Solidworks PDM - smart document naming

[cjkelly83]

The company I work for was recently purchased by a larger company and as part of the takeover we are moving to using Solidworks instead of Inventor and we are also moving to using Solidworks PDM for all document management.

The company I work for is effectively an oil and gas / renewables offshore contractor. We run projects for external clients as well as performing internal R&D projects.

Our existing document numbering system has the following format:

123456-ENG-CAL-0001

123456 is the project or asset number. ENG is teh department identifier, and CAL is the document type identifier, and the last four digits is just a sequential number for each similar type of document as an example see below:

123456-PRJ-PRO-0001
123456-PRJ-RPT-0001
123456-ENG-DET-0001
123456-ENG-DET-0002
123456-ENG-DET-0003
123456-QSE-RPT-0001
654321-QSE-RPT-0001

Currently the company that has bought us just uses a large single list for all documents regardless of what project, asset or type of document it is, i.e. 801342578 could be a drawing and 801342579 could be a report.

We would like to use our existing numbering system and so far have established a workflow that allows the project/dept/type to be selected from drop down list but we are stumped for the 4 digit number.

We have a choice, enter the last 4 digits manually and control this via an independent MDR, or use a single sequential list for the last 4 digits for all document types.

The later of which would look like this:

123456-PRJ-PRO-0001
123456-PRJ-RPT-0002
123456-ENG-DET-0003
123456-ENG-DET-0004
123456-ENG-DET-0005
123456-QSE-RPT-0006
654321-QSE-RPT-0007


Is there any way in PDM that we can generate document numbers so that it automatically assigns the last 4 digits in a filtered manner, or are we stuck doing it manually. i.e. when we create a document with prefix 123456-ENG-CAL, can PDM perform a lookup based on project, dept, type and determine if what the next number should be?

 

[fifiririloulou]

You could do that with an add-in

http://help.solidworks.com/2017/english/api/epdmapi/vbserno.htm

 

[SBaugh]

That should be a problem if you are using the SolidWorks Pro version. I am pretty sure sequential numbering is part that bundle. No add-in should be needed. However, depending on how you need to use it, you might require some API coding. Talk to your VAR that is going to be the fastest way to get these answers answered because they would be helping you with the setup of PDM.

Scott Baugh, CSWP
CAD Systems Manager
Evapar

http://www.evapar.com

"If it's not broke, Don't fix it!"

faq731-376

 

[GRF]

You can definitely create a sequential number generator with PDM PRO. However, if you want it to start over at 0001 at some point you would have to do that manually. I am not sure if you want it to just continue to count from 0001-9999 or if you and it to count 0001-9999 for each prefix ahead of it.
Create a serial number generator (in the admin tool, right click on serial numbers. New Serial number and configure it use a format strip of counter value with 4 places, ad put 1 as the next value.
Then in your template for generating the file add the counter to the end of the file name string.

To get it to create a separate counter for each prefix is more difficult. I have not set one of these up but this is how my very novice admin skills would suggest. Make a whole bunch of serial number generators for each prefix and then have a separate field on the data card that uses logic to determine if it is active and assign a variable to it. Then call out that variable in the file name string. I am sure someone else could probably write some code that would look the prefix up in the database and then grab the next number but I have no idea how to do that.

 

[cjkelly83]

Hi GRF,

sorry for the delayed reply.

The latter of the two is what I am looking for. I am looking for a separate serial number for each prefix. I'm not actually working on the system myself but I will pass your suggestion on to the admin girl who is doing it to see if she can do something like that.