Introduction

The majority of customers no matter how large or small will have a need to share design content with an external stakeholder during the product development lifecycle. Scenarios can range from a single designer sharing SOLIDWORKS files with a toolmaker, to a larger organisation sending packages of release drawings to multiple suppliers. The 3DEXPERIENCE Platform provides a range of different solutions for sharing design content with external collaborators, each one with its own use case.

Before discussing this topic with a customer, it is important to understand the solutions available, and how each relate to a real world scenario. Deploying the right solution will ensure that the customer achieves their desired outcomes.

Direct Platform Design Collaboration

3DEXPERIENCE customers of all sizes often have a need to provide an external company or contractor with access to their native SOLIDWORKS files. In situations where security and access control is critical, and/or there will be a high degree of collaboration between your customer and an external collaborator, it may be advisable to invite the external collaborator to the tenant itself, and have them work with the SOLIDWORKS files directly in a Collaborative Space. This approach offers the highest level of security, but will require the external collaborator to either have their own 3DEXPERIENCE tenant from which they can use their existing roles, or be assigned roles from your customer’s tenant.

For guidance on how to add external users to a tenant and collaborative spaces please refer to chapter 2 of the SolidPractices guide “Collaboration with External Stakeholders”.

Platform to Non-Platform Design Collaboration

Many 3DEXPERIENCE customers will face a situation where they need to share a SOLIDWORKS design with an external stakeholder who is not using 3DEXPERIENCE, while continuing to maintain a high degree of control over the files. Your customer may not want or have the budget to purchase additional roles in order to invite the stakeholder to their own tenant. In this scenario the SOLIDWORKS Design Exchange Utility can be used to share files, while preserving critical PLM information (e.g. revisions, maturity status), and controlling access permissions.

 

The Design Exchange Utility is required to extract and open the files in SOLIDWORKS, and will keep track of which files are modified.

 

In a scenario where two-way collaboration is not required, a user can simply extract a SOLIDWORKS assembly and its related drawings from 3DEXPERIENCE without the need to open it in SOLIDWORKS first.  Both the Bookmarks Editor and the Product Explorer apps provide the option to export a SOLIDWORKS assembly, with or without related drawings using the “Export As” command located on the Tools toolbar.

The resulting export operation will create a zip file containing the top-level assembly, its children, and related drawings (if selected).

In many cases, a user will only need to share a specific subset of files with a supplier. The Filter command on Product Explorer tools toolbar can be used filter the items in the assembly structure based on a range of criteria, for example, one or more attribute values.

 

EXPERIENCE roles assigned to them, Collaborative Designer for SOLIDWORKS, 3DEXPERIENCE SOLIDWORKS Standard, Professional, or Premium. Although this workflow is web app based, the Export As command is intended as a function for a SOLIDWORKS designer to use, hence the reason that a SOLIDWORKS role is required.

An alternative approach to packaging up SOLIDWORKS files to share directly with an external stakeholder is to use the Pack and Go command in SOLIDWORKS. To use Pack and Go all of the SOLIDWORKS files intended for the package must reside on the user’s workstation. Therefore, this approach requires some additional preparation work compared with exporting files using the Product Explorer app.

Generating and Sharing Neutral File Formats with External Stakeholders

Many businesses adopting 3DEXPERIENCE will have a requirement to share design information with external stakeholders using neutral file formats instead of native SOLIDWORKS files. Neutral file formats are typically used in a situation where the recipient needs to consume a model or drawing but is using a different CAD tool to SOLIDWORKS.

The 3DEXPERIENCE Platform can be configured to automatically create neutral files from SOLIDWORKS Parts, and Drawings. The formats used are typically STEP or IGES for Parts, and PDF for Drawings. The automatic creation of these files can be triggered by a range of different operations, for example during the save of a part or drawing to 3DEXPERIENCE from SOLIDWORKS, or during a maturity state transition. In 3DEXPERIENCE these neutral files are called derived output.

Generating Derived Output Files

The rules and settings that govern the creation of derived output, are managed by the platform administrator via the Derived Format Management section of the Collaborative Spaces Configuration Center app.

Once a rule has been defined, the rule is activated by a specific action in SOLIDWORKS or 3DEXPERIENCE. When a rule has been configured to generate derived output on save to 3DEXPERIENCE from SOLIDWORKS, SOLIDWORKS will generate the STEP or PDF files as part of the save operation. 

If a customer has a requirement to generate derived output file during a maturity state transition for example Frozen to Released, there are two methods of generating the file. If the customer has purchased cloud credits then the cloud conversion service can be utilized to generate the resulting file. The cloud conversion service runs on the 3DEXPERIENCE servers hosted by Dassault Systemes and removes the overhead from the customers hardware.

The Derived Format Convertor app can be installed on either the SOLIDWORKS users computer or another computer on the network designated by a platform administrator. When creating a derived format rule the platform administrator can designate a specific user who the derived output jobs are processed by.

Once a derived output file has been generated by the derived format converter, it can be viewed and downloaded from the Derived Format tab on the side panel of the releated part or drawing. The Derived format tab is available on the side panel for a selected item when using the 3D Search, Bookmarks Editor, and Product Explorer apps. It is also available when viewing the side panel of a selected object in the SOLIDWORKS MySession task pane.

In the image below a drawing in the product structure is selected with the derived output tab displayed in the side panel on the right.

 

When sharing design information with external stakeholders the naming convention of each file is commonly used to convey important information related to the design for example part number, revision, descriptive name. This information will enable the recipient to easily identify what each file relates to. Therefore, the naming convention of the derived output files is an important topic to discuss with each customer during the configuration of their 3DEXPERIENCE platform.

The naming of derived output files can be controlled by two different methods, the default naming rule or by setting a user configured naming rule.

Each new customer tenant is automatically configured to name derived output files based on predetermined set of rules.

1. SOLIDWORKS Part
   1. File Name format = Title:Physical Product Name:Revison
2. SOLIDWORKS Part with Enterprise Item Number Assigned
   1. File Name format = Enterprise Item Number:Revision
3. Drawing
   1. File Name format = Title:Drawing Name:Revision

These preconfigured file naming rules will suit the requirements of some customers. However, in many cases each customer will have a specific naming requirement that might include additional attribute information related to the design. Platform administrators can define their own file naming rule for documents, parts, and drawings. The option to define a naming rule is located on Derived Format Management tab in the Collaborative Spaces Configuration Center widget.

A necessity to share both native SOLIDWORKS and neutral files will be a requirement for all sizes of customer ranging from a single user to a large multi-site organisation. Therefore, this is an important topic to discuss with each customer to ensure that their needs are met during their 3DEXPERIENCE onboarding and implementation.

 

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