Introduction
The majority of companies, no matter how large or small, will need to share design content with an external stakeholder during the product development lifecycle. Scenarios can range from a single designer sharing SOLIDWORKS Design 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.
As part of your adoption journey, it is important to understand the solutions available and how each relates to a real-world scenario. Deploying the right solution will ensure that your company achieves its desired outcomes.
Direct Platform Design Collaboration
Design teams will likely have a need at some point in time to provide an external company or contractor with access to their native SOLIDWORKS Design files. In situations where security and access control are critical, and/or there will be a high degree of collaboration between you and the external collaborator, it may be advisable to invite the external collaborator to the tenant itself and have them work with the SOLIDWORKS Design 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 own company'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 design teams will face a situation where they need to share a SOLIDWORKS design with an external stakeholder who is not using the 3DEXPERIENCE platform, while continuing to maintain a high degree of control over the files. Your company may not want or have the budget to purchase additional roles 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 SOLIDWORKS Design Exchange Utility works by enabling you to export a design in a single package file. The export is performed from the MySession task pane in SOLIDWORKS, where a user chooses which assembly, parts, and drawings to add to the package, along with the respective access permissions. At this stage, it is recommended practice that the design is also promoted to the Frozen maturity state. This is to safeguard against someone making a modification to the design in the 3DEXPERIENCE platform while it’s being modified by the external collaborator.
During the export, the package file can be saved to either a Windows folder location or to a 3DDrive folder in the 3DEXPERIENCE platform. Sharing the package file via 3DDrive offers a secure alternative to email by requiring the recipient to log in with a DS Passport in order to access the package file.
The Recipient can open the package file in their own SOLIDWORKS Design installation, also using the Design Exchange Utility. The Design Exchange Utility is included as part of the core installation from SOLIDWORKS 2022 SP02 and later. Customers using a version before 2022 SP02 can download the utility at no cost from SOLIDWORKS.com/support.
The Design Exchange Utility is required to extract and open the files in SOLIDWORKS, and will keep track of which files are modified.
Once the recipient has finished making their changes to the design, they will use the Design Exchange Utility to create an updated version of the package file. This new version of the package file is used to import the files back into the 3DEXPERIENCE platform and, at the same time, compare the modifications against the frozen version of the design. The MySession status column indicates which components have been modified, and the modifications can either be rejected or accepted and merged with the original design.
For more information about how to use the SOLIDWORKS Design Exchange Utility, including a detailed use case, please refer to chapter 3 of the SolidPractices guide Collaboration with External Stakeholders, and the webinar recording located in the following post in the WORKS | Onboarding and Adoption community on the Partner Platform.
Exporting SOLIDWORKS Design Files from the 3DEXPERIENCE Platform
In a scenario where two-way collaboration is not required, a user can simply extract a SOLIDWORKS assembly and its related drawings from the 3DEXPERIENCE platform without the need to open it in SOLIDWORKS Design 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 the 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.
When a filter is applied, the Export As command will only export the items that meet the filter criteria, and not the entire assembly.
To export files from Product Explorer or Bookmarks Editor using the Export As command, a user must have one of the following 3DEXPERIENCE roles assigned to them: Collaborative Designer for SOLIDWORKS, SOLIDWORKS Design 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 Design 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 Design. To use Pack and Go, all of the SOLIDWORKS Design 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 the 3DEXPERIENCE platform will have a requirement to share design information with external stakeholders using neutral file formats instead of native SOLIDWORKS Design 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 than SOLIDWORKS Design.
The 3DEXPERIENCE Platform can be configured to automatically create neutral files from SOLIDWORKS Parts and Drawings. The formats used are typically STEP for Parts and Assemblies, 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 the 3DEXPERIENCE platform from SOLIDWORKS Design, or during a maturity state transition. In the 3DEXPERIENCE platform, 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.
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Once a rule has been defined, the rule is activated by a specific action in SOLIDWORKS Design or the 3DEXPERIENCE platform. When a rule has been configured to generate derived output on save to 3DEXPERIENCE from SOLIDWORKS Design, SOLIDWORKS Design will generate the STEP or PDF files as part of the save operation.
If a customer has a requirement to generate a 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 Systèmes and removes the overhead from the customer's hardware.
If the customer does not have cloud credits available on their tenant, the Derived Format Converter app must be installed. The “Generate Derived Output” action triggered by the maturity state transition creates jobs that the Derived Format Converter app can read and run.
The Derived Format Converter app can be installed on either the SOLIDWORKS user's 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 by whom the derived output jobs are processed.
Viewing and Downloading Derived Output Files
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 related 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.
The derived output tab for any given part or drawing provides the option to download each file. However, by selecting an assembly and opening its related derived output tab, it is possible to download in one operation all of the derived output files (2D and 3D) for the entire assembly structure to a single zip file by selecting the “download all” icon.
The resulting zip file will be downloaded to the default Windows Downloads folder location on the user’s computer.
Configuring the Derived Output File Name
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, and 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 a predetermined set of rules.
- SOLIDWORKS Part
- File Name format = Title:Physical Product Name:Revison
- SOLIDWORKS Part with Enterprise Item Number Assigned
- File Name format = Enterprise Item Number:Revision
- Drawing
- 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 the Derived Format Management tab in the Collaborative Spaces Configuration Center widget.
When downloaded, the resulting derived output file will be automatically assigned a name constructed using this predefined naming rule.
For detailed information on how to configure and work with Derived Output, please refer to the SolidPractices guide titled Derived Output for SOLIDWORKS.
Summary
A necessity to share both native SOLIDWORKS Design and neutral files will be a requirement for all sizes of company, ranging from a single user to a large multi-site organisation. Therefore, this is an important topic to understand to ensure that your specific company's needs are met during planning and implementation.
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