xLM Solutions Announces a new Solution to Resolve missing SolidWorks reference in

3DEXPERIENCE 

By Marc Young, Managing Partner, xLM Solutions

In many 3DEXPERIENCE implementations involving SolidWorks integration, we have to work with data that has been already migrated. And with any migration, the migrated data is only as good as the source data being migrated and if such data has missing links between models and drawings, assemblies and sub-assemblies or parts, these links will also be broken or missing in 3DEXPERIENCE. Now this issue is more applicable when migrating from a legacy PDM/PLM that a file structure (as with a file structure we have tools to analyses the links and fix them pre-migration—we can possibly address that in a separate blog.) In the case of missing links of SolidWorks file in 3DEXPERIENCE, whether due to migration or other reasons, we are excited to announce a new solution that addresses this problem. The new SolidWorks Add-in will check for any missing references within 3DEXPERIENCEand automatically replace them when a SolidWorks file is opened in 3DEXPERIENCE SolidWorks Integration.

How does it work?

Upon opening a SolidWorks file with missing references, the add-in will search 3DEXPERIENCE for a file of same type and name in its latest revision and replace it in the local SolidWorks session as well as build the necessary 3DEXPERIENCE links on check in. The add-in can log the replaced missing referenced files and optionally prompt the user with a message on the screen as well. In the case of large assemblies with multiple levels, when lower level references are broken, the designer/engineer does not to go bottom up to each sub-assembly and fix all missing references bottom up, it is kind of a quick fix.

The tool started from a conversation we had with a few customers who shared that their legacy PLM systems had such functionality. Furthermore, they knew that they had missing and broken links of the SolidWorks data within 3DEXPERIENCE. For their designers/engineers to manually fix such problematic assemblies would be extremely time-consuming. The add-in now eliminates the manual work and takes what could be an hour plus of time for a person to fix, down to seconds.

The add-in is easy to deploy as any other SolidWorks add-in. It also requires the registration of a single JPO in 3DEXPERIENCE. We have customers using it with SW 2014 and are in the process of validating it in 2015/6 as well.

Does this add-in help in your situation? Is there any other functionality that you’d like to see in this solution? We’d love to hear from you.