DB Works

Stew

Check with Chris MacCormick at

Matt

if you know scripting, vb & sql it will be a piece of cake. otherwise ... fork up some more money to hire DBW or someone to help with customizing.

there's so much flexibility that doing even the simplest tweek requires the aforementioned knowledge. this annoys me to some degree. ok, i'll confess, it annoys me a lot.

we're just now getting up and running with zero customization. once our feet are wet we will start to customize.

we also had a few issues importing from pdmw.

- out memory errors (sw issue) when registering large projects. solution: break large projects into smaller ones.

- mapping id field to p/n or number property. solution: do not map anything to the id field, the filename will auto default instead (wish we had known this before hand).

- generic attachments did not reattach. solution: DBWorks has a new .dll that corrects this (unfortunately this didn't get resolved until i was down to my last project conversion).

we had about 75 projects with approximately 12,000 files. it took about

2007 has some enhanced capabilities (speed) for pdmw conversions. but i decided to forgo using it (beta).

kenneth

dbWorks is a pretty decent package. It is highly customizable so your company must pay a lot of attention as to how they customize it for you. Scripting, SQL and a very good understanding of what you actually do with files are what are required to implement successfully. You must also plan on spending time to get files in order. Garbage in, garbage out.

Pay attention during training. Use it right away. You will get to know one screen very well.

TOP

Out of interest, what is a ball park figure for the cost per seat of DBWorks (and its maintenance cost)?

Regards, John H

Ballpart, the base version is well under $1,000 and the Enterprise version is over $1,300 IIRC. There can be adders also, but it is pretty well equipped by itself. Adders come in for special auto part numbering and ERP integration, etc.

TOP

FYI:

AutoNumber Generator (DBTools) is free from Integrated Partner Solutions while the ERP add-in will cost you. I've noticed 2007 now includes the PDMWorks converter which as the name implies will convert the PDMWorks file based application to the DBWorks database application. If you have the premium version of SW which includes PDMWorks you could be entitled to a 25% discount on DBWorks Enterprise Seats.

Len K. Mar, P.Eng. President E-data Solutions

Here is a little trick you can try in dbWorks:

1. In an assembly create a new part using dbWorks insert part. In the part make two or more bodies.
2. Save the part using dbWorks save (of course the configuration name of the part will be the same as the filename)
3. Open the part (A).
4. Insert Feature Split
5. Save all bodies (dbWorks will autonumber them as new parts)
6. Close the split feature
7. RMB the split feature and create an assembly. Give it the same name as part (A) if you want.

dbWorks will now track all the parts made from the original inserted part, will track the assembly split feature made from that part and will track the inserted part in the assembly. It will also autonumber all the parts SW made. See if your garden variety PDM can do that.

TOP

i'm sure you know this and along those same lines, parts with in-context features can be be tracked just like mirrored parts.

did you do that with link mode off or on?

I believe we have link mode on. Haven;t been in the config file lately.

TOP

correction, i meant track derived parts option. i'm guessing you have this on.

Yup, it is on. Just checked.