Note

All SolidPractices are written as guidelines. It is a strong recommendation to use these documents only after properly evaluating your requirements. Distribution of this document is limited to Dassault Systèmes SOLIDWORKS employees, VARs, and customers that are on active subscription. You may not post this document on blogs or any internal or external forums without prior written authorization from Dassault Systèmes SOLIDWORKS Corporation.

This document was updated using 3DEXPERIENCE R2023x FD04. If you have questions or need assistance in understanding the content, please get in touch with your designated reseller. You can download the most current version of this document from https://my.solidworks.com/support/solidpractices.

Preface

Templates are a great way to control standards and to help ensure consistency throughout the designs that many users create. Templates are usually tailored to company-specific requirements, and can save you time during the initial setup.

You can create custom templates to use as the basis for new part, drawing and assembly documents.

In your template, you can customize document properties such as units of measure and dimensioning standards. You can also include items such as sketches, notes and features in the graphics area. By using shared templates, users ensure that key specifications such as units and document appearance are consistent across designs, regardless of the individual author.

Managing templates through the 3DEXPERIENCE platform facilitates enforcing standardization.

This SolidPractices document provides information about how to create, modify, save and share templates on the 3DEXPERIENCE platform.

Reference:

• 3DEXPERIENCE Help Document: Template Management

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Storing Template Files in 3DEXPERIENCE

You can use the Save commands available in the MySession widget to save a SOLIDWORKS template file to the 3DEXPERIENCE platform. These include the right-click > Save, right-click > Save with Options and Save Active Window commands.

Create Template

If a template is new (does not yet exist in3DEXPERIENCE), all theSavecommands open theCreate Templatedialog box shown in the following image:

In this dialog box, you can:

• Specify a Title. In the default state, the title specifies a template file name without an extension.

• Specify a Description. In the default state, the description is empty.

• Create As Released. This option stores the template in 3DEXPERIENCE in a Released state.

• Create As Private. This option stores the template in 3DEXPERIENCE in a Private state.

Edit Template

If a template file already exists in 3DEXPERIENCE, all Save commands open the Save Template dialog box shown in the next image. Silent save is not supported for templates.

In this dialog box you can:

• Override the Title and the Description.

• Save the template modifications.

• Reset fields to the default value.

After saving the template in 3DEXPERIENCE:

• MySession refreshes and shows 3DEXPERIENCE information that relates to the template.

• The template file becomes available in the New SOLIDWORKS Document dialog box from SOLIDWORKS File > New, under the

  3DEXPERIENCE

  tab.

Template Title

Title is a 3DEXPERIENCE attribute. Template titles do not affect file names of the target objects (part, assembly or drawing). Modifying an existing template title, as described in section b), also does not affect its file name. Templates appear with the titles in the

3DEXPERIENCE

Templates in the MySession Widget

Templates cannot have external references. Therefore, MySession shows a single row when a template is open in SOLIDWORKS:

The icon shown in the Component Name column corresponds to the icon of the target file type.

Template File Type	Icon shown in MySession	Target File Type
.asmdot		Assembly
.drwdot		Drawing
.prtdot		Part

Organizing Templates in 3DEXPERIENCE

SOLIDWORKS templates saved to 3DEXPERIENCE have the following characteristics:

• 3DEXPERIENCE object type = XCADTemplate, governed by the Engineering Resource Classic collaborative policy.

• The

  Create Template

  command only includes Private and Released maturity state options. However, the policy has more states, and you can promote or demote to any other states. In the Platform Management dashboard, the maturity graph for templates is defined in –

Collaborative Spaces Configuration Center > Maturity Graph > Engineering Resource

• Are indexed and searchable in 3DSearch.

• You can delete them using the Collaborative Lifecycle or Bookmark Editor app. Administrative privileges are required to delete templates in the Frozen, Released and Obsolete states.

Downloading Templates From 3DEXPERIENCE to a Computer

After establishing a connection to the 3DEXPERIENCE platform, SOLIDWORKS automatically downloads missing or outdated SOLIDWORKS templates from the collaborative spaces that you have access to, to your local machine. This means that, the app -

• Downloads the templates that exist on 3DEXPERIENCE but not on your local machine.

• Removes the Obsolete templates from your local machine.

• Replaces previously downloaded outdated templates with the latest ones – within the same revision.

• For a template with multiple revisions on 3DEXPERIENCE, downloads the latest revision if you make the older revisions Obsolete.

SOLIDWORKS downloads the templates to the following location on your machine:
%LOCALAPPDATA%\DassaultSystemes\CATTemp\ENOUSWC\Resources\[tenant ID]\Templates\3DEXPERIENCE.

For example, a template ‘PartTemplate-mm.PRTDOT’ saved to 3DEXPERIENCE is downloaded as -
C:\Users\abc\AppData\Local\DassaultSystemes\CATTemp\ENOUSWC\Resources\R1234567890123\Templates\3DEXPERIENCE\ PartTemplate-mm .PRTDOT

Note: Templates in the Obsolete state are not downloaded.

Revising Templates

You can create new revisions of templates that are already saved to 3DEXPERIENCE. However, this is not recommended unless absolutely necessary. This is because multiple revisions of the same template can cause confusions for other users. And, unless you make the older revisions Obsolete, the latest revision will not be locally available in subsequent SOLIDWORKS sessions.

Instead, better alternatives are –

• Modify and save an existing template within the current revision.

• Save a modified template as a new template.

A new revision of a template will have the following characteristics:

• Maturity state will be In Work.

• The latest revision of the template will be locally available, as per section 5), only after you make the previous revisions Obsolete.

We hope that you find this document informational and useful and request that you leave a brief feedback about the topics that you want us to cover in the next revision of this document. Click here for a complete list of SolidPractices documents available from DS SOLIDWORKS Corp.