I am working on setting up standard solidworks folder (file server) that is to be used in all our engineering projects. That is, projects have their own file server, and each project SW model refers to files in standards folder plus custom models built on top of standard.
Do you have experience in such setup? I appreciate if you can help me identify probelms/issues that I should be aware of: e.g. multiple references from different projects (no idea what problems that would create), versioning, etc.
We do not have PDM (not even budgeted for next three years), hence I am looking for cost-effective practices for:
Making sure that standard models do not get edited (they should be frozen)
From each project trace & extract list of standards used
I have all of my standard parts in their own folder on the server. My CAD stations have a mapped drive to this folder using the same drive letter. The sub-folders under this folder needs to be "very well thought out" so that they will never need to be re-arranged. Having to re-arrange in the future would cause ALL assemblies to not be able to find them. The assemblies could be re-directed to the new file locations, but that would be a MAJOR pain.
All standard parts are set to "Read Only" to prevent anyone from editing them. I am the "master of standard parts" around here. No one else is allowed to touch them. I keep a simple excel log of the standard parts including when they were last saved and what was done to them (adding configs, adding mate references, changing properties, etc.). Also, you should "check" the setting under System Options>External References>Don't prompt to save read-only referenced documents.
All of my projects are under a totally separate main folder with, here again, a mapped drive letter to it. There are sub-folders under this folder for each project.
I even have another main folder that is a simple storage area for commonly used off-the-shelf parts/components that get modified for each specific project. Since these parts/components will end up being custom for each project, I simply copy whichever part/component I need to the project folder and work on it from there.
I do not have any problems with multiple seats running SW. However, typically there is only one designer per project here also. That may be something to think about. The only thing that really gets shared during design stages are the standard parts. Hopefully, describing the way I have my files setup will be beneficial to you somehow.
I assume you mean list standard parts used in each project. If so, you could use the Find Reference tool or use SW Explorer for this.
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