How to tell when modifications were made to Solidworks Drawings 1

[Scott4tg]

I work in a company that has several seats of SW 2007. We all have access to the same files on a server. Is there a way to tell when a drawings has been modified and who modified it?? I think it is in the set up of templates but can't find it.

Any help would be appreciated.

 

[gp13]

When setting up your drawing template, insert a note and under text format click "Link to Property". From here you can specify which properties you want to link to. You want "SW-Last Saved By" and "SW-Last Saved Date". "Current Document" will show the properties for the drawing and "Model in view specified in sheet properties" will show the properties of the file you insert into the drawing.

 

[Cheeseburger]

Scott ... before you go down the path of trying to create a manual PDM process ... have your company invest in PDM software.

There is no sure fire way to manually track when a drawing was updated, who did the update, etc. If you're thinking about trying to manually track changes to drawings though the MS Windows Explorer ... please don't do it.

Having worked with both a Manual tracking method and also a Product Data Management software (PDMWorks ... which is available if you purchased SolidWorks Office Professional) ... I can tell you from experience that the PDM software is by far the only way to go.

With a PDM software the system can track who did what, when and why automatically.

http://www.tipmaster.com/includes/refinfo.cfm?w=450&h=450'

But this is just my opinion.

Brian Mazejka, CSWP
Documentation Control Manager
Microline Pentax, Inc.

 

[sldwkmin]

Amen, Thank you Cheeseburger! I wish we could print this on the front of every SolidWorks disk set. I've seen so many companies skip the PDM portion of an implementation due to "cost" and what they cost themselves in lost productivity is far more than the PDM investment would have been!

Cole M
CSWP, CSWST, CSWI, CPDM
HP XW4300, 3.4g proc, 2.5g RAM, ATI Fire GL 3100
Dell M90, Core 2 Duo, 2g RAM, Nvidia Quadra FX2500M
Equus (custom), P4, 3.4g proc, 3g RAM, Nvidia Quadro FX3400

 

[Bob45801]

PDMworks question:
Our assemblies use common components. If someone edits one of those components, many assemblies are affected. Does PDMworks offer a way to see what assemblies are affected, or better still, flag those assemblies somehow or provide a list of them that we can use to rev all the affected drawings??

 

[rporter]

PDMworks has a where used listing it will tell you what it was used on and where it is located.

 

[JMirisola]

Bob45801,
If it's a common component, does it go through an ECR/
ECO process? If so, that's when you'd need to know what assemblies the change will affect. Changing the whatchyamacallit by be good for assembly A, but could totally hose up assembly B. One would think you'd have a BOM program (AS/400, MAS90) that would be better suited to a "where used" prior to making a change.

Jeff Mirisola, CSWP
Certified DriveWorks AE

http://designsmarter.typepad.com/jeffs_blog

Dell M90, Core2 Duo
4GB RAM
Nvidia 3500M