SolidWorks Enterprise PDM 2012: Integrated Search in Windows Explorer

A great new feature has been added to SolidWorks Enterprise PDM 2012 that allows for searching inside of Windows Explorer. Not only does this eliminate the need for a separate Search window to be opened on the desktop, it also adds searching to any Windows Open dialog. SolidWorks users can search in the Open dialog when inserting a file into an assembly or any other operation that presents you with the Open dialog. This improves your efficiency by searching instead of browsing around in the vault or going to a separate dialog.

TIP: Using Enterprise PDM’s ability to easily create customized search cards, you can create a slimmed down card to use in Windows Explorer and Open dialogs. Here’s an example of one that will search on file names, configuration names, and variables using only one input string. The input string uses the History Text variable name field. Setting the default value for Search folder to look in the entire vault, eliminates the need for the user to specify a folder path. Note: search times could be increased using these settings since the system is looking at the entire vault and at several data fields at the same time.

If you want to learn more about all the new features for 2012, watch the video below, then visit the SolidWorks 2012 website to learn more about what's new in Enterprise PDM.