Solid Edge Tips CAD Central Ltd Rev. 28/11/2016

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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:

http://community.plm.automation.siemens.com/t5/Solid-Edge-Blog/Getting-Over-Obstacles-to-Solid-Edge-Fast-

Search/ba-p/368416

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.

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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.

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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.

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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 Any users can work with this document and can also change its status

In Work The document is being worked by another user. Only the user who set the status to ‘In Work’ can

change it

Released Changes cannot be made to a released document; users can, however, make a revision of the

document and work with that

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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.