When I start a project, I just name a part by its description and won't assign a part number until the part is ready to release.
What's the best way to do this in workgroup PDM - Does rename in Vault work? if I keep doing this, I'm afraid I have to delete many parts in Vaut soon they're ready to release and I don't think it's a good practive on Vault???
Daen,
Thx for the tips
If you name a part and check in the Vault and other users check it out then the link should be maintained in the local working folder. I'm confusing about the local files will loose their link to the Vault files?
Chris,
If you create a part called "Bracket.sldprt" and check that into the vault it also shows up as "Bracket.sldprt". If you then rename that part in the vault to "123456.sldprt" the file on your local machine will remain "Bracket.sldprt". The vault rename will not affect the local file. The icons next to your local file will change to show that it is a new file and does not exist in the vault.
If you then perform a SW rename on your local file and call it "123456.sldprt" it will again be linked to the vault file and the status icon will update to the proper condition (after a RMC and select refresh).
If anyone else in your team still has the "Bracket.sldprt" file name on their local machine, it will not be linked to any file in the vault unless they too rename.
Renaming in more than one place offers another opportunity for a typo and doubles the work. If your colleagues have to rename also, then the workload continues to multiply. You also have to figure a way to communicate to everyone that a rename is at hand.
If you are talking about a file or two it is probably manageable. If your assemblies have any complexity it turns into a nightmare very quickly. Many of our assemblies have over 1000 parts.
All this leads me back to the earlier argument for applying the final name to the file before it ever gets into the vault. It sounds dated, but "an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure" really applies here.
One additional thought is that descriptive names tend to migrate to the simple. You and your colleages will eventually have several files named Bracket, Brace, Plate, Shaft, etc. If SW can't find a file, it starts looking in lots of places and will grab the first file it finds by the correct name. Next thing you know your assembly blows up and is referencing a shaft from some other project on your local machine. Forcing yourself to give unique names is just good housekeeping.
Hope that clears up my meaning of "looses their link". Hang in there. PDM really is a nice way to go and the learning curve isn't too bad. You have some great resources here on the forum. Keep asking questions.
Daen
Actually, we don't rename files on a daily basic. We only do it at the release state. . During the design process, we created many dummy parts which never be used at the end. Assign the number at the beginning of the project is the thing we tried to avoid.
We don't have any PDM in our system yet and I am going to install and test the workgroup PDM soon. Recently, I tried to learn as much as I can from the group so I'll be ready for the test.
From what I understand, you check out the assembly from the vault to a working folder in your local drive. there is no link between your local drive and the vault. I thought soon you check in the assmbly back to the vault, you should wipe out the the local working directoy. so the bracket.is gone for good and 123456 is the only file. Eventhough bracket sitll exist in your local drive, once you checkout the assmbly back to your local working folder, 123456 is the only file linked to the assmbly and the bracket is ignored
This is what I thought, if I'm wrong please advice
Chris
Chris,
If you have the file management practive of deleting your local files when you check things into the vault, then when you check out from the vault there will be no lost references.
Our workflow may make this more of a concern than it will be for you.
Our CAD workstations are not backed up nightly. Our network is. Our practice is to get things into the vault sooner than later.
This does a couple of things. First, our vault and our design files gets backed up nightly (if the users check there models into the vault). This provides for good disaster recovery and encourages the vault to continually reflect the current state of the design.
Secondly, our "In Development" life cycle is for our engineers to try all things with. They can bump the revision when ever they want to "capture" an idea in design - sort of a system restore point. The revision bump causes the previous revision in the vault to be tucked away in case the next design idea doesn't work out. Revision bumps are entirely up to the individual and encouraged. No change management or ECO is required.
Once the final design is nailed down the files change life cycle to "Released" and the revision control is much more stringent (ECO, management review, etc).
Our assemblies are of such complexity that deleting local files at the end of each day and re-downloading each morning would be cumbersome. So we tend to leave the files locally and ensure the vault is updated often so the other users are working with the latest design intent.
Regarding the "links": these are basically status icons on your local machine that let you know how your local files (the ones you are basing your design work on) compare to the ones in the vault. If you are working with files that another user has ownership of you would want to check that your local copy of those files were kept updated. If the other user uploads a change to the vault, your local status icon will change to let you know you are no longer current.
Daen
What we've been doing is adding an underscore and a letter for each new rev such as _A at the end of the files - ex. Bracket_A (on all assembly/part and dwg) - if we keep doing this, will it confuse the PDM as a new part/assembly/drawing is added to the vault?
Absolutely. There are numerous threads on this forum covering exactly what you describe.
Chris
You might want to look as some of the PDM webinars from Hawk Ridge Systems.
http://www.hawkridgesys.com/events/recorded-webinars/#/epdm
John Peros had given my that link in the forum:
https://forum.solidworks.com/thread/64552
You had also looked at this forum but I don't know if you tried looking at the webinars John suggested.
These answered many of my PDM questions and there is also a section on one of them that shows the search pats that SW uses to open a file - and this helps explain why it can be so easy for SW to pick the wrong file if it has the same name as another file as Daen described.
Thx for the infor, Rick
Hawk Ridge is my VAR and it's ashamed I never used its service or got time to attend the web seminars since I started using SW 4 yrs ago
I have found that many VAR's have videos or help files of some type.
When I see a link to a VAR I will usually go to their site to see what they have.
Many require you to be one of their customers but some have information that is not as restricted (such as Hawk Ridge - or goengineer).
Have you also looked at the SolidWorks World Proceedings?
http://www.solidworks.com/sww/proceedings/proceedings-presentations.htm
There are hundreds (Aprox. 250 from each year) from each SolidWorks World (all their training sessions).
Be aware:
Only 3 years of SWW sessions are available and each year the oldest will go away when the new ones are added.
I suggest looking at the 2010 files quickly as they will all go away when the 2013 Proceedings are added (probably next month - maybe sooner).
I actually downloaded all the ones of interest to me (videos and PP presentations - some have both) so I have them on my computer for easier viewing (my DSL is slow and this way I can see the videos without the pausing for the download to catch up).
I am anxiously awaiting the new set to come out.
Thx for the link, RIck - it's awesome ! I did attend the SWW but never had enough time for every session.
I also found that, even though the information for the prior years is usually for that years software (Not always) most will still pertain.
There are also items covered that are not covered in the newer years, so it is good to compare.
Even the the same subject is covered by the same trainer in a different year, there are different comments or questions from the audience so you get more information.
I probably have 2 or 3 thousand videos and PP presentations on my computer between VAR's, proceedings, training videos from web sites or U-tube, purchased training products, etc.
Some is not relevant now but could be in the future and also helps guide my setup and design model for the future if I upgrade or even just Best Practices.
Something that needs to be thought through, if you use it, is ARCHIVING.
In PDMW, I have found if ANY PRT or ASM has its earlier versions archived, it makes it impossible to rename any model that is linked to it without restoring all versions from archive, renaming then re-archiving.
While I do not use TOOLBOX items, I would think this probably applies to them also.
It helps to limit the number of versions in the VAULT, by utilising Working Copies and allowing bumping at milestones or decision points (mentioned furhter below).
The alternative is to have unlimited storage.
Remember that every version is stored in its entirety, so 10 versions of a 10 MB PRT will take up 100 MB space (plus small VAULT overhead).
Good points.
I am not yet using PDMw but researching it as Chris is, except that I don't even have it in front of me to experiment with - just researching at this time.
I can see where having archived files and name changing would be a situation to avoid.
We also have had times where we loaded our PDM storage and had to beef up the storage space on the server just to handle it.
We try to limit continuous check in and out to limit the number of updates and stored files.
To do this we work off our computers most of the time. Then, when we have a design that is ready for machining or a part that is finished we check out the PDM version, Copy over the checked out version and the check it back in.
A big problem is that our PDM does not provide interactive feedback regarding current versions.
By this I mean that if I have a drawing on my computer and someone else checks out the drawing from the PDM, updates it and checks it back in - I have no indication that I am working on an old copy. Then if I update my copy, check out the version in PDM, overwrite it and check it back in, I have wiped out the last persons changes - and they don't know it either.
The only way we have to see if a file is updated is to compare the file date on the PDM with our working copy (from before I started my changs). Needless to say this can take hours on large or even small projects and is very prone to mistakes.
I am also the only one who actually writes revision comments upon checkin to specify what was done. Others don't think this is a big deal but I know better. The only good things are that we are a small company and only have a few people that will change drawings and we usually have only 1 or 2 people working on a project so we can keep up with it better. (but it's still a bad situation).
the reason we don't take full ownership of drawings that we are going to be changing is that our PDM is on a regular computer so if we have more than 8 connections to that computer it locks out more connections and slows things down. Our plan for PDMw is to put it on a Windows 7 OS computer (that allows 20 connections).
Fortunately, SW PDMw will show a color change on the file list (at least this is my impression from other forum comments) if the PDM version is older or newer than your working copy. This would make it easier to see if something had changed that we didn't expect.
Greg,
Great insight into another aspect of Archiving. I knew you couldn't delete a project structure that archived data came from, but had not considered the renaming issue.
Daen
I have to agree with Daen here that it is better to get it all setup in the beginning and go with a predefined numbering system. The system should be robust enough for whatever variations and changes you can imagine would ever happen in your company and try to have contingencies if the un-imaginable happens.
The worst thing to do is change the structure mid stream.
I am not using SW PDM yet (but working toward it). I am using a different PDM system and it does nothing for maintaining references and it doesn't even allow easy cad file viewing (it was made for software PDM - Text only). This has made operations very difficult, but also pointed out where better structures make a big difference.
I started with documentation procedures in the early days of cad (my first AutoCAD was version 1.5).
I learned when drawing designations were all done manually. The only way to keep any track of documents was to number everything in a very structured way and if it resulted in gaps in the drawing numbers it was no big deal. Just be sure you're numbering system has more possible numbers than parts that will need numbers.
I worked my way through several high tech companies including one where I was on the team that had the daunting task of setting up and implementing ISO9001. This company was also a manufacturer of military and space products where documentation and detailed tracking was number 1. We had to achieve and maintain government & space agency criteria and had regular audits to ensure every detail was tracked.
In these companies the only way to function was pre-assigned numbering of documents.
Now I work in a company where anything goes. Some people want to use sequential number with prefixes of whatever they decide is to their liking that day, Name only part files (including repeating exact names in different projects and multiple parts in the same product suffixed by -1, -2, ...) For instance, each product will have Bearing 1, Bearing 2, Bearing 3... as the name for the part file. But then, the drawing files will be xxx001, xxx002. xxx003 .... (with not way to see what this drawing file references for the part). Talk about a nightmare when the file is sent to another computer with a different directory structure and ALL the file references are broken!
On the other end (Me included) is predefined, structured numbering. We define the prefix as a 3 or 4 character (usually letters) product family descriptor, a dash and then a 4 digit (number) drawing number. When possible we try to group sections of the product in number grouping, so it is not necessarily sequential.
Unfortunately, because our current PDM is so hard to use - this numbering system has been hybridized to usually be suffixed with a descriptive name so we can find our files more easily without cheat sheets.
Hybrid numbering systems have their good and bad points, but with SW and SW PDM's allowing you to view and control not just one drawing at a time but full assemblies or multiple parts there really isn't a need to add a text description (at least not that I can see). Also, SW and SW Explorer will give you all the drawing links or where used information.
I have been fighting for a standardized system for the 12 years I have been here and there have been many Large arguments over it.
We are switching to SW from Inventor and AutoCAD and because ePDM and wPDM both don't allow for the same name in different files I will have a little more Leverage on at lease not duplicating file names and hopefully getting a standardized numbering system.
If at all possible, do your self a HUGH favor and setup a good system before full deployment. Your might (probably will) get some resistance by others but setup something that everyone can live with and stick with it.
Rick,
Great insight.
We developed a numbering scheme with much thought... unfortunately none of us knew WHAT to think about at the time. We have had some discussions about about reworking it.
I too have seen the debate between a smart numbering system and a purely sequential "dumb" system. And although I see both arguments my preference is a hybrid.
Attached is a snap shot of our vault view to give an idea of what you can see.
Daen
Chris,
You can rename items in the vault.
That said, I'll through in my 2 cents worth of suggestion based on working through the same learning curve.
I think you will be much better off naming the part / assembly files by Part Number from the start. This means issuing a P/N for each new file at creation. And it means some part numbers get tossed for items that do not make it into the latter stages of design.
Yes that is a bit of an inconvenience.
Yes you will have missing part numbers.
Yes, it takes some extra time at the beginning.
YES it will save you incredibly significant amounts of time when you don't have to rename items in the vault.
(When you rename in the vault, all local files will loose their link to the vault files - unless you identically rename them)
(Because of this, the best is to ensure all users have deleted all local files and then reload the renamed files from the vault)
YES it will save you incredibly significant amounts of time when you have two "descriptive" named files with the SAME name checked into the vault and the latter overwrites the former.
YES it will save you significant amounts of hair pulling when the boss likes version x and says "make it so" and you reply "we'll have that to the prototype shop in a couple of days because we have to rename our files..."
If you maintain good file house keeping on your local machine, you can name files by description and then perform a SW rename function and assign Part Numbers when the files are checked into the vault for the first time. But this only puts off the inevitable. The least amount of work is to just name them from the start and eliminate the entire rename process.
In the simplest scenario, create a network shared spreadsheet to record part numbers. When someone makes a new part, open the spreadsheet, type in the description and next part number. This has lots of opportunity for conflicts, but it can be workable.
The next step up would be an Access database that will issue the next available part number.
Daen