Configurations are a great tool in SOLIDWORKS for creating and managing designs. One of the most convenient abilities of a configuration is the use of configuration-specific properties to detail and organize individual configurations as if they were standalone files. When utilized in the Bills of Materials, data cards, and drawing annotations, these configuration-specific custom properties are indistinguishable from those defined in individual files and remain just as easily accessible in both SOLIDWORKS and SOLIDWORKS PDM.
Dynamic Lists are a feature in SOLIDWORKS PDM Professional data cards that allow the choices on one list to be determined by the choices on another list. While Dynamic Lists are exclusive to PDM Professional, similar functionality can be achieved in PDM Standard by using Control Logic and strategic formatting.
This blog details how to implement a working revision symbol in a SOLIDWORKS PDM workflow. A working revision symbol is a form of watermark typically seen on files that are actively being changed to indicate that it is in the process of implementing changes for the next revision. In this case, the format of Last Revision* reflects the following two crucial pieces of information.
In this tutorial, we explain the steps to create a Local view file (.CVS) for both SOLIDWORKS PDM Professional and SOLIDWORKS PDM Standard. This is an extremely useful tool for distributing and automating the creation of local views when setting up new PDM clients by providing a (nearly) one-click alternative to the traditional View Setup Wizard.
SOLIDWORKS PDM Professional has a powerful feature in data cards known as an input formula. Using this option allows for the post-processing of information on the data card itself upon user interaction. An input formula allows an Editbox control to concatenate text from different fields, do arithmetic functions, or even evaluate alias sets.
Default values for card controls are a powerful tool that can be leveraged in SOLIDWORKS PDM Standard and Professional data cards to automate the population of values without the intervention of the user. When editing a control in the data card editor, there are many options for selecting a default value for a given control, such as text, a value from the parent folder’s data card, or even special values such as file name, the user’s initials, or the current date.
In SOLIDWORKS PDM, it’s common to have the PDM data card display metadata describing the model beyond its basic geometry—Description, Part Number, Revision, and many more are popular and useful pieces of information to track about a file. It’s often the data card itself that is the driving force behind the formatting of this type of data entry into the destination file; however, thanks to the magic of Variable Mapping, this behavior is a two-way street between the file and SOLIDWORKS PDM.
In this guide, you'll learn the steps and procedures required to design and implement a full Revision Table on the face of a SOLIDWORKS PDm data card that updates rows as part of the workflow as well as the Revision Table found on the face of the drawing. With a typical example of Revision Table integration with SOLIDWORKS PDM, only the most recent row is still editable and in sync with the drawing file. We have now added additional rows that showcase and store previous row values as read-only—similar to how the table might work on the face of the drawing itself.