SOLIDWORKS Support Monthly News – November 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.

3DEXPERIENCE World 2020 SOLIDWORKS Top Ten List is now live!

By Nicole Phillips

Attention all SOLIDWORKS users!

The 3DEXPERIENCE World SOLIDWORKS Top Ten List is now open for submissions for ideas and discussions.  Every year SOLIDWORKS users are given the ability to participate in sharing their best enhancement ideas for SOLIDWORKS.  This is a great way to get your ideas submitted and then also vote for your favorite ideas.   Then the enhancement ideas that have received the most number of votes will be presented at the annual international conference 3DEXPERIENCE WORLD, formally known as SOLIDWORKS World. This year the conference will be held in Nashville, TN, February 9-12^th, 2020.

The SOLIDWORKS Top Ten 3DExperience World 2020 Community is now launched on the 3DSwym Platform! To participate, check out the platform by visiting the 3DEXPERIENCE WORLD 2020 Top Ten List area.

Important Dates:

• December 27, 2019: Deadline for new idea submissions
• January 6, 2020: Voting is open on all ideas
• January 24, 2020: Voting ends

*For additional help on how to access the SOLIDWORKS Top Ten 3DEXPERIENCE World 2020 Community, check out this help video.

Windows Search with SOLIDWORKS PDM

By James Falconer

Setting up and using Content Search in SOLIDWORKS PDM has become much easier with the support of Windows Search since SOLIDWORKS PDM 2016. Previous editions of SOLIDWORKS PDM utilized the Indexing Service, which needed more complex configuration and testing.

Although Content Search is now much easier to deploy.  We see that the biggest stumbling block is when configuring content search on a SOLIDWORKS PDM system that has separate servers hosting the Microsoft SQL and SOLIDWORKS PDM Archive servers.

There are a few configuration differences between single server and dual server configurations. We recommend following the instructions from Chapter 9 of the SOLIDWORKS PDM Installation Guide (Configuring Content Search). But if you believe all steps were followed and are still encountering a problem enabling content search, then use the following checklist to troubleshoot your system as well as confirming all steps were performed.

• Test if Windows Search works on the Archive Server outside of SOLIDWORKS PDM. Navigate to the PDM Archive folder (HEX folders) and perform a search (eg. Searched for sss – Found this text string within a TXT file)

• Install the Windows Search Service on the Archive Server. If the vault database is hosted on a separate SQL server system, you must also install Windows Search Service on the SQL server.
• You will need SOLIDWORKS installed on the indexing client; The Archive Server (The SOLIDWORKS application provides the SOLIDWORKS iFilter that Windows Search uses to view inside of SOLIDWORKS files)
• If the Archive server is on a different machine than the SQL server make sure the administrator shared the file vault archive folder. This shared folder must be able to be reached via UNC path from the SQL server.

• The log-in user (eg. USER_A) running the Microsoft SQL Server Service must have full permission to the shared folder

• In the PDM admin tool, enable “Windows Search” indexing option and add the UNC path to the shared archive folder on the archive server

• Replicated? At this time you cannot index multiple archive servers at the same time. Simply choose the archive server with the most files (“Main Archive Server”, or “First Archive Server”).

What’s New for SOLIDWORKS PDM 2020

By Nicole Phillips

With SOLIDWORKS PDM 2020 being released recently, there are a lot of great enhancements and features added. Some of my favorite What’s New for 2020 I have compiled here, in no particular order.  But remember there are quite a few more and this is just a subset of those.  Check out the What’s New SOLIDWORKS PDM 2020 document for additional items and details on these abilities.

1. Resizable Dialog Boxes
2. Quick Search
3. Using AND, OR, and NOT operators
4. Defining Child References
5. Searching in Multiple Variables

Resizable Dialog Boxes:

This is a great feature added, you are able to open many different dialog boxes from the Edit Variables to dialog boxes in Dispatch (such as Administrative Actions and Properties).  What is even better, is that it keeps that size for the next box you open.  For example, if you are modifying multiple variables, it is great to keep the same size and open different variables.

Quick Search:

It is a new Search feature added right in the menu bar in Windows Explorer.  This give the user the ability to search much quicker.

• You can define search strings using the sample text
• Select a string from a list of previous five searches
• Use the operators:  AND, OR and NOT
• Click the search box, type, and select any string

Using AND, OR, and NOT

SOLIDWORKS PDM now supports AND, OR, and NOT operators in search criteria in edit-box type fields.

You can use these operators in:

• In any search card
• Web2 Search
• PDM Search Tool
• Quick Search

There are some rules that you do need to keep in mind:

• Search strings are case-sensitive
• Operators are case-sensitive
• There must be a space before and after AND and OR operators
• For variables of numeric or date types, the valid operators are: =, !=, <, <=, >, >=

Defining Child References State Conditions

You can now define conditions on the state of immediate child references to control the parent file transition.  When you are defining the conditions, the parent file can only transition if those child references are either selected to go to the defined state.  Or are already in the defined state.  Note by default, when this warning is not set to blocking, only those parent files that fulfill the child reference state condition are selected for transition.

Searching in Multiple Variables

Now in the Edit-box control on a search card, you can now search for a value in multiple variables.  When you search for a value, PDM considers OR as the implicit operator and returns a match it exists in any variable value.

Noteworthy Solutions from the SOLIDWORKS Knowledge Base

How do I resolve the following error? ‘Could not obtain a license for SOLIDWORKS CAM. Error Invalid block name (-5,147,0)’
For more information on this error, check out Solution Id: S-076681.

When using the SOLIDWORKS® Electrical PDM Connector to check in a project to the vault, why do I see the following error? ‘Cannot save file, access denied’
For more information on this SolidPractice, see Solution Id: S-076833.

How do I determine the version format of a DWG file to ensure that SOLIDWORKS® PDM is able to manage it?
For more information, see Solution Id: S-077018.

When defining the input data curves for a viscoelastic material curve fitting, is it ok to use a ‘Bulk or volumetric relaxation’ curve that uses a value of zero for all Y values?
For more information on this SolidPractice, check out Solution Id: S-076988.

If I do not receive the flow simulation results that I expect for a water pump, what first steps do I take to begin troubleshooting?
For more information, check out Solution Id: S-076707.

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.