Today, with the right setup, working away from the office can be very effective. In a previous article, we showed you how to set up your SOLIDWORKS license if you need to access it remotely. Now that you know how to access SOLIDWORKS, how about we give you some tips on how to manage data and file information remotely?

Having a data management system is crucial for any serious engineering or design firm that needs an organized and smart vault of their work and workflows. SOLIDWORKS PDM is a great tool for this because of how straightforward and flexible it is at maintaining the history of files, including all versions and revisions inside the vault. Depending on your workflow, your Version Control process can be fitted to your exact needs, nothing more and nothing less. In this article, I discuss my recommended top three SOLIDWORKS PDM tools that work in conjunction with version control to make managing these precious files as easy as possible.

“So… should I show the customer ‘MasterAssembly-new-latest-USETHIS-keep’ or ‘MasterAssembly-final-DONOTDELETE-approved-updated’?” Thanks to data management tools like SOLIDWORKS PDM, these phrases in the office are a thing of the past. With SOLIDWORKS PDM, maintaining a file’s history and accessing the latest revision is second nature. Unfortunately, you’d need to be tethered to the PDM Vault to account for the latest updates, even with remote access. You know what would be even better for universal version control, especially when needing to show the latest file version on the fly? Taking the file confidence of PDM and wrapping it into an intuitive social platform, like 3DEXPERIENCE ENOVIA accessible anywhere you’re connected to the Internet.

Part numbers are used to identify and catalog different items. Intelligent part numbers are used to capture and display further descriptive characteristics of each unique item. Intelligent part numbers were developed at a time when storage databases were very expensive and not very prevalent. To recognize and understand the definition of a given part number, the number itself was defined using a descriptive meaning in each character or set of characters that make up the part number. Here is an example of an intelligent part number and its meaning.

As a user of SOLIDWORKS PDM, the majority of the functionalities available to you are controlled by permissions set by the system administrator. The Cache Options and User Settings are two PDM controls, that if given the permission, users can self-manage the ways that checked-out, checked-in and reference files are handled on their local computer.

Have you ever wondered, “how do I change the information displayed about the files in the SOLIDWORKS PDM Vault view?” Maybe you’d like to see the information that’s available on the data card, but it’s not shown in the file view or a different set of information on the Bill of Materials than what’s shown. SOLIDWORKS PDM displays the information that you see about the files in the vault using COLUMNS.

SOLIDWORKS Product Data Management (PDM) solutions are ideal to help you keep your project data organized and the latest version available for multiple teams during development. SOLIDWORKS Composer is used to create digital materials, documentation and technical publications all with the intent of giving customers and company stakeholders a better understanding of your product information earlier in the design process, lowering costs and speeding time-to-market. In this blog article, we look at how SOLIDWORKS PDM and SOLIDWORKS Composer work together to create more accurate output while saving more time when compared to a traditional product development workflow.

Replication is a feature in SOLIDWORKS PDM Professional that allows you to have a single vault that is used across many geographically separated locations. This increases the software’s performance and provides the user with a better experience. In this blog article, we’ll be focusing on three best practices that will help you replicate your vault in SOLIDWORKS PDM Professional: building schemas, maintaining schemas and monitoring activity.

Migrating CAD data can be a daunting task. There are so many things that could be lost, forgotten or looked over. With all of the variables surrounding the transition, it can be overwhelming to define the top items to tackle with data self-migration. Lets uncover some of the top tips and pain points that will occur in the transition.

Enterprise Data Management solutions are used for keeping your design data files organized and under control. Organizing your data in a vault, or central archive, is ideal for automating workflows, finding files and ensuring manufacturing teams have the latest file versions. If you’re a SOLIDWORKS PDM Standard or SOLIDWORKS PDM Professional user, there are ways to optimize the performance by using the benefits of the SOLIDWORKS Toolbox.

Did you know that Web2 allows users to stay connected to their PDM vault from anywhere where there’s an Internet connection? Web2 has been around for several years, but not many people are familiar with its features.

The Web2 Client offers a large and small format layout. The large format is designed for bigger devices, such as computers, and the small format is a condensed version of the interface aimed at devices such as tablets. Today we’ll cover the features of the Web2 large format layout.

You’re probably very familiar with the functions used to move and/or duplicate information within Windows Explorer named cut, copy and paste. These commands are summoned by the default right mouse button (RMB), but, more commonly are called upon through the use of keyboard shortcuts to carry out these commands.