GoEngineer Blog

So many aspects of SOLIDWORKS PDM are customizable, which is why it's such a great tool for so a variety of industries. In this post, we will take a look at a couple of small but often overlooked areas of functionality that can be customized. This is the information provided in the Checked Out By column of the Windows Explorer Vault View.

 

If you are a SOLIDWORKS PDM user, you are likely aware that the Administration tool is installed with the client software regardless if you are a PDM admin. Typically this tool is not all that useful for non-admins and therefore never gets launched, but for those in a group that has been set with any admin-level permissions, you may find you launch this tool regularly.

As we all know, filling out SOLIDWORKS PDM Data Card fields is important for many reasons. It can be frustrating when you are reviewing a design and notice that some fields on the data card are missing. In fact, this metadata can contain important information such as the part number or other data that populates the drawing title blocks which can affect the review process.

The preview tab in a SOLIDWORKS PDM vault view is a great way to get a sneak peek at a selected file. By default, this tab is split into a simple file preview and a card preview. Most users don’t realize there are several options to change the appearance of this tab. In this tip, we will explore the available options of the SOLIDWORKS PDM Preview tab.

Some of my favorite enhancements each year are the small ones. The ones that maybe don’t exactly allow you to do something you couldn’t do previously. Instead, they allow you to stop using a workaround to accomplish the same thing. Along those lines in SOLIDWORKS 2020 you can now save a copy of a part or assembly with only a subset of configurations.

Introduced in SOLIDWORKS 2015 Selection Sets was a great time saving feature that enables a user to grab multiple entities in a model or drawing and save those selections so you can return to at any time quickly. In SOLIDWORKS 2020 they have been enhanced to be even more beneficial.

SOLIDWORKS PDM 2020 has introduced some great enhancements to the search capabilities.There is now a quick search box in the in the File Explorer vault view. You still have access to the standard search, but this quick search is located near the standard search magnifying glass icon and is not tied to any search card. That’s right, you can use this without setting up a card in advance.

Each year SOLIDWORKS maintains the included software guides and the majority of these guides are available online or from inside the software located under the Help pull-down menu. However, there is a little-known guide that is deep inside the installation folders that few users even know existed. This hidden guide can be extremely beneficial for new SOLIDWORKS PDM users who could use some reference material as they get started with PDM.