Novedge Pulse™ of Jeff Sweeney

In SolidWorks Enterprise PDM, if you look at a computed BOM of a particular version of a file, you would expect that if you looked at that same BOM a year from now it would be exactly the same. Likely you would be wrong. Her is why. A bill of material column set can contain [more...]

I just completed a fun assignment. I was asked to migrate an Akron Ohio company’s data from KnowledgeTree (open source document management software) to SolidWorks Enterprise PDM. They choose to move all of their KnowledgeTree data into SolidWorks Enterprise PDM for the following reasons: They were buying EPDM anyway for their CAD data because KnowledgeTree doesn’t support CAD files very well They [more...]

3DVision Technologies SolidWorks expert Jeff Sweeney provides technical tips and tricks in using SolidWorks 3D Design products.Most people only use Visual Basic’s Message Box as an “alert” tool – a way to pass information to the user. Did you know you could use it to pass information back to your macro? The SolidWorks API class teaches you to declare a variable and set that variable equal to the value returned by MsgBox. Works great, now [...]The post VBMsgeBoxResult appeared first on Ohio-Kentucky-Indiana SolidWorks 3DDesign-3DVision Technologies Blog [more...]

3DVision Technologies SolidWorks expert Jeff Sweeney provides technical tips and tricks in using SolidWorks 3D Design products.Out of the box SolidWorks Enterprise PDM gives you the ability to populate your drop lists based on SQL query results. I use this functionality all the time to give my users a list of qualified suppliers from a purchasing database, lists of users in a specified group, choices of product type, etc. The limitation is that [...]The post Smarter EPDM Drop Lists Using SQL appeared first on Ohio-Kentucky-Indiana SolidWorks 3DDesign-3DVision Technologies Blog [more...]

3DVision Technologies SolidWorks expert Jeff Sweeney provides technical tips and tricks in using SolidWorks 3D Design products.If you are using Active Directory for your SolidWorks Enterprise PDM authentication, and you have A LOT of user accounts within EPDM, expanding the “Users” node within the administration tool can take longer than a story from Great Aunt Eleanor about the advantages of dual ranked RDIMMs over single ranked UDIMMs. The wait is caused [...]The post Administrate zillions of EPDM users appeared first on Ohio-Kentucky-Indiana SolidWorks 3DDesign-3DVision Technologies Blog [more...]

3DVision Technologies SolidWorks expert Jeff Sweeney provides technical tips and tricks in using SolidWorks 3D Design products.Recently I saw a SolidWorks Enterprise PDM data card similar to this one created by one of our customers in Indiana: At the bottom of their data cards, they include a [static] picture of the file’s workflow. I thought it was a rather clever idea. The post Include the file’s workflow in its data card appeared first on Ohio-Kentucky-Indiana SolidWorks 3DDesign-3DVision Technologies Blog [more...]

3DVision Technologies SolidWorks expert Jeff Sweeney provides technical tips and tricks in using SolidWorks 3D Design products.In the old days, the perfect DriveWorks  input form was small and compact. Mouse travel was an important consideration. A good “mouse surgeon” could completely specify his project by barely moving his wrist. Now we live in a world with touch devices. The pointing device is the user’s fingers -their fat pudgy fingers. Users like to make large sweeping, [...]The post Form Design appeared first on Ohio-Kentucky-Indiana SolidWorks 3DDesign-3DVision Technologies Blog [more...]

3DVision Technologies SolidWorks expert Jeff Sweeney provides technical tips and tricks in using SolidWorks 3D Design products.During the first day of DriveWorks World we had a special guest speaker, Paul Gimbel. I’ve been a big fan of Paul’s work since we first met in Cincinnati six+ years ago. He’s what I like to call a “nugget” speaker. –While the overall message of his talks are good, his talks are packed with little nuggets [...]The post Guided Selling appeared first on Ohio-Kentucky-Indiana SolidWorks 3DDesign-3DVision Technologies Blog [more...]

3DVision Technologies SolidWorks expert Jeff Sweeney provides technical tips and tricks in using SolidWorks 3D Design products.DriveWorks World 2013 is over. Traditionally, DriveWorks World’s first day is the day after SolidWorks World. Though it makes for a long week, the benefits of having the two conferences back to back are a good time/money saver. All good things must come to an end. Given: As attendance for DriveWorks World has grown; the [...]The post DriveWorks World 2013 appeared first on Ohio-Kentucky-Indiana SolidWorks 3DDesign-3DVision Technologies Blog [more...]

A little more than a year ago, with DriveWorks 7, DriveWorks introduced Specification Flow. Many people rejoiced, many were confused. I had several people ask why they would need specification flow when they already had workflow through their PDM. At first glance, many Enterprise PDM users assume the two functionalities overlap…their interfaces look rather similar and they both have [...]The post Workflow and Specification Flow appeared first on Ohio-Kentucky-Indiana SolidWorks 3DDesign-3DVision Technologies Blog [more...]

Since SolidWorks Enterprise PDM’s beginning it has been a good tool to help customers meet FDA regulations. Two things are needed for your design data to meet FDA regulations: A system to manage the design and documentation processes and a proven methodology for validating the system. If you already have EPDM, the first part is [...]The post Validating your designs for the FDA appeared first on Ohio-Kentucky-Indiana SolidWorks 3DDesign-3DVision Technologies Blog [more...]

Let’s mix things up a bit. Typically you come here to see what I know, now I want to see what you know. How well do you understand the behavior of these popular EPDM search options? Question 1: Checking the option below will give you: A. Every version of every file since being in the specified state [...]The post EPDM Search Options Quiz appeared first on Ohio-Kentucky-Indiana SolidWorks 3DDesign-3DVision Technologies Blog [more...]

Rather than showing you a bunch of PowerPoint slides, Lou Gallo and I decided to simply record our conversation about what is new in SolidWorks Enterprise PDM 2013. We were bouncing around a bit like kids in a candy store, but roughly here are the topics: 1:29 Workflow UI Enhancements 9:13 Parallel Transitions 13:40 Full [more...]

I cannot count the number of times I have watched a designer work on a fresh new design, he’ll start with a blank part, create a rectangular sketch, extrude it…. then when he starts another part, he’ll start with a blank part, create a rectangular sketch, extrude it…. then when he starts another part, he’ll [more...]

Don’t let DriveWorks be an excuse from upgrading to SolidWorks 2013. Both DriveWorks Solo and Pro service pack two have been cleared for take off! Jeff Sweeney, CSWE Engineering Data Specialist 3DVision Technologie [more...]

Solidworks Enterprise PDM’s Content Search gives you the ability to search for files based on the content of a document, not just its properties or datacard values. It uses IFilters and Microsoft’s file indexing, so it is a great way to find Office or PDF documents knowing nothing more than a few keywords within the [more...]

Okay EPDM, you tell me these files are different. How are they different? It is well documented how to compare two different documents or versions of SolidWorks files within SolidWorks Enterprise PDM. However the documentation to compare non-SolidWorks files is a bit weaker. I am going to show you how to compare text or Microsoft [more...]

My favorite new function in SolidWorks Enterprise PDM 2013 -by far, is version free variables. (Special variables that can be updated on a datacard without having to bump the version of the file.) I’ll certainly be talking more about them later, but I just finished a quick test and couldn’t wait to tell you what [more...]

I’ve always felt major releases of software were like holidays. A service pack release is like a good weekend. DriveWorks 9 service pack two was just released. Jump over to the DriveWorks site and check out the release notes. Looks like some nice database connectivity enhancements. Jeff Sweeney, CSWE Engineering Data Specialist 3DVision Technologie [more...]

Remember my 3D Koch Snowflake post? Jenaro de Rosenzweig Dyckhoff just posted an interesting rendering of it. You can see the art gallery here: http://www.behance.net/gallery/U-are-a-MIRROR-of-the-UNIVERSE/3504103 So “HA” to all of my art teachers back in school who told me that I had no artistic talent! Jeff Sweeney, CSWE Engineering Data Specialist 3DVision Technologie [more...]

DriveWorks doesn’t care if you drive your dimensions with SolidWorks equations or if you drive them through the DriveWorks rules. I’ve seen several successful DriveWorks projects that use both DriveWorks AND SolidWorks equations, yet oftentimes during my public autograph sessions people will ask me if I have a preference. I do. (Otherwise this blog entry would [more...]