I’m often asked by clients whether PDM can send reminders for upcoming tasks or processes. The answer is generally no—at least not in the way most people expect, where the system automatically sends an email based solely on the current date to prompt someone to take action.

In SOLIDWORKS Manage, this kind of notification is straightforward. In PDM, it’s also achievable, but PDM itself isn’t really doing the work; it’s simply setting up the triggering events.

Here’s an example:
Suppose there are a series of preventive maintenance (PM) tasks that need to be performed on a schedule. I set up either virtual documents or real files in the vault. Each has a data card with:

• A date picker field for the Executed Date.
• A drop-down field for standard intervals (10, 20, 30, 45, 60, 90, or 120 days).

Then, using SQL Server:

• I create a task that runs daily, querying all PM records for their Executed Date and Interval.
• The query calculates how many days remain until each task’s next due date.
• This data is sent to SQL Server Reporting Services (SSRS), which generates and emails a formatted report.

When a technician completes a task, they check out the file, update the Executed Date, and check it back in. That’s it—the cycle resets automatically.

I also schedule a separate SQL task to generate quarterly summary reports for all PM activities, providing a What, Who, and When overview.

UPDATE:
Ok - ran into a problem with SSRS. SSRS strips off non-native HTML links (security), so one cannot make the report embed a Conisio link in the email. The workaround is Powershell with CSS. Then use Windows Task Scheduler to make the sweep of the PDM SQL tables. Bottom image shows the links and the file being opened to in PDM.