What’s New in SOLIDWORKS – Collaboration and Data Management

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Good news! The latest update of SOLIDWORKS is now available. The collaboration and data management enhancements listed in this blog post apply to 3DEXPERIENCE SOLIDWORKS, SOLIDWORKS with Cloud Services, and SOLIDWORKS 3D CAD with Collaborative Designer for SOLIDWORKS.

Share Pack and Go Files to 3DDrive – save time with the ability to quickly share and collaborate on files.

There’s a new option to upload your files directly to 3D Drive from the Pack and Go dialog box so you can easily share it with others to collaborate. This makes it easier and faster to collaborate with external stakeholders as you no longer have to manually upload your files.

Guided Tours for User Assistance – Interactively learn about workflows to help you quickly understand basic functionality and concepts.

You can now access short learning tutorials, called Quick Tours, from the Welcome dialog box. Each Quick Tour has a sequence of steps shown as interactive pop-ups that point to features in the user interface. Quick Tours include a user interface overview, how to save to the 3DEXPERIENCE platform and more!

Notifications of Status Updates – ensure you are working with the latest data.

Stay aware of updated changes performed by other people accessing the same data on the platform with notifications that will pop up on your interface. These notifications help ensure that you are always working with the latest version of your files. When you get a notification, you will have the option to reload the data from the server or see the outdated components to see what’s changed.

You can still see the status indicators in the MySession panel, but this is one more way to ensure everyone is on the same page and that you don’t overwrite each other’s changes.

 

View Drawing Annotations in 3DPlay and 3DMarkup – get insightful PLM information faster.

You can now view the annotations for extended attributes of a drawing in 3DPlay or 3DMarkup apps. This enables you to track the lifecycle of a drawing by viewing its properties in the preview of the apps. Previously when you changed the maturity state of a drawing to released you were able to view its properties only through the Properties page. With this enhancement, if you view a drawing in 3DPlay or 3DMarkup along with the PLM properties the extended properties are also visible. The derived output of the PDF is automatically updated to display the correct PLM attribute values of the drawing’s maturity state change.

Access 3DDrive in Export as Package – save time when exporting as a package.

In the Export As Package dialog box, you will find an option to open 3DDrive after the export. This saves you a step as you no longer have to manually open 3DDrive in a separate web browser. When you choose this option 3DDrive will open in the task pane and highlight the uploaded package.

This helps you to quickly identify the uploaded package and perform different actions like share, preview, add to favorites, and move to, for example.

Manage Drawing Configurations –repair data references on the fly.

You can now easily manage drawings that are attached to your configurations to make sure they are updated for 3DEXPERIENCE compatibility. 3DEXPERIENCE Compatibility enables you to convert your existing design configurations to a physical product or representation.

You will now get a warning that the physical product is referenced by another item with the option to view relations or continue and therefore break the reference.

For example, if you try to save one that hasn’t been updated (for 3DEXPERIENCE compatibility), you will get an error message at which point you can check the references of the file or select “Update for 3DEXPERIENCE compatibility” so you can save it. If a named configuration is converted into a representation, the referenced drawing view for that configuration will become blank.

You can avoid confusion by mapping SOLIDWORKS configurations to either physical products (with part numbers) or representations. This will, in turn, preserve data quality by repairing your data references on the fly when converting existing SOLIDWORKS drawing configurations to representations.

MySession Reference View – quickly review and evaluate references in a product structure.

You can choose the way the objects and their associated instances appear in MySession. This will enable you to view the unique references and the number of references used in a particular product structure. This enhancement will help you review and evaluate the product design and quickly analyze the bill of material.

This option can be found under MySession Tools> Options> MySession tab.

Export Results to HTML When Using File Preparation Assistant – see and share results in an easy to read format.

The File Preparation Assistant will automatically save results to an HTML file when you are running checks on your files. This will provide valuable insights into file size, folder count, file quantity, and file extensions. The HTML file replaces the previous output of a CSV file.

Note, you must have the SOLIDWORKS 2024 service pack (SP) 2.

 

Lastly, I want to mention a big enhancement that only applies to SOLIDWORKS with Cloud Services and SOLIDWORKS 3D CAD with Collaborative Designer for SOLIDWORKS. When you launch the “Design with SOLIDWORKS app” from the platform you will now get a notification if your version of SOLIDWORKS is older than two years of the latest release, which means it’s time to upgrade, and you won’t be able to take advantage of the latest features in this update until you do.

Watch the video below to see some of these new features in action.

That is just a glimpse of what’s new in the area of collaboration and data management with the R2024x FD02 release. Learn about the CAD enhancements with the What’s New in SOLIDWORKS – Design and Modeling blog post coming soon!

Learn more about this release at the 3DEXPERIENCE platform user’s community.

Stay up to date on all the latest updates in our blogs at https://SOLIDWORKS.com/xWhatsNew.

Priyanka Kanherkar

Priyanka Kanherkar

Priyanka Kanherkar is a Dassault Systèmes SOLIDWORKS Roles Portfolio Manager focused on connecting SOLIDWORKS desktop with the 3DEXPERIENCE platform. She has a master's degree in Aerospace Engineering specializing in Aerodynamics from the Florida Institute of Technology. Apart from work, she loves travelling, cooking and hiking. Priyanka is also a trained Indian classical dancer.