What do you think of this PDM idea for this year's Top Ten?

Is there some sort of ANSI or other standard for this?

I & O I have always skipped over like they were the thirteenth floor.

Q, S, X, Z I use.

I must admit that I don't typically get to such high letters of revisions. (measure twice, cut once)

I commonly see I, O, Q and S excluded. X and Z are hit or miss. Not sure there's an easy way to handle this since it is very specific and many organizations don't follow strict guidelines or have legacy issues and data that require varying Rev values.

Hi Matt,

Defining a revision scheme is fairly simple.

If you were going to omit certain letters (typically I, O, S, Z), then I would echo the suggestion of per standard (ANSI, etc).

Joy

It's not a bad idea, but since revision schemes are so company specific, and there already exists the functionality to create a revision scheme as a list, I think this is a bit redundant.

I already have our PDM settings and file custom properties to exclude them.

It might be obvious, but why exclude them may i ask

I like leaving the customizable rev scheme in PDM Pro alone but making SW customizable to match that same rev scheme.  My rev scheme I have set up in PDM Pro (which was our standard) doesn't match the characters SW chooses to emiminate or include.  Very frustrating that I can't add a rev to my rev block that I can have in PDM.  They both should be list driven.

The option to exclude specific characters only. Not forced.

I believe I voted this one down.

It's basic drafting/document practice, and there are specs for this. Don't use the letters if you follow standards.

This should be optional....   Not everyone follows ANSI standards.

I think it should only be an option, but not just those letters.  The software should let the administrator define which characters to exclude.  Then, if we want to follow ANSI partially, completely, or not at all, we can all be happy. 

As far as X goes, I've seen it used for the initial release "revision" or "no-change revision".  Right now, my company uses "-" for the initial release.  With that in mind, it might be more important for the revision scheme to allow defining the characters to use and the order, but without having to create every possible revision level like I am doing today.

I am still unclear as to why we have to eliminate any letters (even though we do where I work).  So what if "I" looks like a 1 or "O" looks like an 0 or Z looks like a 2 or X looks like the X in .010 X 45.  If it is inside a balloon and the person reading the drawing understands that balloons refer to items in a BOM, and it matches an item in that BOM, then they go together regardless of what they look like.

With that being said, I still think the issue is that SW doesn't match PDM.  I can customize my PDM rev list to exclude half the alphabet if I want to, but I cannot customize SW to automatically eliminate those letters.  When I add a rev to my drawing rev block, I get all letters except the ones SW has chosen for us to eliminate.  I need PDM and SW to match.  If my PDM allows me to use rev X (not that a drawing should ever get to rev X) then SW should allow me to add rev X.  Instead if I get to rev X in my drawing rev table it skips it and the only way to add it correctly it to undo the rev Y that it added, add another row manually by doing an "Insert Row Above" and manually type the rev letter you want.  If you let it add Y and don't undo it and just change the Y to an X, the next rev that is added is a Z not the Y again because it thinks Y has already been used.

Matthew Lorono I wouldn't vote for this either way.

See there is an inerrant problem with all these "ideas"- they are never looking at a full workflow. In this case it would be more preferable to have EPDM allow you to setup vaults, templates and SW settings based on the initial setup and choosing a specific standard. I would vote for the concept of having EPDM vault generator tool which allows a person to quickly define what standards their company chooses to follow and then have a secondary window the defines several different "common" workflow setups. With this information the vault and template files are setup using the standard templates. Next the tool would allow you to enter or use an xml or spreadsheet to define custom variables and have those all setup. Basically we are asking for better EPDM authoring toolsets that allow for quick vault generation based on recognized standards!

But I can see how this would seriously impact the VARs..you would be taking away all their income! ;-)

This is an idea that SOLIDWORKS developers should not spend any time on.  It is simple enough to just NOT include any alpha characters that you do not want to use as revision letters in your Revision number components list.  Plus, as we can see already, everyone has their own opinions as to how they should indicate revisions even though (at least in the U.S.) have the ASME standards to provide general guidance.

I do not use PDM in my current company but have in the past.

Where I used it in the past the guidelines were very specific as to follow the ANSI standard.

However, In the company I work for now it is up to us to decide for revisions on drawings, parts, PDM (if we do go there).

I see the best way to make everyone happy is to - First have consistency across ALL packages (SW, PDM Standard, EPDM...) .

Then, as to the conventions - the user should have the ability to decide the following formats:

ANSI (or other) Standards (at least the main ones)

Use All Letters (A-Z)

     after Z - second level Letters (AA, AB...) or numbers (A1, A2...)

Letters with exclusions.

Full Customization format (as Jennifer Ross or Ville Makinen said) (use symbols in format) ...