Anyone work on design teams in SW?

We have 3 designers working on a common project, each of us in different
areas of the product we are designing. I've found that SW stinks when in
comes to having more than one user trying to work on one assembly. It's so
bad that I can't even do my detail drawings while another designer has an
assembly open with the part in it that I'm trying to detail. How do you
guys get around this? I came from inventor, and it handled this quite
smoothly.

Thanks.

 

You should be able to do it with little problem...

You just have to set the option "open referenced documents as read only" in
tools options,

Then when you want to edit a part just reload that part with read/write
access.

I think they teach this in the level 2 class at your VAR, try that.


Todd

 

They never taught me that at my training! :-(
Who sets the option you mention, the one who opens the assembly?
Sorry but it's not very clear to me.

You can't fix stupid!

 

There are tools and settings in SW to enable this kind of collaboration.
However, each user will have to put in a little thought and study on how SW
functions in a group environment.

1. TOOLS/OPTIONS/EXTERNAL REFERENCES
The first two check boxes should be checked.
Read the help for this dialog box and understand it.
Find Matt Lombards website from the NG and go to rules of thumb. Read the
documentation he provides on options settings.

2. Read the help on Reload

3. Read the help on replace

4. Get a copy of the PDMWorks training manual and read and understand the
first 2 chapters. They have nothing to do with PDMWorks. They explain how
SW behaves in a multiuser environment.

SolidWorks is configurable. Out of the box it is setup for solo users. When
collaborating it is your responsibility to set it up for group use.

One thing you have to bear in mind about any CAD system that resides in
memory on a local computer. The model being worked on with each PC is local
to that PC and is not shared in the memory of the other PCs.

 

That setting must be set on each computer. Go to:
Tools\Options\System Options Tab
then select External References

Once you put a check next to "Open Referenced Documents with Read-Only
Access", it will stay set that way for all files you open, and for all
times you begin SolidWorks...until you uncheck it.

Ken

 

We should mention that to someone new, using "Open Ref.... Read-Only" it is
*VERY* easy to lose your work. My office uses this methodology at my
insistence and it comes with some caveats... files are first come first
serve. The first person to open an assembly or part "owns" it. Owning an
assembly does not mean you own the parts. Subsequent files opened from an
assembly are read-only, allowing others full access to them when they use
file open. This allows someone to edit a part, or subassy, or work on
drawings even though someone has the parent assembly open.

The problem is that Solidworks doesn't necessarily give you a warning that a
file is read-only accept a notation in the titlebar of Solidworks. When
you're in crunch time it's easy to forget that for the last two hours you've
been making changes that you can't save. You must then do a song and dance
to save-as your file somewhere and then use a file manager to copy it over
the one you had open read-only. There are other tricks, like going back to
an assy when you get the warning about not being able to save, and
right-clicking the part to say "edit". This is turn gives you ownership of
the part you have open. When you go back to the part you'll see the titlebar
no longer shows read-only. But this trick isn't always reliable (ouch).
Solidworks basically isn't built to do multi-user. That's why PDMWorks was
bundled in the first place, to address these limitations for the majority of
scenarios. A little better forethought on the programmers' part and we
would have had an option for "Open for edit" directly from the assy. This
would address 90% of what you need. As for me, I chose DBWorks to take care
of this stuff but I haven't had time to roll it out because we're in crunch
time from now until the end of the year.

As "kellnerp" said, read up on reload and replace. Then work carefully.
And everyone must work the same way to get this stuff to behave (if you call
it that).

- Eddy

 

Yeah, we've changed our options on our external reference thingy, and now I
see what you mean. Talk about a curse. If I open an assembly, that no one
has open, nor any of it's part, and I try to open a part in that assembly to
edit, my computer does prompt me, but none the less it is till read only. A
co worker can open it to edit, but why can't I? Talk about a curse. We
constantly open parts to edit out of our assemblies as we are designing, and
opening and closing the assembly is not practical for a lot a reasons,
mostly time.

Can you explain your work-a-round in better detail? When I click edit on a
part, it throws the same message that the part is open for read only. Is
2004 better at this?

 

Barna,

I have a dll add-in that someone on this news group sent to me that will
prompt to open the read only file with write access when you open it
from an assembly. It works quite well with reference files set to open
as read only. If you wish a copy let me know and I'll send it to you.

Remove the *DeleteThis* from my e-mail address to reply directly to me.

Dave H

 

If you're going to work in groups, you really need to get a PDM system. It
doesn't cost much or take much work to install the simpler systems and it
sure saves a lot of hassle. In this same situation, I just click on
"Checkout & Open" and the part or assembly is mine to do with as I like.

Jerry Steiger
Tripod Data Systems