menus. If you are familiar with the SOLIDWORKS Pack and Go, the interface is very similar, with additional options specific to PDM. To access the wizard, highlight a file in the PDM Explorer View, and navigate to Tools>Copy Tree. In the upper left corner of the wizard there is an Edit box for your default output destination, as well as a number radio buttons and checkboxes for different settings. Default Destination: This box allows you to choose where you want […]
Configuring Menus for Your PDM Users
In some cases, PDM Admins are not aware of the option to customize various PDM menus for their users. The page to do this can be found by right-clicking a user or group in the PDM Admin tool and selecting Settings. Then the Menus page or node can be selected, and controls will be visible to change the menu options that appear to users when they are viewing files in the vault in Windows Explorer. Keep in mind that menu options available to users still depend on their permissions in PDM. See below for a screenshot showing the node to select. Let’s briefly discuss the controls you can use to […]