What’s New in 2021: SOLIDWORKS Desktop Data Management

The many enhancements of the 2021 release of SOLIDWORKS desktop data management products make it even easier to manage your data while freeing up more time to design great products. This includes SOLIDWORKS PDM Standard, SOLIDWORKS PDM Professional, and SOLIDWORKS Manage.

Here are some of my favorite upgrades to the 2021 release.

SOLIDWORKS PDM New Features

You can now add quick access commands such as Check out, Check in, and Get Latest Version directly to the Quick Access Toolbar. This also frees up space to show the standard Explorer commands in the Windows Explorer menu bar. For example, you can access the View Layout toolbar to control the layout of the vault view.

Viewing relationships among files has gone graphical!

Now you can view hierarchical Contains and Where Used relationships in treehouse mode, which displays the relationships in a flowchart—complete with thumbnails and other file information—making it easier to visualize the relationship structure.

Another enhancement in the display of file relationships is in the Bill of Materials, which now recognizes all the Bill of Materials Options settings for SOLIDWORKS configurations. (Previously, the Promote option was not recognized.)

SOLIDWORKS Manage New Features

Editing and rearranging Bills of Materials is significantly easier than before. New features such as Cut, Copy, and Paste enable line item changes at the current level (and at any lower level). Sub-assemblies can be dissolved, which replaces them with their child items. This flexibility enables manufacturing engineers to easily create structures tailored to the way products are built.

For copying Bill of Material items from one product to another or for ease in working with multiple records simultaneously, SOLIDWORKS Manage now has modeless windows so that you can access multiple property cards simultaneously.

Sharing live file data with external stakeholders is now much easier with the new Share File feature. An internal user with the proper rights can simply right-click on a file and share a web link via an automated email or copy a link and paste it into an email. You can password-protect the link and also set an expiration date. The external user clicks a link to a web page from which the file can be downloaded. It’s also easy to share CAD assemblies, with all the necessary references wrapped up in a zip file, utilizing the Export Template option.

Project managers will love the new Project List and Automatic Update features. The Project List provides an overview of all the projects a user is managing. It shows each project on a timeline, and the Schedule and Load charts can be displayed to show where participants may be overbooked. Multiple lists can be created and shared, so everyone has access to important projects.

To keep projects current as users update their completed tasks, the Automatic Update feature automatically updates each stage completion, saving project managers from the task. Project deliverables can also be automatically updated with records attached to project tasks.

SOLIDWORKS PDM and SOLIDWORKS Manage help you collect and organize your data, all within a defined process. Feel free to comment below or check out all the new enhancements in What’s New in SOLIDWORKS 2021. If you’d like a demo, contact your local reseller.