If you already have SOLIDWORKS installed:

1. Open Control Panel (you can search “Control Panel” from your Start menu).
2. Go to “Programs and Features”.

3. Scroll down to “SOLIDWORKS 20XX SP0X” and select “change”.

4. The SOLIDWORKS Installation Manager will pop up. If you receive a warning about a pending Windows reboot, you can hit “ok” and continue through. Reboot when done installing.
5. Select “Modify your installation” and hit Next.

6. Your Serial Number should already be pre-filled on this page. You can leave everything as-is and hit Next.

7. On the Product Selection page, check “PDM Client” and hit Next.

8. On the Summary page, hit “Change” next to “SOLIDWORKS PDM Options”.

9. Make the following selections
   • PDM Professional or Standard (if unsure, you can safely select Professional, since this will work for clients with both Professional and Standard licenses)
   • Select the appropriate license level: Editor, Contributor, or Viewer.
     • If Editor is selected, be sure to select Add-ins for the software you have installed.
     • If you’re unsure, reach out to your administrator or select “CAD Editor” and confirm after, since license type can be changed easily later.

10. From the Summary page, accept the terms and select “Modify Now”.

11. After installing, a reboot is recommended to ensure the installation is allowed to complete fully. You should now have the PDM client installed on your workstation while retaining your original SOLIDWORKS client and any menu customization you may have made.

If you need SOLIDWORKS & PDM:

1. Navigate to http://customerportal.solidworks.com and log in with your account.

2. If you do not have an account, select Create a SOLIDWORKS ID and register using your serial number. Once logged in, select Downloads and Updates.

3. Select the year and service pack you wish to install, accept the agreement, and download the setup.

Note: This download is the setup file only so there will be additional downloading when installing the client.

4. Run “SolidWorksSetup.exe” & choose to Unzip.

5. When that finishes, the Installation Manager should start automatically. Select “Install on this computer” & hit Next. If you get a pop up stating a reboot is pending, feel free to ignore it and hit “ok” to continue.

6. If you previously installed SOLIDWORKS, your serial number should be pre-filled. If not, be sure to enter it in the box next to SOLIDWORKS. Expand and select any other design software you’d like to install on your machine here (like Visualize or Simulation – PDM comes later). Hit Next.

7. You will either be taken to a Product Selection page, or to the Summary page. If you get to the Summary page, select “Change” next to “Products”.

8. On the Product Selection page, check the “SOLIDWORKS PDM Client” box. When done, select “Back to Summary”

9. Select Change next to SOLIDWORKS PDM Options (you may need to scroll down).

10. Make the following selections:
    • PDM Professional or Standard (if unsure, you can safely select Professional, since this will work for clients with both Professional and Standard licenses)
    • Select the appropriate license level: Editor, Contributor, or Viewer.
      • If Editor is selected, be sure to select Add-ins for the software you have installed.
      • If you’re unsure, reach out to your administrator or select “CAD Editor” and confirm after, since license type can be changed easily later.

11. Finally, return to the Summary page and select Install Now. You may be prompted for a license server that should be entered in the format 25734@<server name>.
    1. If you’re unsure of your license server, reach out to your administrator.

Creating a Vault View:

1. Open your Windows Start menu, find the SOLIDWORKS PDM folder, and select View Setup.
2. Select Next > to bypass the Welcome screen.
3. In the next screen, your server name may show in the white window.
   • If it does, select it.
   • If it does not, select the Add button at the bottom of the menu to manually add it.
4. Once the server is added, check the box to the left of the server name and select Next >.

5. Check the box next to the vault you would like to add a vault view for and select Next >.
   1. If it is grayed out, try following the troubleshooting steps according to the error messages listed in this related article.
6. Set the file location. It is strongly recommended that all users put it in the root of the C or data drive.
7. Finally, select the option to create the view “For all users on this computer”, if available. Select Next > and then Finish.

Note: Only for me should only be selected if the user does not have administrative rights on their machine. It will become apparent if the vault view fails to complete. In this case, users must place the vault view in their Documents folder or a folder created on the C: drive and select the Only for me option.

Rowan Gray
PLM Support Team Lead
Computer Aided Technology

Your SOLIDWORKS PDM Local Vault View is an application mechanic that acts as a “gateway” to accessing your vault and its files.

After you install SOLIDWORKS PDM, you still need to setup a Vault View in order to access your vault(s). One thing to note is that you do need to install local views for each vault on your server. This is because you control each vault separately because they are separate entities. Basically, this ensures managed control of files in a secure location. Additionally, you manage each vault individually regarding permissions and objectives.

A local view appears to be a Windows shortcut with an PDM icon, sometimes affectionately called a “blueberry”.

This icon is more than just a software shortcut. It’s a secured folder structure that functions as a workspace, or cache, for the user when they check out and make changes to files. This local view lets users make controlled changes on a local file while still storing all versions of the file on a secure server.

A vault allows users to access a vault while having a singular place for all of their locally cached vault files to be stored and kept safe & secure.

How to create a Local Vault View:

1. Go to the Windows Start menu, find the SOLIDWORKS PDM folder, expand it, and select View Setup.
2. At the Welcome screen, click Next.
3. On the Select servers screen, select archive servers from the list and click Next .
4. You can manually add your archive server if it isn’t listed. Click Add, and in the Add server manually dialog box, enter the server name and port. Click OK and click Next.
5. If prompted for log-in information, ask your administrator for permission to add file vault views – called “Attach Access”.
6. On the Select vaults screen, select vaults from the list, and click Next.
7. In the Select location dialog box:
8. Under Attach location, browse to a location on your local machine for the file vault view.
9. Under Attach type, select one:
10. Only for me for a version that is only accessible to you.
11. For all users on this computer when you are working in a terminal environment.
12. Click Next.
13. Click Finish and then Close.

Windows Explorer shows the local vault view as a folder with a vault icon.

The icon appears in two places:

• In the location you selected in step 8.
• In the Favorites list at the top of the navigation pane.

Common Vault View Issues and How to Fix Them:

Vault is grayed out during setup, status “Attached”

The PDM vault name is grayed out during a ‘View Setup’ dialog when the local view already exists.

The vault view is usually on the C: drive. However, if it’s not there, you can find the vault view location by opening Windows Registry and checking some registry keys:

• HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\SolidWorks\Applications\PDMWorks Enterprise\Vaults\[VAULTNAME]

Take a look on ‘ShellRoot’ key – it contains path to private vault view. If ‘ShellRoot’ is absent here, then it means a SHARED view was created, and you’ll have to check this path instead:

• HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\SolidWorks\Applications\PDMWorks Enterprise\Databases\[VAULTNAME]

Take a look on ‘ShellRoot’ key – it contains path to shared vault view.

Vault is grayed out during setup, message “Attached: Missing Information”

“Attached: Missing Information” normally means that there is some view information left in the Windows Registry after the attempted removal of a prior iteration of this vault view. You’ll just need to delete it and run the “View Setup” afterwards.

When you remove a view, the following Windows Registry keys shouldn’t exist. However, if they do, you can right-click and delete them.

• HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\SolidWorks\Applications\PDMWorks Enterprise\Vaults\[VAULTNAME]
• HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\SolidWorks\Applications\PDMWorks Enterprise\Databases\[VAULTNAME]
• HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\SolidWorks\Applications\PDMWorks Enterprise\Databases\[VAULTNAME]

Note: You may also need to check for those keys under the HKEY_CURRENT_USER path. The rest of the path (SOFTWARE\SolidWorks\… etc) will remain the same.

Once you remove any remaining keys, you should be able to re-open “View Setup” and run normally.

When deleting a Local Vault View, the warning “The view was created by ‘[system\user]’. Only ‘[system\user]’ or an administrator can remove it” appears.

Sometimes this is caused by a Windows profile other than the currently logged in one having created this vault view. If being logged in as the user listed in the warning or as an administrator still will not let you remove the Local Vault View – there might be some information incorrect or missing from the local view “desktop.ini” information file, preventing the removal.

To successfully delete the file vault view, you can just turn it into a “regular” Windows folder and delete normally.

1. Open a command prompt as an Administrator. Go to the Start menu, type cmd, right-click cmd.exe and select “Run as administrator”.
2. Step into the (hidden) local view root folder by typing ‘cd c:\nameofview’ and hit Enter. Don’t include the single quotes.
3. Change the attributes on the desktop.ini file to that of a regular Windows folder by typing ‘attrib –s –h –r desktop.ini’, and hit Enter.
4. You can then close command prompt and delete the folder as you would any other.

Defining a Large Archive Server

No, 50GB is not a large server. Also, no 100GB is not a large server. Or maybe that is large. My definition of a large archive server may be different than your definition. What we’re going to be discussing is how to handle whatever you define as large. For me, I generally would consider “large” as 250GB or larger. The trick is knowing where to find that information. Well, it’s easier to find than you think.

To figure out the size of your archive server, go to the following folder path on the archive server machine:

• C:\Program Files\SOLIDWORKS Corp\SOLIDWORKS PDM\Data\[VAULT NAME]

This path does assume you’re using the default file path. If your administrator distributed the archive (more on that later) or if it’s not local, check out this help file from SOLIDWORKS.

All you have to do is right-click on the vault name folder and select Properties. Now you have a view of roughly how many files are in your vault as well as the size. I say roughly because this includes all history as individual files. Additionally, there could be other files for formatting that you wouldn’t include in a file count.

Now that we’ve defined a large server, what can you do to manage it? In a dire situation, you can always move your file archives to a new server. You may want to do this when you’re just out of space, maybe have an older machine, and want a fresh start. However, not everybody has the resources or desire for setting up a new server. Instead, let’s talk about how we can manage a larger file archive.

Managing a Large Archive Server

Distributed File Archives

My SOLIDWORKS PDM environment is not the same as yours. My archive server might be 10TB (it isn’t) and yours might be 100GB. So it’s important that you maintain the data. In some instances, maintaining that data means distributing the archive to multiple drives. These drives could be additional drives on the same server or somewhere else on your domain. So, if you’re running low on space, this could be an appealing option for expanding your system.

To activate distribution, start in the archive server configuration tool. Once there, right-click on your vault and select Relocate.

Now, you’ll see a dialogue outlining your current allocation of the vault. If there’s no distribution, you should see something like this.

I do want to note that your smallest possible vault fragment is 1/16th of the vault. So no, you can’t have 100 different drives with each having 1% of the vault.

What you can do here is add more drive locations for the archive server to save files. As I said earlier, these drives can be anywhere that you have access to. I would recommend that these drives stay local to that server for performance reasons. Moving the drive farther away means more data users have to pull over the network. Keeping everything on the same intranet will give you better performance when getting your files.

Distributing the archive across multiple drives is a great way to make sure no one drive gets overloaded. But you might not have access to multiple drives and want to compress what you can. For that, we want to take a look at activating compression on the Archive Server.

Activating Compression

As I mentioned at the top, the archive server keeps every version of a file. But sometimes having every version active at the same time doesn’t make sense. Think about it; I have 32 versions of an assembly going back 3 years. How often will I access version 3? Likely not all that often. So what can we do to manage that? Well cold storage is a great tool for moving or deleting old versions from the archive server. That’s one thing you can do to pair it with distributed file archives, but what if you only have one drive dedicated to PDM?

That’s where activating archive compression comes in. Justin Webster wrote a blog about that exact thing a few years back and it’s a great resource to learn more. Let me give you the high level overview. Archive compression isn’t activated by default. Instead, the server keeps every file at full size. So, by turning on compression, PDM will compress every version of a file that isn’t the latest version.

What this does for you is it keeps the latest version in an optimal format for use. It also makes sure that you don’t lose older files or move them someplace that’s difficult to access, like Cold Storage might. Everything stays on a single server for easy access. When you want to grab an older file, the archive server decompresses the file and you access it like normal.

Next Steps

There are steps to work with large archive servers. Some people get 10TB hard drives to make sure they never run out of space. Others, however, may not be so lucky. So to help reduce the need for insanely large hard drives, there are a few things we can look into.

If you have enough space on your server, no need to rush into compressing or distributing your archives. However, planning ahead can make sure you don’t run into any problems in the future. For some people, the future is now. So what can you do to minimize your vault impact? If you can, work out a plan to distribute your files across multiple drives. Ensure those drives are on your local network and they can handle the load from the archive server.

An additional step you should look into is compressing your archives. Compression works on every file in the archives that’s not the latest version, ensuring you don’t lose time getting compressed files. This is a great option to minimize the impact each file has on the storage space. There are a few high-level configuration steps, so understanding what each section means can improve your configuration.

With the Covid-19 pandemic reaching far and near, many of us have resorted to working from home at times. A convenience for many, but it has had its struggles. As we all have experienced by now, children tapping us on the shoulder during meetings, the dogs barking, an occasional cat walking in front of a camera, and of course the dreaded latency of not being on that super fast local network at the office! Many customers don’t realize that when we are challenged with working from home, there are some options we should consider at a minimum to improve our experience within the SOLIDWORKS PDM arena.

Some of these options are a must do when working from home, think of them as saving some of the bandwidth that we are all struggling for during this time.

Turn off the PDM Add-In

Disable the PDM Add-In entirely and perform Check Ins and Check Outs from the Windows Explorer Vault View. It takes time to load the add-in and, as we’ll talk about later, this will help PDM from talking to the server more than you need it to. When you’re working from home in PDM, every second counts.

But, if you’re a hardcore SOLIDWORKS user and just can’t live without it, at a minimum – Disable automatic updates in the PDM add-in within SOLIDWORKS

Plug it in

With the advent of so many newer, low-cost routers, and their ever improving antenna systems, it’s all too easy for us to work at the kitchen table, or the quiet den, or maybe that hideaway man cave in the basement. But be careful, is that WiFi signal really as good as you think? PDM by nature is a very “chatty” application and is designed around the use of a wired LAN. Contrast that with the fact that Wi-Fi is not reliable and is very “dynamic” or “varies” based on many factors, and you can see a problem. Follow these simple steps to make sure you’ll have a good, stable connection:

• Use a CAT5e rated or better RJ-45 cable
• Directly connect to your home router
• Turn off your computer’s Wi-Fi

Avoid large tasks through VPN

Avoid performing large tasks that require a consistent and reliable connection for a long period of time.

For example:

• Refrain from moving large folders or file sets with references
• Mass check in of files
• Mass check out of files
• Deleting a large file set

Save those big tasks for that day or two of the week you get to go in the office. Remember when going into the office seemed like a chore? Now it’s almost like a vacation!

Think about working offline

For those of us with less than stellar connectivity, think about working offline if you’re working from home. With PDM that is almost as easy as a click of the mouse. BUT, it takes a little bit of pre-planning for it to be a smooth effort when you’re working from home.

Notice some column information missing? When working off line we don’t have the luxury of seeing all that meta data typically seen in our column sets when we are connected to the “PDM database”.

Because of this, working off-line requires some pre-planning.

• Files should NEVER be renamed when in offline mode.
• As for new files, they will have to be added to the vault manually after going back into online mode.
• This type of effort usually works best if you have a very specific project or design you’re working on.
• You must cache all referenced files you will need to access when disconnected.
  • This can be accomplished by selecting a folder (or individual files) and choosing Get Latest Version.

Remember to also, check out any files you are going to edit before you go offline. When you disconnect by choosing Tools > Work Offline the Explorer will close and when you reopen it, the vault folders will be blue instead of green.

Back to that missing metadata.

The system won’t have access to the “PDM database” so the Columns view, Data Card, Bill of Materials, Contains and Where used tabs will be empty.

Because of this, think about doing a search that includes the files you will be working with whether checked out or not and save the results.

A quick click of the open search results icon and….

Now you can search your results file with Excel to possibly gain useful information while working offline. Don’t forget to save them to a handy location once you have them open in Excel!

When you are ready to reconnect, you can go to Tools > Work Online and the folders will return to green and you can check in your modified files.

Is Web2 for me?

For some, a more casual need to connect to PDM is needed. Web2 might just be the tool for you! Web2 is an excellent method of connecting to your PDM environment from mobile devices for simple viewing and approving of files. It also works well if you are a vendor/supplier needing light duty access.

It requires no client-side installation of PDM, and supports all major web browsers. However, it will require your IT department to setup some Microsoft IIS requirements for hosting.

There is an excellent recording of our recent webinar about using web2: https://youtu.be/LaoCzSZP9VA

All in all, working from home can be a pleasurable experience, distractions included. Just remember, when you’re working from home and using SOLIDWORKS PDM, there are several options to support your needs to have a healthy and productive connectivity to your data.

Server & Cloud don’t go together, right?

Yes, they do! First of all, it’s easy to obtain a cloud hosted server through any number of providers today. InFlow has partnered with Advance 2000 to provide customers with industry leading hosted services technology. Further, SOLIDWORKS PDM doesn’t really care or know if you’re hosting the server in a data center or a closet. Therefore, if your current business case calls for it, we can recommend looking into this solution. Finally, we also welcome customers with their own cloud hosted solutions (i.e. Azure or AWS hosted environments).

Infrastructure

Repeatedly, I have seen hesitation and fear surrounding cloud hosted server infrastructure. Over time, I’ve learned that this isn’t something you should be afraid of. Let’s dive a bit deeper and investigate three major components involved with cloud hosting:

1. Location, location, location! Where you are located has a huge effect on the system overall performance. Thus, some of the larger providers have data centers scattered all around the globe to serve this purpose better.
2. Setup! This is another major factor that affects cloud-hosted environment performance. Let’s investigate a couple of different cloud-hosted server setups to get a better understanding on this topic.
3. Support

EX1: Cloud Hosted Server + SOLIDWORKS PDM

Data Center: This is the main location where your data is stored. Usually, the cloud-hosting provider owns this.

Office: This is the main office location, where most users work and access the vault.

User at home: This category is growing significantly. Today, more and more users are working from home.

Site-to-site VPN: This is a permanent connection between the cloud hosted server and your office. IT encrypts this connection between the two locations. It’s much more robust (and faster) than regular remote access. Typically, it is setup as an IPsec connection.

VPN: A secure connection between user machines and their office server.

If needed, you can make a connection from end users directly to the cloud hosted server. There are several factors dictating this situation. Please reach out to InFlow or your account manager with any questions.

EX2: Cloud hosted server + SOLIDWORKS PDM + Archive Replication

Data Center: Main location where your data is stored, it is usually owned by the cloud hosted service provider.

Office: Main office location, where most users work from

Office 2: Secondary office location.

User at home: This category has been growing significantly, more and more users are working from home today.

Site to site VPN: Permanent connection between the cloud hosted server and your office. IT encrypts this connection between the two locations. It is much more robust and faster than regular remote access. Typically, it is setup as an IPsec connection.

VPN: Secure connection between user machines and their office server.

PDM Replication: Access the SOLIDWORKS help site for more information on SOLIDWORKS PDM Archive replication.

If needed, you can create a direct connection between end users and the cloud hosted server. This is usually dictated by the current customer situation and is influenced by many different factors. Please reach out to InFlow or your account manager with any questions.

Support

Let us get the elephant out of this room, shall we? Unfortunately, due to the high number of variables surrounding cloud hosted solutions, SOLIDWORKS doesn’t fully support every cloud environment. Let me explain what this really means.

If software issues arise on an installation that utilizes these environments, SOLIDWORKS and Computed Aided Technology will attempt to reproduce the issue on a supported environment. If validated, we will pursue a solution just like any other support case. However, if we determine that the issue isn’t related to SOLIDWORKS and SOLIDWORKS PDM, we’ll to the best of our ability, convey this information to you.

Key Takeaway

In this blog, we discussed how SOLIDWORKS PDM can be used with cloud hosted servers. We also talked about the benefits and situations that might make you think about using SOLIDWORKS PDM on a cloud environment. Finally, we discussed a couple of different ways you can use a cloud-hosted service to host your current environment. We always want to help you find the right solution that fits what you need. If a cloud hosted solution is something you want to look into, please reach out to InFlow and Computer Aided Technology. We’re happy to answer any questions you may have about it.

To help you understand more about the solutions, we have several webcasts on the CATI YouTube channel showing different features about SOLIDWORKS PDM. Additionally, you can check out another blog post about what makes PDM Standard such an attractive solution.

Some of my favorite SOLIDWORKS PDM Professional features include:

• Automated Tasks
  • Automatically convert SOLIDWORKS drawings to PDF, or many other file formats.
• Project Folder Templates
  • Use PDM templates inside your vault to automate the process of building documents and folders for multiple customer projects.
• Engineering Change Notices
  • Streamline the engineering change process as well as link information between PDM and ECN/ECO documents.

Now, let’s take a closer look at using PDM templates to simplify your process.

Automated Tasks with PDM Templates

When we release files ready for production, most of us make a document to share beyond engineering. That chore gets rather monotonous at times, especially when the release is a large one. I remember my intern days standing in front of a blueprint machine. I remember standing there for hours, making dozens and dozens of prints. Ah the smell of ammonia…don’t miss it a bit.

Today, we have much better tools at our disposal. A good one inside SOLIDWORKS PDM Professional is the convert task. With SOLIDWORKS PDM Professional 2017 we have several enhancements to the convert task. We now have convert tools for Office Word, Excel, and PowerPoint), DraftSight (.dwg), and MBD. All of these can be set-up and triggered to run automatically in your workflow.

Project Folder Templates and Engineering Change Notices

For anyone in Engineering, you’re probably familiar with an ECN or similar release process to get approvals for design changes.  And, if you’ve been working intimately with CAD files, you know there may be limited folder structures for various projects. Or, like most of us, you wished there was a finite and consistent set of folders for each project. We’ve all logged into a network drive, only to find the project folders with random folder names and structure. Not only is it confusing to look at, but it makes it nearly impossible to find our data!

With PDM Professional, you can resolve this with a tool called “Templates”.

For example, below are some screenshots of working on a template for automating an ECN process. It automatically populates and vaults Excel or Word documents, readying them for routing through an ECN approval process.

Let’s look at another example. If you look below, we have a screenshot of a template for automatically creating project sub-folders.  This PDM template asks the user for the project information. Then not only builds the correct (and consistent) folder structure, but populates necessary folders with template documents.

And of course, if you want to speak to someone about SOLIDWORKS PDM, just let us know.

Related Articles

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About the Author

Joe Frank began using SOLIDWORKS and PDM back in 2008 and joined InFlow Technology as an Applications Engineer in 2015. Joe has over 25 years of automotive tier one experience principally in the convertible top field. With his life experience and certifications as a PDM Administrator and Data Management Specialist, Joe brings a practical and enthusiastic approach to any PDM demonstration or implementation effort.

I thought it would be fun to take a deeper dive into her concept to see how much further we could go.

What if the AcroRd32.exe is in multiple locations within your company?

It seems unlikely that everyone in a company would have their Adobe reader installed in “C:\Program Files (x86)\Adobe\Acrobat Reader DC\Reader”. Even if they did, future versions likely won’t use that same path. Therefore, maintaining the path to the executable file would be a headache.

When you use the command type “Command String”, the “Command” text box is simply running a DOS command. “START” is a DOS command for opening a file. It opens the file in the associated program.

Thus use:

START "C:\PDM_Professional\PDFs\%3.pdf"

“Start” opens the file in your preferred Adobe program; the location of the application’s executable file doesn’t matter.

What if the file to open is located in the vault?

If you want to use a data card to open a file and it’s not in the vault, you have a problem. DOS doesn’t know that PDM exists. It doesn’t understand that a file may not always be in the local cache. So if the button is opening a different file, i.e. a standard operating procedure document, and that file is not in the local cache, when the data card command runs, the application is going to complain that it could not find the requested file. So instead use:

Explorer "C:\VAULT NAME\SOPs\SOPManual.docx"

The “Explorer” command will use Windows Explorer to open the file just as if you double-clicked on it. As we all know, if you double-click on a file, and the file is not in the local cache, the file will first be cached automatically, then opened in the associated application.

What if the file is in the vault and I want to make sure the user is getting the most recent version?

Oh, that’s a toughie. Like I said, the “Explorer” command above works just as if you double-clicked on it. If you have an older version cached and don’t have “Always work with latest version of files” turned on, you’ll get an older version of the file. We’re going to need to get to the programming interface. Sorry PDM Standard guys, you’re going to have to stick with just the “Explorer” command, PDM Standard doesn’t have a programming interface.

We’re going to dust off Powershell. The goal here is to still just paste some text into the “command” data card button property. I don’t want to have to install anything on any computers. No setup. The Powershell code below would work if you opened a Powershell window and typed these lines in one at a time. If you’re curious, here is a quick summary:

• Line 2 creates a variable connected to PDM
• The code connects to the vault in Line 3
• Line 4 is a hack. It is the easiest way I have found to create the folder variable needed for Line 5’s “GetFileFromPath”
• Line 5 connects the code to the required file
• The GetFileCopy method in Line 6 tells PDM to get the latest version of the file to the local cache
• Instead of DOS’ START command, Powershell uses start-process in Line 7

In this example, let’s assume the file we want the button to open is “C:\VAULT NAME\SOPs\SOPManual.docx”. In this case, line 1 becomes

$filename = 'C:\VAULT NAME\SOPs\SOPManual.docx'

You can give the file any extension. Just make sure you have an application associated with it.

Recall from Hannah’s post the vault name can be passed as the second parameter – %2. So, line 3 becomes:

$vault.LoginAuto('%2',0)

At this point, we have two remaining issues. The data card button “command” box limits us to 255 characters. If the file file name is very long we’re going to run over that limit. So let’s change the variable names to $n for file name, $v for vault, $fo for folder, and $f for file. This will give us a little more space.

Lastly, how do we get all of this in the command text box and tell PDM we want Powershell to execute the code? You tell PDM to run Powershell with the Powershell.exe command. Then, just place the code you want Powershell to run inside of quotes. You can put multiple Powershell commands together on one line if you separate them with semicolons.

Finally, here is the final result!  (Change c:\vault name\SOPs\SOPManual.docx with your file name, ignore the word wrap, paste in all in as one long line of text.)

powershell.exe "$n='c:\vault name\SOPs\SOPManual.docx';$v=New-Object -COMObject ConisioLib.EdmVault;$v.LoginAuto('%2',0);$fo=$v.RootFolder;$f=$v.GetFileFromPath($n,$fo);$f.GetFileCopy(0);start-process $n"

It certainly isn’t pretty but its easy, just copy this code, change the file name and paste into the button properties!

What’s the difference between Delete and Destroy?

This is, naturally, an early question for PDM users. Nobody wants to accidentally delete their files. But what the difference between delete and destroy? First, what does the delete function do?

Delete in SOLIDWORKS PDM

Similar to how it works in Windows, just clicking Delete on a file doesn’t delete it forever. This might seem strange to some people because in many cloud systems, deleting a file from a folder means it’s gone forever. Delete simply sends the file to the parent folder’s recycling bin. So, to recover the files, you can go back to the recycling bin and recover the files.

This is great news because the files still exist when you delete a file in PDM. It also means that not everybody has full rights to completely remove a file. But it does mean that you may go looking for a file and not be able to find it right away.

Well, in SOLIDWORKS PDM, you can right click on a folder, go to Properties, and then the deleted items tab. This tab contains every deleted file from that folder. Additionally, you get information such as who deleted item and when. You can right-click a file and recover it if you come across one that was deleted by mistake.

Also, I want you to notice the different options I have available to me. I can recover or destroy a file because I’m logged in as an administrator. However, if you are logged in without permissions to destroy a file, you will notice that Destroy is not an option.

Let’s talk more about destroying a file and what that means. While it may seem clear that destroying a file removes it from the folder for good, it’s important to remember that SOLIDWORKS PDM runs with a SQL database behind the scenes.

Destroy in SOLIDWORKS PDM

You’re only going to allow some users to destroy a file. This seems pretty obvious. What if you hired an intern last week and they accidentally deleted a file or two? You don’t want those files lost forever, so PDM helps take care of that.

When you destroy a file, it does more than just remove the physical file from the folder. In addition to that, the record is also removed from the SQL database and the file is removed from the archive. This clears up space in the database and on the disk, but also destroys the file. Therefore, and I say this as a caution, be very careful and mindful of which files you destroy. The difference between doing a delete or destroy can be critical to how you recover from a mistake.

When you want to destroy a file, there are a couple of ways to do it. The first is to delete the file and then go into the Deleted Items and click Destroy. But that’s a lot of clicks, and personally, I would want a faster way. Well, lucky for me (and you) there is another way. Just like in Windows, you can hold down Shift and press Delete. When that happens, you’ll get a dialog asking if you’re sure you want to destroy the file. If you say you are, the file will be removed from the system.

So… Delete or Destroy?

Understanding the difference between delete and destroy is tremendously important. It’s the difference between being able to recover your files or having to make them all over again. By knowing this difference, you not only know what it means when you delete or destroy, you also know what you can do in the event of it happening.

That wraps up our first edition of, ” SOLIDWORKS PDM: What Does This Do?” Check back next week as we go through another function in PDM: Branch and Merge

~Nick

What is PDM Standard?

PDM Standard is a free tool that exists within any SOLIDWORKS Professional or SOLIDWORKS Premium license. This means that if you have at least SOLIDWORKS Professional today, then you can start using PDM Standard as well. Obviously, there are tremendous benefits to using a PDM system. And having access to a free tool right now makes this avenue appealing for many people. Today, let me walk you through how you can save money with PDM Standard.

Benefits of SOLIDWORKS PDM

1. Less Time Spent Searching for Files

Leading off with a big hitting topic. Searching for files is something we all do every day. Whether that’s by scrolling through our My Documents folder or typing something into our file sharing service, we all do it. But how much time do we spend searching for files every day? According to a McKinsey report, the average interaction worker spends 19% of their work week just searching for and gathering information. Putting that another way, the average worker spends their entire Thursday just looking for and gathering information.

Think about that, we could save up to 19% of our time every day. What would you do with that much extra time? Maybe now is a great time to throw in the legendary quote, “Time is Money”. So remember, whenever we’re saving time, we’re saving money.

2. Automatically Track History of Files

Who did what? When did they do it? And why did they do it? Those are some pretty important questions, especially when it comes to tracking your files. Think about it, every time somebody has to ask the question of why something was done to a file, that’s time they have to spend tracking down that answer. Let’s play out a scenario to illustrate my point.

**In this scenario, let’s say no PDM system is in place.**

My manager, Ryan, is looking at a part I’ve submitted to him for review. So what is his first step? Well, he needs to look at the part and see what I’ve changed since the last time. Seems easy enough, but what if I work in a different time zone and I’ve already left for the day? That means that the history he needs from me can’t get to him until tomorrow. Or if I am still in the office, he still has to either call me or send me an email to find out the details.

So how can we use PDM Standard to fix this problem?

SOLIDWORKS PDM has a feature called History. This history exists for all documents that we include in PDM. We track history for everything from our SOLIDWORKS files to our Office documents. Using the history in SOLIDWORKS PDM Standard gives a quick view into who did what, when they did it, and why they did it. This tool is powerful because it’s saving us time and money by having all of the information we need in the right spot at the right time.

3. Workflow Tasks to Automatically Convert to PDF

Did you know that you can use SOLIDWORKS PDM to save your files as a PDF format? It’s true! Whether you’re using PDM Standard or Professional, you can use workflow tasks to take your SOLIDWORKS drawing files and convert them to a PDF. It’s pretty simple to calculate how much time you save. Every time you want to create a PDF, you click File > Save As. Then, you go and change the file type in the drop-down to PDF. Finally, you select the folder to save it in.

Now that was only five clicks. But what happens if you’re sending the files for approval and you forget to create the PDF? There are too many repeatable steps in this process, so automation makes a lot of sense. Using PDM Standard enables the Convert to PDF task. This task runs automatically every time a file goes through a workflow. Now, every time you submit a file for approval, PDM generates a PDF and puts that in the folder with the SOLIDWORKS drawing.

4. Always Work on the Right Version

We’ve all had it happen to us. You know what I’m talking about. A colleague sends us a file for us to work on. We start working, have even made some great progress, when an email pops in.

“Hey, sorry, I sent you the wrong file. That one isn’t up to date. Please see the latest version (attached). Thanks!”

In that moment, we all want to scream. We just wasted part of our day doing something that now has absolutely no value.  So we pick up the pieces of our (now broken) keyboard and we start fresh, praying that we don’t see another version of that email ever again. And if we institute SOLIDWORKS PDM Standard, it shouldn’t ever happen again.

This has everything to do with saving money with PDM Standard. Using SOLIDWORKS PDM, you get a clear picture of the version for any file in the vault, provided you have access. Notice the version tab in the user interface. I’m working on a file, but it isn’t the latest version. It doesn’t yell at me or throw any error messages at me. But I’m aware of what’s going on and can adjust if I need to. This is crucial because I know I will always be working on the right version of a file. It also applies beyond just the engineering team.

Remember that broken keyboard from earlier? What if that file somehow got all the way to the shop floor and was being used to produce products for customers? If that happens, it could be a lot worse than just a broken keyboard. This leads me into my final point about how you can use SOLIDWORKS PDM Standard to save you money.

5. Central File Location

Sharing files across departments can be difficult. There are so many ways to share files that it gets confusing about which method we should be using. SOLIDWORKS PDM gives you a centralized file location, making it easy to share files between users and groups. This means that you can have your engineers develop a model and send it through approvals. The workflow that I mentioned earlier is what controls that approval process. The file is then visible to the shop floor, but only after it has been properly approved.

It’s important to remember that these users all access the same vault. Configuring the vault properly allows the right users to view the right information, at the right time. So your marketing department can’t view files in the engineering “Work In Progress” workflow state. Likewise, the engineering team doesn’t have write access to the marketing folder, they can only view those files. It’s simple, users have access to the files they should, and not the files they shouldn’t. Let’s play out one more example for how this can work in the real world.

You’re a designer and you spend all day drafting up files. As soon as you finish a part, you submit it to your boss for approval. Once you submit it he or she can review the file and either approve or reject it. All the while, the guys on the shop floor have no visibility because these files haven’t been approved. But as soon as the approval goes through, they’ll get a notification that they have a new file awaiting processing. The best part? This file never had to leave the original folder.

A Final Note about Saving Money with PDM Standard

Any tool can save you money if you use it well. PDM Standard is a great tool if your company needs basic document control. There are more advanced features in PDM Professional and the abilities far exceed what you can do with Standard. But if you spend too much time searching for files, need a better way to track history, want PDFs to be created automatically, have issues with versions, and want a central file location, then PDM Standard just might be the perfect tool to help you save money.

~Nick

During my PDM Administration classes, we have always made fun of the other two options. “Continue to use the last row”. I get an infinity of letter “Z” revisions in my file? “Restart from the first row in the list”. PDM sets my ten-year-old file’s revision back to “A”? Who would ever use these crazy two options?

This week I finally found a use case for “Restart from the first row in the list”. A customer was migrating a data set from their Workgroup vault. Their revision schema in Workgroup was a mess. It had changed several times in the past, and not everyone assigned revisions the same way. They couldn’t trust their revision values. Yet at the same time, they did not want all these files migrated into the vault with a revision “A”.

Solution

Our solution was that we added a new revision value at the end of the list – “Workgroup Revised” and set all the migrated files to this new value. This works rather nicely because if you look at a file that has never been revised in the new system, you can easily see that it at least has had a history, but if the file gets modified for the first time in the new clean revision system, it will be assigned with the first letter in their PDM revision system!

It took me fourteen years to come up with a use case for “Restart from the first row in the list”. Will it take me fourteen more to come up with a use case for “Continue to use the last row”? Are you using it? Can you dream up a reason why you would ever use it?