I am trying to instruct our users on how they should be filling out the SolidWorks data cards, especially when the files include configurations.

I would categorize our configurations as two types:

Case 1.

All the values in the fields on each tab of the data card would be the same for each configuration tab.  Examples of this would be configurations for "Exploded View", "Coiled", "Uncoiled", etc.  The values for the fields would be the same from one configuration tab to the next.  (PartNumber, ApprovedBy, DrawnBy, etc would be the same for all configurations.

Case 2.

Each field on each data card configuration tab can be unique.  One configuration can have one "PartNumber", the other configuration can have a different "PartNumber"... Same with "Description", "ApprovedBy", etc.

Because of configurations like Case 2, in the data card I have the Flag: "Updates all configurations" unchecked.

Given Case 2, the user knows he has to go into each configuration tab on the data card and make sure all of the values he enters apply specifically to that particular configuration.  However, I was hoping in the situation like Case 1, he could leave all of the fields blank in each of the configuration-specific tabs, and instead only have to populate the custom property tab " @ ".  My thinking was that if all the values in the configuration-specific tabs were left blank, the values set in the custom property tab " @ " would be used.  The problem I am running into in this case is that if I do a search for say the "PartNumber", the PartNumber field will be blank.

So it seems like what I have to tell the user to do is to copy-n-paste each value from one configuration-specific tab to the next.  This does not seem ideal.

Am I missing something or is there a better way to handle this?

Thank you,

Dave