Introduction

Deciding how SOLIDWORKS design content will be organized, who can access it, and when, is an important part of preparing the 3DEXPERIENCE platform for your first design-related activities.

Controlling who in a company can access designs at different stages of the design process will ensure good governance by protecting intellectual property, and reduce or even eliminate the risk of the wrong version of a component being manufactured. This applies not only to large organizations implementing a formal release and change control process, but also to small design teams who are starting out using the basic revision and lifecycle capabilities.

When adopting the 3DEXPERIENCE platform for the first time, it’s important for users to understand where their SOLIDWORKS design content gets stored and how the content is organized. The vast majority of new users will be familiar with organizing and navigating their files via a folder structure. The 3DEXPERIENCE platform is an environment built around managing 3D CAD data that enables users to find, filter, and organize their designs based on a flexible combination of their design and project parameters. More emphasis is placed on searching and filtering using attributes, and this approach offers many advantages over browsing a traditional folder structure.

To help you make the transition, it’s important to maintain familiarity at the beginning of the adoption journey, before introducing more advanced search-focused concepts.

Storing and Controlling Access to Content

All files saved from SOLIDWORKS Design to the 3DEXPERIENCE platform are stored in what is called a Collaborative Space. A Collaborative Space is not a folder; instead, it sets the security context by controlling who has access to the content within it. Collaborative spaces are managed using the 3DSpace app. The number of collaborative spaces required will vary depending on your needs. For simplicity, it’s recommended that collaborative spaces are only created as and when specific access control to content is required. When adopting the 3DEXPERIENCE platform for the first time, it’s not always easy to know when to create a new collaborative space or when to use an existing one. As a rule, one collaborative space is typically sufficient if the same team of designers are working on the same projects together, with each person at the same permission level on every project.

If different design teams are working on their own specific projects, it’s recommended that a collaborative space be created for each project and the relevant team members assigned to each. This will allow the administrator or a design manager to control access to the design content of each project independently of one another.

Each new customer 3DEXPERIENCE tenant is preconfigured with one collaborative space called Common Space. For a small number of designers, e.g. 1-3 users who are going to be using 3DEXPERIENCE primarily for cloud storage and basic revision control, the Common Space collaborative space can be used straight away as the default repository for content. However, be aware that by default, all new users added to a tenant are automatically added to Common Space, and the majority of companies will want full control over the collaborative space behavior, it’s recommended that at least one new collaborative space be created for storing SOLIDWORKS designs, and this is used instead of Common Space.

Note: The default behavior of each new tenant is to allow all users to create their own collaborative spaces. This can lead to lots of collaborative spaces being created that result in extra clutter. Instead, it’s recommended that the creation of new collaborative spaces be restricted to the platform administrator(s). This behavior is controlled using the option Enable All New Users to Create a Collaborative Space, and is located in the Collaborative Spaces Control Center.

New collaborative spaces are created using the 3DSpace app on the “Content” tab of the Collaborative Designer for SOLIDWORKS Design role dashboard. When creating a new collaborative space, a user can set the Title and Description, and then choose from three options that determine the visibility of the content to other platform users.

1. Private – Content is only visible to members of the collaborative space. Recommended for projects where the design content needs to be restricted to only the people working on it.
2. Protected – Only content in the Released and Obsolete maturity states will be visible to all platform users within the company. Recommended for standard parts and libraries.
3. Public – Companywide visibility of all content to all users regardless of maturity state

Note: When creating a new collaborative space, select the family option “Design” for all collaborative spaces that will contain content created using SOLIDWORKS.

After a private or protected collaborative space has been created, the next step is to add users. Each new user added is granted a collaborative space role. The collaborative space role determines each user’s access level with regard to working in the context of that collaborative space, for example, adding new files, modifying existing files, or viewing only. The four main collaborative space roles are Contributor, Author, Leader, and Owner.

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The Owner role allows a user to administer the collaborative space, for example, add or remove users. The default behavior for each new Tenant is to combine both the Leader and Owner roles. This is useful for smaller companies because a user assigned the Leader & Owner role has the combined ability to both release designs and control which users have access to the Collaborative Space content. In large organizations, often a platform administrator or another dedicated user will have the responsibility of managing access to each Collaborative Space. This person or persons may not be part of the design release process. In this scenario, the Owner and Leader roles can be assigned separately. The people responsible for releasing design content are assigned the Leader role only, and the people responsible for managing collaborative space access are assigned the Owner role only. The associativity between the Leader and Owner roles is set using the Associate Leader and Owner option in the Collaborative Spaces Control Center.

For a detailed description of each collaborative space role, including recommendations on how to use them in a design scenario, please refer to the adoption guide section titled Revision and Lifecycle.

Note: Creating user groups and assigning the groups to a collaborative space instead of the individual users is recommended practice when working with multiple design teams and projects, or larger numbers of users. Each user’s access rights can be managed in one place by the Platform Administrator using the User Groups app located in the Compass.

SOLIDWORKS Design and Collaborative Spaces

After creating a new collaborative space, before saving any files from SOLIDWORKS Design, it is important to ensure that the SOLIDWORKS session is connected to the desired collaborative space. The top bar of the MySession task pane area displays the name of the collaborative space that the current session is connected to. Any new files saved to the 3DEXPERIENCE platform will be automatically assigned to this collaborative space (unless the user chooses a different space in the Save to 3DEXPERIENCE dialogue box).

To switch SOLIDWORKS Design to a different collaborative space, select the drop-down arrow next to the collaborative space name, click on the preferences icon, and set the credentials to the desired collaborative space.

All new files saved to the 3DEXPERIENCE platform for the first time will be assigned to the collaborative space displayed under Credentials.                 

Organizing SOLIDWORKS Design Content

As stated previously in this section, Collaborative Spaces are not intended to act as folders, and the content contained within a Collaborative Space is stored in a flat structure. To help you transition from folders to the 3DEXPERIENCE platform, it is strongly recommended that you are familiar with Bookmark folders as the primary method of organizing your SOLIDWORKS Design content. Bookmark folders behave similarly to Windows folders; users can add SOLIDWORKS content to a Bookmark for easy access, and create Bookmark hierarchies in the same way that they would folder structures.

Bookmark folders are created and accessed using the Bookmarks Editor app, which is located on the Content tab of the Collaborative Designer for SOLIDWORKS dashboard.

Bookmark folders can also be accessed from inside SOLIDWORKS Design. A SOLIDWORKS Design part, assembly or drawing can be added to a Bookmark folder when saving it to the 3DEXPERIENCE platform, and files can be opened in SOLIDWORKS Design directly from a Bookmark folder in the same way a user would have previously done using folders.

Organizing SOLIDWORKS designs with Bookmark folders provides a folder-like experience and will provide continuity through a familiar way of working, aiding adoption in the early stages.

Once users become more familiar and comfortable with finding and navigating their Bookmarked content, other methods of content organization can be introduced that utilize the 3DSearch and 6WTag filtering capabilities to increase productivity further. However, for many users, Bookmarks will meet all of their needs.

For more recommendations related to working with Bookmark folders in SOLIDWORKS Design, please refer to the adoption guide section titled Basic SOLIDWORKS File Management.

Recommended User Settings for Working with Bookmark Folders and SOLIDWORKS Design

Although Bookmark folders are simple to use, there are a few concepts that users need to be aware of to avoid confusion. When a new Bookmark folder is created using the Bookmarks Editor web app, a Bookmark object is created in the Collaborative Space that the app is set to. Therefore, if a user is a member of multiple collaborative spaces, before creating a new Bookmark folder, they will need to check that their Bookmarks Editor widget is set to the correct Collaborative Space. The Collaborative Space setting can be viewed by hovering the cursor over the cloud symbol in the top bar of the widget.

Switching to a different active Collaborative Space is done via the preferences of the Bookmark Editor widget.

Note: If a user accidentally creates a Bookmark folder in a different Collaborative Space from the one in which they intended, it can be easily moved by selecting the Bookmark folder and using the “Move” command from the Bookmark toolbar.

​​​​​​​Another recommended preference for Bookmarking SOLIDWORKS Design content is “Enable Expansion of Products. This preference is on by default and allows the user to expand a Bookmarked Assembly to view the complete structure without needing to have any of the child parts or sub-assemblies individually bookmarked.

Like Windows folders, Bookmarks can be shared with other users. When a Bookmark folder is created in a collaborative space, by default, it will be visible to other users. The visibility is governed by the Maturity State of the Bookmark folder, and by default, all new Bookmarks are set to the In Work state. When Bookmark folders are set to the In Work state, they are visible to all members of that Collaborative Space. To make a Bookmark folder only visible to the person who created it, set the maturity state of the Bookmark folder back to the Draft state using the Lifecycle command from the Bookmarks Editor toolbar.

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The default maturity state of new Bookmark folders can be set in the Bookmarks section in the Collaborative Spaces Configuration Center.

Some design teams may prefer to keep all new Bookmark folders private to each user and have them choose to share a Bookmark with other team members. In this scenario, the option Set the Maturity State to In Work should be unchecked.

Summary

Understanding how to organize and control access to SOLIDWORKS Design content is key to successful adoption of the 3DEXPERIENCE platform. Collaborative Spaces control security and access, and Bookmarks provide a familiar folder like organization of design content. The user experience can be made as simple as possible on day one by keeping the number of collaborative spaces to a minimum. Start by creating just one new collaborative space when a team of designers are working on the same projects together.

Create individual collaborative spaces when different design groups need to work on their own specific projects. This will allow the platform administrator or a design manager to control access to the design content of each project independently of one another.

Finally, to easily navigate their SOLIDWORKS designs familiarly,  use Bookmarks folders for saving to and opening from in SOLIDWORKS Design.

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