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 a customer’s 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 3DEXPERIENCE 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. 3DEXPERIENCE 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 new users 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 to 3DEXPERIENCE 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 from customer to customer. For simplicity, it’s recommended that collaborative spaces are only created as and when specific access control to content is required. When adopting 3DEXPERIENCE 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 is 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 that 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 customers will want full control over the collaborative space behavior, therefore it’s recommended that at least one new collaborative space is created for the 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 creation of new collaborative spaces is 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 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.
- Private – Content is only visible to members of the collaborative space. Recommend for projects where the design content needs to be restricted to only the people working on it.
- 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.
- 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 SOLIDWORKS and content created using the other available CAD connector roles.
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 regards 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.
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 of how to use them in a design scenario, please refer to the adoption guide section 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 individual user’s access rights can be managed in one place by the Platform Administrator using the User Groups app located in the compass.
SOLIDWORKS and Collaborative Spaces
After creating a new collaborative space, before saving any SOLIDWORKS content it is important to ensure that the SOLIDWORKS session is connected to the desired collaborative space. The top bar of MySession task pane area displays the name of the collaborative space that the current session is connected to. Any new files saved to 3DEXPERIENCE 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 to a different collaborative space, select the drop down arrow next to the collaborative space name and click on the preferences icon, and set the credentials to the desired collaborative space.
All new files saved to 3DEXPERIENCE 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 users transition from folders to 3DEXPERIENCE it is strongly recommended that they are introduced to Bookmarks as the primary method of organizing their SOLIDWORKS Design content. Bookmarks behave in a similar manner 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.
Bookmarks are created and accessed using the Bookmarks Editor app, which is located on the Content tab of the Collaborative Designer for SOLIDWORKS dashboard.
Bookmarks can also be accessed from inside SOLIDWORKS. A SOLIDWORKS part, assembly or drawing can be added to a Bookmark when saving it to 3DEXPERIENCE, and files can be opened in SOLIDWORKS directly from a Bookmark in exactly the same way a user would have previously done using folders.
Organizing SOLIDWORKS designs with Bookmarks provides users with 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 Bookmarks in SOLIDWORKS, please refer to the adoption guide section titled Basic SOLIDWORKS File Management.
Recommended User Settings for Working with Bookmarks and SOLIDWORKS
Although Bookmarks are simple to use, there are a few concepts that users need to be aware of to avoid confusion. When a new Bookmark 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 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 different active Collaborative Space is done via the preferences of the Bookmark Editor widget.
Note: If a user accidently creates a Bookmark in a different Collaborative Space to the one in which they intended, it can be easily moved by selecting the Bookmark and using the “Move” command from the Bookmark toolbar.
Another recommended preference for Bookmarking SOLIDWORKS 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 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, and by default all new Bookmarks are set to the In Work state. When Bookmarks are set to the In Work state they are visible to all members of that Collaborative Space. To make a Bookmark only visible to the person who created it, set the maturity state of the Bookmark back to the Draft state using the Lifecycle command from the Bookmarks Editor toolbar.
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The default maturity state of new Bookmarks can be set in the Bookmarks section in Collaborative Spaces Configuration Center
Some customers may prefer to keep all new Bookmarks private to each individual 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 content is key to successful adoption of 3DEXPERIENCE. Collaborative Spaces control security and access, and Bookmarks provide familiar folder like organization of design content. Make the user experience 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 administrator or a design manager to control access to the design content of each project independently of one another.
Finally, to help new users easily navigate their SOLIDWORKS designs in a familiar way encourage the use Bookmarks for saving to and opening from in SOLIDWORKS.
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