ST 9 Data Management

Transcription

1 ST 9 Data Management This Tech Tip looks at the new Data Management Tab in Solid Edge ST 9 and how you can use it to build some control over you file naming, searching and access to files. Solid Edge ST9 introduced a new toolbar to the ribbon called Data Management that makes a lot of the old features more accessible and streamlined, while adding in new functionality to enhance the workflow. The Revision Manager tool has also had an overhaul and is now called Design Manager. Fast Search The built in Data Management has a new search functionality that is versatile and fast in finding design data. This functionality is made available through the Windows Search Service which uses indexing to extract content from files and constructs an indexed catalog to facilitate efficient and rapid searching. See the following article to help through the process of setting up the indexing: Search/ba-p/ The built in Data Management directly integrates this windows indexing functionality into Solid Edge so users can index folders that house their design content. The indexing can be set up from within Solid Edge, using Solid Edge options. Select Fast Property Search, from the left pane. As you will see from the image, you can either choose to set an index on a local drive, or, if you use a network folder, check the final option and have you administrator set up the indexing using the Fast Search Configuration utility. 1

2 To index your own folders, click the Set Locations button and select modify. This allows you to add/remove folders for indexing. Note that folders will remain indexed and updated when additional files are added/removed to the folders. Selecting OK will start the indexing process. The advanced option will allow you to rebuild the index, but the only time you would need to rebuild your index is if you add new custom properties and will allow the custom property to be shown in Windows Explorer. A search can be performed from within the Solid Edge Assembly environment by selecting the search icon on the right of the Parts Library tab. Start by specifying the folder to look in, select from a list of properties to filter the search and add keywords in the criteria. The searches can also be saved for quick retrieval at a later date by typing in a name to save the search by and click the Save button. Search can also be used in windows explorer by navigating to the folder and entering a search criteria in the search bar and this can search by any file property. There are a few additional ways to search for files within windows explorer: In the windows explorer search bar you can type different mnemonics for quick results related to Solid Edge Properties For example, the mnemonic SEDocnum: allows you to filter search results based on the document number and simply type the search criteria after the mnemonic When you are browsing for a file, the folder to search will be coloured, where Green shows that the folder has been indexed for quick search and Red shows that the folder has not yet been indexed for fast search. 2

3 Where Used Up until ST9, you have only ever been able to run a Where Used query from within Revision Manager, but now this functionality has been added directly into Solid Edge. It can either be run from the Data Management ribbon or by right mouse clicking on a part in the assembly pathfinder and selecting Where Used from the More item in the drop down list. Similar to the Search, select the top level folder you wish to search from and click Next. Again, results will be quicker if the folders to search are indexed. The results will be displayed in a list, along with its properties. Right clicking on the file in the results list will offer the option of opening the file directly. Save As / Revise Some of the terminology for creating new revisions in ST 9 has changed, starting with Revision Manager now being called Design Manager. In the old Revision Manager, you would need to Set action to Copy and then Increment Name to create a new revision of a file. This is now all achieved with the single Revise Command. To allow for some flexibility in how you use file naming in Solid Edge, some new options have been added in Solid Edge Options, with the File Management section. The first section here relates to the File Naming rules you wish to employ. When you use Automatically append revision ID Solid Edge will append the chosen Revision ID of the file to the end of the file name. This is what would have happened in earlier version when you used the Increment Name option. You will notice that the File Name box is laid out slightly differently and this option will have the File Name box pre-highlighted for quick editing and entering the new File name will populate the Document Number field. Note that the Document Number and File name can be a different value! The second option is to Use Document Number and Revision ID. In this case the File Name field cannot be edited and the Document Number box is pre-highlighted, where any changes automatically update the File name with the Revision ID appended to the File name. Selecting Enforce Unique Document Numbers checks to ensure a document number is not duplicated (this again uses the Windows indexing). The final option of None removes all file naming rules, where the file name and Document Number do not drive each other, the Revision can be appended or removed, based on user input and changing the Revision ID does not update the File name. The Reset Document Number for new documents option clears the Document Number field when performing a Save As/Revise and is beneficial in that you do not overwrite an existing value. When performing a Revise on a Solid Edge part or assembly document, the draft file will automatically revise as well. 3

4 When you perform a Revise, the revise dialog opens and, because of our file naming rules, our file revision automatically moves to Revision B (or 2 if you use a numeric revision number) and the revision is automatically appended to the File Name. The new revision is then placed in the assembly and you can confirm the draft was also revised by doing a quick search in Windows Explorer or using Where Used functionality. When performing a revision in Design Manager, the draft file is automatically added to the revision as well and the revision ID is automatically changed from A to B on both the part and the related draft file. Unique Document Numbering If you wish to enforce a more robust data management regime, unique document numbers are needed. ST 9 has introduced a Number Generator tool, which you can use to set your part numbering scheme and ensure that only unique document numbers are used. This will help to mitigate duplicate document numbers and ensure a consistent numbering scheme through your organisation. The Number Generator tool can be found in C:\Program Files\Solid Edge ST9\Custom\NumberGenerator and can also be added to your quick access toolbar for easy access. The source code is provided, so it may be possible to enhance this further so that it could be used in place of the normal New File Dialog, for example. Using this tool, you can set a starting number using the DesignmanagerNumberGenerator.dat file. In this case, the numbering scheme is 4 digits and starts with 0001 and increments by 1 each time a new number is generated. The NumberGenerator.ini file defines the path of the NumberGenerator.dat file, which will be located on a users local machine for single user use or located on a mapped network drive for use by multiple users. A prefix can be set if desired. When you create a new part, simply click New No. and a unique part number is generated, which is automatically copied to the clipboard and can then be simply pasted into the document number field in the new part dialog box. Life Cycle Management The tools for life cycle management have always been available in Solid Edge, but ST9 brings its functionality more to the fore. There are 6 possible stages of the available life cycle and the 3 default ones are: Available In Work Released Any users can work with this document and can also change its status The document is being worked by another user. Only the user who set the status to In Work can change it Changes cannot be made to a released document; users can, however, make a revision of the document and work with that 4

5 You can choose additional status choices to be shown in Design Manager and Property Manager. In Solid Edge options, you can add In Review, Obsolete and Baselined. The status of Available, In Work and Released are on by default and cannot be removed. These are key to life cycle management and allow users to fully control their files. In Design Manager, there are 2 ways of setting the status of a file. You can either Select SE Status from the drop-down or set the status directly from File Properties. If you wish to see the status of the files while in an assembly, use the first icon on the Data Management tab to toggle on and off the display of the file status. By default, a file will become write-locked to other users when you open the file, but if you want to ensure no-one else can change it once you close it, then you will need to change its status to In-Work. This can either be done in the file properties directly or by using the Check Out button on the Data Management tab. A green text colour in the pathfinder gives a quick reference that you have the file checked out, whereas an orange colour means that another user has the file checked out. Pathfinder shows who that user is explicitly. When you have completed your work, use the Check-In button or change the file status in File Properties to Available. The final stage of a part is for it to be Released and ready for manufacture. Once a file has been released it will become permanently write-locked and the only way to edit the file is to create a new revision. This Tech tip should hopefully give you all the information on how to get started on Built-In Data Management. Built in Data Management provides some good tools for managing your Solid Edge files, but does not help you manage other documents that are used on typical projects, such as Word or Excel documents, record reasons why changes are made or control change with change orders. If you also need greater visibility of all this data to the non-cad users, then consider taking the next step to a full Product Data Management system such as Teamcenter Rapid Start. 5