The 3DEXPERIENCE Platform is a broad ecosystem of products to facilitate rapid design, produce change, and manufacture products. Without proper knowledge and experience, customers may make poor choices very early in their 3DEXPERIENCE life. This blog is focused on the most critical items your team will want to consider prior to uploading content and using the platform in a production sense. This is geared toward Platform Administrators, but the majority of your team should have a voice in these decisions.
So, you just purchased a 3DEXPERIENCE product, and your team plans to start using the power of ENOVIA (data management) in the platform – where should you start?
My first advice is to create bite-size problems/ questions that you want to solve. Some decisions should be made sooner, while others can wait. Some customers have success straight away and use 3DEXPERIENCE completely out of the box. Meanwhile, other customers configure many things to tailor the experience to their liking. Before landing your data into the platform, it’s important to understand why you may want to consider some ‘fine-tuning’.
The purpose of this article is to help new customers start out in the journey in the platform. I would recommend a TriMech Launch Service and 3DEXPERIENCE Training to best understand the capabilities of this powerful platform.
3DEXPERIENCE Services for SOLIDWORKS Users & Data Migration (trimech.com)
I recommend working with the Platform Management Dashboard, as it has the critical capabilities to administer your tenant. Only a Platform Admin will see this dashboard, so if you don’t see it, you’re not a Platform Admin.
Ten Steps to Setting up 3DEXPERIENCE PDM / ENOVIA
1. Set Members Options
The Members tab is one location where an Admin can govern access to the environment (tenant). It is in this tab, a Platform Admin can provide roles (licenses) to named users.
Below, out of the box, the first two options are off. I recommend turning both on. The first option removes expired roles from users automatically, which could help if using some ancillary roles that don’t get renewed. The second option allows invitations to external users into the tenant and that user would bring his/ her separately assigned license (role) with them. It allows for external collaboration without giving up ‘your’ licenses. Do you work with a contractor who already has his/ her own platform/ tenant? Well, in this case, you’re able to share your data with that person without giving up one of your licenses to do so.
See this link for a deeper dive on adding members:
Assign Roles and Access
2. Choose a revision-scheme
This is perhaps the most critical decision you want to face straight away impacting your data (to be uploaded). There are a few revision schemes available such as:
- A, B, C
- 1, 2, 3
- A.1, A.2…B.1
- 1.1, 1.2…2.1
This also gives me the chance to introduce the Content area of the Platform Management dashboard. This is the location of the ‘life blood’ of your tenant.
Out of the box, your revision scheme is set to A, B, C. Every change (new revision) that you’d capture would get a new letter. That’s ok for some, but most clients I have worked with recently want the minor revision scheme….(A.1, A.2…B.1)
Below, it looks like there’s multiple options for things like development and production; however, there is one revision scheme for all SOLIDWORKS objects and that is controlled by the Physical Product option. This is to be the major revision character and can be set to letters or numbers with limited variation.
If you want minor revisions, in Lifecycle and Collaboration, the revision format would need to be changed to Primary and Secondary. This will then mean a new revision past A.1 is A.2 so long as the object is “In Work”. If an object is released, then the next new revision kicks over the major character…B.1.
Revision scheme may be the most critical to decide early. You will not want a mixed environment of some data with one revision scheme, and other data with a different revision scheme.
See the link below for a detailed video on revisions.
How to Manage Revisions in 3DEXPERIENCE Solutions from TriMech
3. Set up Attribute Mapping
Attribute Mapping is important to do earlier rather than later, as well. If you currently use file properties for parts, assemblies, or drawings, I recommend considering which of those properties your team wants to search on and leverage in the platform. They will need to be mapped. If no attribute mapping is set, then the metadata solely lives in the SOLIDWORKS file, which means that the file properties don’t live in the platform. Additionally, it’s important to distinguish the difference between custom and configuration properties. Custom properties tab connects to CAD Family object and configuration properties port to Physical Products. Most clients will want to use configuration properties and set up the attribute mapping to Physical Products. There is also the bit to consider with 6W Predicate. This allows attributes to connect with tags- that’s for another post.
When it comes to attribute mapping, I would suggest going to the SOLIDWORKS News & Info Community which is accessible just below- a user can also get there by following the pictures below (from your tenant/ environment). This is a great resource and is being updated constantly- lots of information!
SOLIDWORKS News & Info (3ds.com)
The user can check the URL and verify the number ending in 3382 as the right destination for reading all things related to 3DEXPERIENCE, SOLIDWORKS, CATIA, etc.
Search and find SOLIDWORKS News & Info Community, then favorite it.
From the image below, I highly recommend the Getting Started Admin Path and the SolidPractice documents. Attribute mapping can be found under the Admin Path as below.
4. Understand the Functionality of Collaborative Spaces
How do you want to store and share your data? Are you wanting to shield specific data from certain users? If so, it may make sense to create additional collaborative spaces. However, in most scenarios, especially with small teams (less than 5 users), most companies find success with working solely out of the provided Common Space. A collaborative space is just a flat repository with no structure and its main purpose is to govern who can see files and when.
If there is no shielding of data, I would not recommend creating new collaborative spaces. It’s also easy to ‘move’ files to different spaces downstream. I’d recommend working with Common Space for most scenarios, and only create new collaborative spaces downstream, as necessary.
Furthermore, it’s difficult to delete collaborative spaces. All files must be removed from the collaborative space for possible deletion to occur.
How to Organise your Files with 3DEXPERIENCE Collaborative Spaces Solutions from TriMech
5. Set Organization Name
The organization name is an item that can be read into various tables. From the compass in the browser, search, find, and launch the Collaboration and Approvals app.
On the top right (as below), change your credentials to default.
Select Companies, choose the pencil and designate your company name.
6. Consider Auto Name
Autoname will generate a name to the SOLIDWORKS object, based on the content naming rules in the tenant. This will largely reduce the chance of saving Part1 dozens of times in the database. The user can go to CAD Collaboration, SOLIDWORKS, Settings as below.
Auto-name will take on the form ‘xcadmodel-tenant number-8 digit counter’ for the name of the file. The scheme can be modified in Content Naming Rules for CAD Family objects. It should be noted the 8-digit counter cannot be modified.
7. Check File Title For Uniqueness
With Check File Title for uniqueness, on each save, the user could face the following options on save: ignore, block, warn when same titles are found existing in the database. I recommend warn or block.
8. Data Exchange Export
This is an area that will help as time progresses on your 3DEXPERIENCE journey. This impacts exporting objects like PDF out of collaborative spaces for external sharing. In Data Exchange, check Export. As seen below, only a Leader can export a derived PDF by default. It may be necessary to add other user types like author for instance.
9. Derived Format Management
Derived Output can generate PDF, STEP, and other formats at a defined time such as “On Save”, “On Release”, or “On Demand”. I would recommend adding PDF “On Save”. This will generate a PDF on each save of a SOLIDWORKS drawing as an example. The created PDF will be connected to the native SOLIDWORKS drawing. This uses the SOLIDWORKS “Save to PDF” task, so the quality will be very good.
10. Set Bookmark to begin “In Work” Maturity State
Bookmarks can make your team’s life in the platform very smooth for finding and collaborating on files. One word of caution- using Bookmarks well takes time and experience. Bookmarks are tags that look like folders. With the option on below, it will default the creation of new bookmarks to In Work. This means other users will see those Bookmarks, so long as the user is credentialed into the appropriate collaborative space. It should be noted that this does not impact root Bookmarks.
It’s also worth mentioning that when working with Bookmarks, as below, I like to ensure Credentials are set appropriately, drag and drop is copy instead of move, and enable expansion of products. This allows correct permissions, ability to tag the same object in as many bookmarks as I’d like, and ability to expand an assembly. These preferences are set by each end user.
11. As an added bonus
Do NOT upload SOLIDWORKS data in any other way than through SOLIDWORKS. It needs to be uploaded either through the MySession panel (SOLIDWORKS task pane), or the SOLIDWORKS Batch Save process (also accessed in SOLIDWORKS).
As seen below, there are 2 lower brackets shown in the Bookmark Editor web app. The Physical Product was saved from SOLIDWORKS (this was done correctly). The type ‘document’ of the lower bracket below was drag/ dropped into the Bookmark Editor- notice no thumbnail. This is the easiest way to see if a SOLDWORKS file was uploaded improperly. I recommend deleting the document and reuploading it properly.
This blog is largely meant to capture critical information to consider before your team starts uploading your data. However, it is not intended to replace training. As recommended, training for both admins and end users is a good step to using 3DEXPERIENCE Works PDM as intelligently as possible.
