What’s new in EnterprisePDM 2015: Top 5

EPDM 2015 is another feature rich release which focuses on delivering benefits in the areas of "Better Data Manipulation and Visualisation", "Improved User Experience" and "System Performance". From within the long list of enhancements I have chosen my top 5 to explore in a little more detail.  

1: ADMINISTRATION - SolidNetwork License Manager: SOLIDWORKS Enterprise PDM 2015 now uses the SolidNetWork License (SNL) Manager to manage licenses. This replaces the License File used in previous releases.  Licensing with the SNL Manager provides control and visibility of license usage and lets you use the same SNL Manager to manage Enterprise PDM license as other SOLIDWORKS products. Administrators can check the SNL Manager to see available licenses and allow or restrict user access to the vault. Administrators can reserve or refuse certain license types using the FlexNet options file. If you are not currently using an SNL Manager for SOLIDWORKS then the SNL manager will need to be installed when you upgrade your EPDM to 2015. You will be prompted to enter your 24 digit Serial Number when running the License set up and as most Customers will have been given a 16 digit serial number when EPDM was purchased we advise that you call ourselves (or your VAR if not a Solid Solutions Customer) to get the full Serial Number.  Once installed you will need to ‘Activate’ the License Manager and ‘attach’ it within the License Node of the EPDM Administration Tool. Activating SOLIDWORKS Enterprise PDM licenses is similar to activating a SOLIDWORKS SNL license. For more information on activating and setting up the SolidNetWork License Manager, refer to SOLIDWORKS Customer Portal or SOLIDWORKS Enterprise PDM Administration Tool Help. 

2: USER INTERFACE - Move Tree: Similar to Copy Tree and using the same completely redesigned interface for 2015, the Move Tree command lets you move partial, or entire, file and folder structures, including related drawings, to another folder or to multiple folders inside the Vault.

To support the typical Customer Workflow of moving a concept (with no Part Numbers) into a ‘Production’ workflow, as well as ‘Moving’ the selected files it is also possible to use the Transform tools previously available when using Copy Tree, to modify the file names, including the option to replace with a Serial number assigned when the ‘Regenerate serial number in cards’ option is also used.

To further enhance / support this process there is also a new User / Group Permission that is required in order to be able to execute the command successfully: The permissions required to move a file or folder are therefore:

• Read file contents: For the source and destination folders
• Move Folder: For the folder(s) to be moved
• Add or Rename Folder: For the destination folder
• Move File: For files to be moved

 NB: Move and Delete (File and Folder) are now separate permissions. 

3: USER INTERFACE - Version Column in Windows Explorer: Users can now instantly see the Cache status of a folder they are browsing where previously this information was only displayed on the version preview tab for a selected file. 

The version number column displays the cached version vs. the latest version along with the new Quick Info Icons. Clicking the Column Header means that the file list can be sorted to group all the files with the same status, like latest or no local file.

4: ADMINISTRATION - Workflow Data Mapping. Parallel Workflow transitions was a great recent enhancement, however it was limited in the way that the names of the users executing the Transition and their ‘comments’ (positive or negative) could be recorded. In fact, in previous releases only the information from the last approval was captured on the DataCard. With EPDM 2015 when a ‘role’ meets the required approvals, all required user data like full name or initials and the ‘transition’ comment can be captured and written to the DataCard as required.  If companies always want the same values capture regardless of the approver there is a convenient override option.

Automatic Workflow Transitions have also been enhanced in 2015 with the ability to define a transition ‘Comment’ as part of that Transition that will appear in the File’s History.

5: System and Performance Improvements: With each release SOLIDWORKS seeks to improve overall performance of EPDM and this is no different. Significant improvement have been made in reducing the amount of SQL traffic between the client and server for commonly used operations.  Folder browsing, logging in and launch integrated search have also become more efficient.

Windows Explorer performance (Folder Browsing / Login / Search)

• 30% Reduction in Database calls
• 30% Reduction in response times in high latency environments

SOLIDWORKS Add-in performance

• No degradation of file open times for non-vaulted files
• Optimized for WAN and replicated environments

SQL Server 2014 is now shipping with EPDM 2015

• Support has been discontinued for SQL 2005 and SQL 2008
• Support continues for SQL 2008 R2 and SQL 2010

Please get in touch if you have any questions or comments and thank you for stopping by.

by Wayne Marshall

Customer Support Manager