At InFlow Technology, we provide product lifecycle management and product data management solutions, with a focus on ENOVIA, SOLIDWORKS PDM, CATIA, and SIMULIA products, services, training, and support.

“It starts with providing the right solutions and our commitment to making sure our clients are successful,” said Justin Webster, Vice President, InFlow Technology. We want to build lasting partnerships with our clients.”

In 2017, we added CATIA 3D modeling and design software to our solution portfolio. CATIA is used in a wide variety of industries for product design by some of the world’s most recognizable brands.

“The addition of CATIA to our portfolio was a decision that made sense. We always look for ways to add more value to our relationships with our clients. Many were already using CATIA in their design process. By adding CATIA, we have positioned ourselves as a one-stop shop for our clients,” said Rod Levin, President, InFlow Technology.

For more information, visit our website at www.cati.com.

Jim TeDesco, Vice President, Marketing
Computer Aided Technology, LLC and InFlow Technology, LLC
www.cati.com

Bernard Charles introduces the 3DEXPERIENCE Platform to the SOLIDWORKS community at SWW 2012.

This year at SOLIDOWKRS World 2018 was no exception. The introduction of SOLIDWORKS 3DEXPERIENCE PLM Services on the 3DEXPERIENCE platform was unveiled by Milos Zupanski, Director or Product Portfolio Management, in one if the keynote presentations (begins at the 21:38 minute marker). This service offering provides basic “turnkey” PLM functionality to your document management needs. Since this is a cloud service, there is no need to invest in server hardware and maintenance. While this is a major benefit to cost of ownership of a PLM system, many companies are still very leery of having their IP (intellectual property) hosted on a cloud service. Dassault Systems has ensured that they use the best possible security measures and encryption that the cloud computing industry offers. Even with that concern, as the cost of ownership in cloud computing decreases, the cloud based IP storage model should become more widely accepted  and begin to phase out the current On-Premise models. Cloud computing in general is already here and is incorporated in many aspects of our lives. Our online banking, Amazon, Microsoft Box, Dropbox, Google Drive, Apple iCloud, and social media streams are just some examples.

SOLIDWORKS 3DEXPERIENCE PLM Services on the cloud

ENOVIA has been a major component of the 3DEXPERIENCE platform for years, but SOLIDWORKS 3DEXPERIENCE PLM Services will bring the ENOVIA experience to the cloud. Pricing hasn’t been announced as of yet, but the hope would be to introduce the capabilities of ENOVIA to a wider market by making it economically feasible and will eventually include migration paths for SOLIDWORKS PDM Pro.

ENOVIA integration in SOLIDWORKS. The foundation of the SOLIDWORKS 3DEXPERIENCE PLM Services.

So is this the future of document management or PLM? The concepts are definitely on trend with where other technologies are headed. If you are in the SOLIDWORKS Ecosystem, you will certainly want to keep an eye on this development over the course of 2018 and beyond.

3DEXPERIENCE Compass

The following are some of the features in a load balancer environment:

Performance – With multiple application clones, response time to clients is significantly reduced. The performance boost may be as high as 80% compared to non-load balanced environments.

Faster Response – Load balancing features like round robin send requests to the server that can handle more volume depending on its strength.

Avoid downtime – If you have a one server environment and it needs downtime for maintenance, users will be locked out whereas with load balancers, server #1 can be offline and server #2 will handle the incoming traffic.

Risk Management/Failover – If one of the servers in the load balancer fails, the second or third server in the load balancer environment can continue processing the requests.

Other Features – Apart from managing data requests, load balancer has capabilities like HTTP compression (utilizing gzip), DDOS protection, caching of static data content that is used repeatedly, data encryption etc.

How is load balancing applicable in a 3DEXPERIENCE Platform Environment?

3DEXPERIENCE platform is a web application server with 10+ web application services that can be load balanced. For example, 3DPassport which handles login credentials can be load balanced for large implementations of 100s of users. Load balancer could send 25 login requests to server #1 and 25 to server #2. 3DSpace, which is the heart of the 3DEXPERIENCE platform and the most involved can be load balanced for CAD intensive implementations of more than 50 users.

Some of the major load balancer providers are F5, CISCO, Citrix, KEMP, Barracuda, Radware. Cost could range from a couple of 1000s to upwards of 20k. It all depends on what features are needed. Apache web application server on the other hand offers free load balancing capabilities that can help with small size user bases. Even though there are limitations it does a good job with load balancing.

Customers on the 3DEXPERIENCE platform should definitely take a look at load balancers as it will significantly reduce downtime, boost performance and help in secure communications.

The ENOVIA Search Card is a tool contained within the SOLIDWORKS and WINDOWS Integration of ENOVIA. It is used to search SOLIDWORKS parts, assemblies and drawings inside the vault from within the integration itself. Out of the box, it is important to note that the integration only handles SOLIDWORKS file types, therefore the Search Card will be limited to only show those results. The Search Card can be found inside of your Windows Explorer once the user has clicked the 3DEXPERIENCE icon and logged in.

When the user first logs into the system and before the user selects anything, the card should be the first thing to be seen on the bottom half of the screen. The user can also at any point activate the Search Card by clicking the search button on the right side of the screen.

How to use the ENOVIA Search Card

Once the user activates the search card by either logging in the first time or clicking the search button on the right-hand side, searching is as simple and filling out the information you are looking for. OOTB, the user has the options to search Title, Description, Design Number, Owner, Checked Out By, Vault, State, or Check in By. These search criteria may vary from system to system depending on the configuration and how these attributes have been tied to SOLIDWORKS.

Once the user has filled out the necessary fields, clicking the “Search” button in the top left corner will activate it and the results will populate in the top half of the screen. Clicking “Clear” will clear the entire Search Card. If there is a common search that the user does often, it can be saved as a favorite. Once the user has performed a search, it can be saved into the Favorites by selecting the “Favorites” button and clicking “Add Favorite”. The user can also organize their favorites from here too.

On the right side of the card, you will notice that there are a few check boxes for search options. OOTB, the standard checkboxes that are always selected are Search Global Objects, Search All Workspaces, and Search Entire Workspace. Below is a break down off all their meanings.

Search Global Objects – Searches all objects, whether object is floating or tied to workspace

Search All Workspaces – Searches all workspaces only

Search Entire Workspace – Search entire workspace, not just particular location the user is currently in

Search Subfolders – Search all subfolders from the user’s location downward

Search in all Iterations – Searches all iterations (used for specific attributes that may have changed in Iterations)

Search Configurations – Searches all Configurations (used for specific attributes that may have changed in different attributes)

Customize Your Search Card

Search Cards are 100% completely customizable. Administrators can change the look and the attributes associated with the card at any point. It’s very common to customize a card to be very similar to drawing or part cards. This way attributes entered on other cards may be searched here, offing a higher chance of finding what users are looking for much more accurately.

Tips and Tricks

• It’s a best practice to create a search favorite showing what a user has a checked out. This ensures that users don’t have things checked out that they should not have. It also allows users to check in files more frequently thus ensuring that they are backed up in the vault should anything happen to local cache. Also, a best practice to ensure that if a user is going to be gone for an extended period that their files are checked in and available for other work on in their absence.
• For 95% of searches, the OOTB search boxes on the right-hand side will get things done. Only times to consider changing them is for specific attribute searches that are configuration or iteration specific, or if the vault search is so broad that the user experiences slow search times. Careful selecting the search iterations and configurations boxes as it broadens a search significantly. When these are not selected, the search default to the “@” tab values, or family values of the file. Selecting them will search every configuration associated with that file.
• It’s a best practice to start your search broader and then narrow it down gradually. If the user knows exactly the part number they are looking for then this does not apply. If the user is looking for something and they do not know that name, begin large and chip away at the search results. The search card works a Boolean function, meaning that the results much match the criteria exactly. If you over specify and the part you are looking for does not have one of the values you input it will NOT show in the results.

Solution : WINRAR was the root cause of the issue. Looks like it was trying to cache or read the objects before 3DEXP software. Uninstalling WINRAR solved the issue and the performance was back to normal.

First step is to add a new system environment variable in Windows

Install GA. Do not Click Install in the final confirmation screen

Modify install.properties and save the file

Click Install

Before installing the Fix Pack, add ODBC connection to 3DNotification database

There is an easier option to solve this issue by entering the path for the installer in the Windows environment variable.

Extract the Installer from Platform install folder.

Open Windows system environment variables

Click New under System variables

Create variable name “DSY_ENOVIA_Installer” and enter the path in the variable value

Click OK to close the window. Click OK again to close the system variables window.

The installer will be automatically picked during installation. When you install the fix pack, update the path to the installer of the fix pack.

So where am I going with this? Well ENOVIA, if configured out of the box, will create a single part instance for each of these configurations. These instances are the basis for separate parts in the system. The big question is why do I need or want separate instances (part numbers) for each of my simplified rep, flat patterns, ect. The simple answer is you don’t, there is no need. Let’s look at how to tell ENOVIA that under some circumstances it can just ignore them.

The object that we are going to look at is in the config for the SOLIDWORKS connector. Its type is “SolidWorksInteg-GlobalConfig” and the name should be “SWNewArch”. To get to it, we need to use the matrix.exe executable, and I find that the easiest search in matrix will be to search for *Arch*.

Edit the attributes from the right click menu or select the “Attributes” from the toolbar.

The attribute in this object that we are looking for is “SLW-ConfigurationFilter”.

We are going to add a couple of lines to the “SLW-ConfigurationFilter” attribute. The syntax that we are going to us looks like this:

extension|exclude pattern|include – Extension would be SLDPRT and SLDASM.

An example would look something like this:

SOLIDWORKS Configurations Example 1

SLDPRT|*|Default*

This example would take any part checked in to the system and exclude all the configurations, except for the include of any configuration that starts with “Default”.

SOLIDWORKS Configurations Example 2

SLDPRT,SLDASM|*|Default,PN*

This example would take any part or assembly checked into the system and exclude all configurations except for the inclusion of any configuration that is named “Default” or starts with the prefix “PN”.

SOLIDWORKS Configurations Example 3

SLDPRT,SLDASM|*simple*|

This example would act on all parts and assemblies that are checked into the system and include all SolidWorks Configurations except for any configuration containing “simple” in the configuration name.

The configuration of this option in the system goes hand in hand with a few other options that work together to form the basis of your part numbering scheme. We will talk about some of the other options in upcoming blogs.

Apart from the standard platform components that were part of 2016x (3DSPACE, FED SEARCH, FTS, 3DPASSPORT, 3DDASHBOARD etc.), two new components have been introduced in 2017x.

3DComment

Provides the ability for 3DEXPERIENCE platform members to interact with one another by liking content and adding comments to any item in the system. This is a mandatory module that needs to be installed.

3DNotification

Helps 3DEXPERIENCE platform members get timely updates about activities going on. It basically controls the notification message services. This is a optional module.

Azeem Saied
InFlow Technology

Check out the video below.  This particular video shows one way SolidWorks users will access their SolidWorks files using the V6 client.  This Windows Explorer client shows how the ENOVIA workspace can integrate into Windows Explorer so that the workspace folders can be easily navigated.  The users can access files from Windows Explorer, the ENOVIA Web Client, or from SolidWorks.

Stay tuned for more videos on ENOVIA V6.  Check out our website at www.inflow-tech.com.