GoEngineer Blog

SOLIDWORKS Enterprise PDM 2015 (now known as SOLIDWORKS PDM Professional) includes a Microsoft Office add-in for Excel, Word, and PowerPoint that allows you to perform vault operations on documents opened in the Office application. Normally, you would select the Office add-in (Microsoft Office Integration) option during the client installation if Office is detected on the system.

Use the following instructions if you want to move the physical SOLIDWORKS PDM database files (.mdf & .ldf) from one local drive to another on the SQL server system – for example, when space is running out on the main hard drive.  While performing these relocation steps there should be no SOLIDWORKS PDM users accessing the PDM system.

Starting with SOLIDWORKS PDM Professional 2016 SP4, you can create a task to convert Office documents to PDF. This tutorial will outline the steps to install the task when creating a new vault and adding the task to existing vaults. When creating a new PDM vault, you can select to install the Microsoft Office conversion task on the configuration details page.

 

 

When editing file type properties within the SOLIDWORKS PDM Administration tool, there is a text box on the bottom of the form. The description says, “This file can have Drawing nodes with the following extensions:”

One of the many handy features of SOLIDWORKS PDM is the ability to preview many different file types right in the Windows Explorer interface. This is great for those who want to preview files in the Adobe PDF format; however, this feature can sometimes become quite a nuisance. Problematic behaviors can arise, ranging from error messages to PDFs opening in a separate window to sometimes opening in the full version of Adobe Acrobat instead of using the Adobe Reader.

Follow these steps to reset a lost SOLIDWORKS Workgroup PDM admin user password. Log in as a Windows user with Administrative rights on the server hosting the SOLIDWORKS Workgroup PDM Vault. Go to the Control Panel > Administrative Tools > Services and Stop the “SOLIDWORKS Workgroup PDM Server” service.

To execute tasks on a computer, you must configure that computer to be a task host. This grants that machine task execution permission for each vault where tasks will be run. This document will provide step-by-step instructions on how to configure a computer to be a task host.

This document is a compilation of GoEngineer best practice recommendations for settings that we believe every user should be aware of and set for themselves on ‘day 1’ when initially beginning to use SOLIDWORKS Enterprise PDM (EPDM). 

 

To help find where a file has been moved to and by who, I have developed a Transact-SQL query and saved as a Conisio Report file (.crp) that can be safely run through the Report Generator feature of SOLIDWORKS PDM Professional. This article will provide the query to the public as-is, elaborate on the functionality of this query, provide how to use the query, and provide a few use case scenarios.