SOLIDWORKS Support Monthly News – September 2019

Hello to all,

Welcome to the new edition of the SOLIDWORKS Support Monthly News!  This monthly news blog is co-authored by members of the SOLIDWORKS Technical Support teams worldwide.

How to manage configurations in SOLIDWORKS Manage

By Kevin Crawford

SOLIDWORKS Manage can provide different ways to handle your SOLIDWORKS part and assembly file configurations.  Manage allows you to make a configuration active or inactive.  When a configuration is active, a record for each active configuration of your SOLIDWORKS model will appear in the file list.

You also have the option to only make some configurations active based on certain criteria or all configurations can be inactive.

Once a file is added, you can manually make an inactive configuration active, thus the record appears, and also make an active configuration inactive.

You can setup Manage to automatically create records for each configuration when you add the file to Manage or have it only create records based on certain criteria.  When you create the PDM object inside of Manage, you have different options for how the configurations are handled in Manage.  Select the appropriate option on the Configuration Options page of the PDM object wizard based on your requirements.

1. No records created for the configurations

Some companies may require a single part file for every configuration of a part.  For example, every size of a hex head bolt has its own SOLIDWORKS part file.  In this scenario, you would want no configurations active.  This is the simplest option to setup and obviously less complex.  When creating the PDM object simply select the option “Save all configurations under one record”.

2. Records automatically created for every configuration

In this scenario, you would want every configuration to be active when you add the file.  When creating the PDM object simply select the option “Save each configurations as individual record”.  Important: You must also select the option “Do not create” with no criteria entered to specify there are no conditions.

Figure 5

3. Certain records automatically created depending on the configuration name

In this scenario, you want some configurations to be active but others are not.  You can add criteria to ‘create’ or ‘do not create’ certain configurations based on the configuration name.  For example, if you want all configurations active except for configurations with the name “Default”, you can set it up like the image.

If you make changes to the Configuration Options after the PDM object was already created, newly added files will use the new settings but the configurations of existing files will not change to active or inactive.  If you want to update all existing files, the PDM object will need to be deleted and re-created.

SOLIDWORKS PDM Copy Link Ability

By Nicole Phillips

One of our most popular enhancements has been the Copy Link ability.   With SOLIDWORKS PDM 2018 release, we added this ability to the software.  You can use the Copy Link menu option to copy links of files and paste them into notification messages to your colleagues.

To copy the link:

1. Right-click on a file and select Copy Link:

2. Then paste the link in the new message:

Now when the message is received, the user can just click on the link.  SOLIDWORKS PDM will then navigate the user to the appropriate file in the vault.  Note, that the user must have appropriate permissions to the destination folder location in the vault and read content permissions to the file.

Each link will have the details to the location in the vault (ProjectID), File (DocumentID), and type of document (ObjectType):

Noteworthy Solutions from the SOLIDWORKS Knowledge Base

When trying to access the SOLIDWORKS® CAD Admin Dashboard, why do I see the error ‘To use the CAD Admin dashboard, you must first enable performance logging for all SOLIDWORKS installations…’ even if performance logging is active?
For more information on this error, check out Solution Id: S-076514.

Is there a SolidPractice available on the topic of “SOLIDWORKS Electrical Core Connectivity”?
For more information on this SolidPractice, see Solution Id: S-076481.

Because SOLIDWORKS® PDM Standard allows only one workflow, how can I effectively manage the SOLIDWORKS Toolbox within SOLIDWORKS PDM?
For more information, see Solution Id: S-076624.

Is there a SolidPractice available on the topic of “Optimization with SOLIDWORKS Motion and Mechatronics”?
For more information on this SolidPractice, check out Solution Id: S-076827.

Can I specify an initial temperature for my two-resistor component?
For more information, check out Solution Id: S-076536.

That’s it for this month. Thanks for reading this edition of SOLIDWORKS Support News. If you need additional help with these issues or any others, please contact your SOLIDWORKS Value Added Reseller.

Comments and suggestions are always welcome. You can enter them below.