SOLIDWORKS Video Tech Tips

Templates are a fantastic time saving tool in SOLIDWORKS PDM Professional. Have you ever desired a uniform folder structure or had dread for the inevitable update of required project forms? Templates can help put your mind at ease by automatically enforcing these procedures.

Templates are executed with a right-click anywhere in the vault and selecting the designated template. You can design a template to generate a folder structure with appropriate forms with only two clicks. This easy access will make getting your users to adopt the new workflow effortless.

The Branch and Merge feature in SOLIDWORKS PDM Professional helps to separate and combine data while avoiding duplication, but there are alternative uses for the tool as well. The Branch feature lets you create copies of a source file and later modify them to test new concepts; the Merge feature lets you merge the branched file with the source file through different options. In this week's Video Tech Tip, we go over how to use these features in PDM Professional.

As the life cycle of your designs and your company evolve, you’ll find an ever-growing vastness of data created as a byproduct. One way to really get control of your company’s data is to use a data management tool like SOLIDWORKS PDM, the only tool built specifically for SOLIDWORKS. This means it understands the important relationships between files and enables you to work how you want with your data.

Workflow transitions can accommodate product development processes that require multiple team members to approve documents. For example, a department may need a team lead and a member of the management team to both approve a change before the file can be promoted. In this Video Tech Tip, we look at parallel approvals inside a SOLIDWORKS PDM Professional vault. 

PDM stands for Product Data Management. Think of it as the backbone to an organization’s data. SOLIDWORKS PDM offers not just a secure vault to store files, but also countless other features to help companies function much more efficiently and effectively. 

Undo functions are great in applications. We use it constantly throughout all sorts of applications. If you make a mistake, an "undo button" is the fastest way to get back to what you had before. This is the same concept behind the “Undo Check out” in SOLIDWORKS PDM. It will cancel the check out without saving any changes you’ve made.

SOLIDWORKS PDM is essential to help keep your files, organized, easily accessible and most importantly, easily managed. In today's Video Tech Tip, we're discussing CEX files and how you can use them inside your vault.