- [Instructor] Another great part
of the SOLIDWORKS PDM package
is the ability to create custom templates.
Now typically when we think of SOLIDWORKS templates,
we think of part, assembly, and drawing file templates.
With SOLIDWORKS PDM, we also have the ability to create
feature-specific templates,
such as custom folder structures.
This can be extremely useful
when trying to maintain order
inside of your vaults
and give users the ability to navigate
through multiple projects without confusion.
Let's jump into the SOLIDWORKS PDM administration tool
and see how this can be done.
Now I've already gone ahead and created
a custom template for us to look at.
So I've logged into my administration tool,
double click on the vault, log in.
Go down to templates.
And you can see if we expand here,
I've already got one called project one.
So I'm going to double-click through that.
Now these are the same steps that you take
when you create a new template.
You just simply right-click on the templates
and create new template.
We're just already going to have a lot of the info filled in,
so we can see how it's done correctly.
So you'll notice the first option is the menu string.
This is just the title of our template.
When we right-click
in the SOLIDWORKS PDM view in Windows Explorer,
this is what's going to show up and identify this template.
If we click next,
we can now see
how the permissions are handled with this template.
With this template
we want to use the permissions
from the logged in user.
This is typically what you're going to do
for most of your templates,
unless you have some specific permissions structure set up
and you want to give more or less access
to users using these templates.
I'll go ahead and click next.
For this template, we are not going to need a template card.
It's a pretty simple template
and it's not going to be required.
So we can just click next through here.
Here you can see where we created
the actual folder structure.
So now this all begins by clicking on the current folder
and adding a normal folder, a new root folder in it.
And you can see here,
we've added one in and named it projects.
I'm going to go ahead and delete the one that I've added there.
And then below that,
we add vault view sub folders.
So you can see here,
I've added a folder called project name
and then below that
I've added a folder called documents.
It contains folders called client supplied info
and spec sheets.
And we also have a folder for images.
Now let's say that we want to add a new folder in here.
We just click on the top level we want to include.
Click new folder.
And here we can add in a title.
I'm going to put concept work.
And it's that easy to create the structure.
Now one thing that we've added here
is the ability to create a custom project name
using the template.
So what this is going to do
is when we create the new folder structure template
inside of the vault,
it's going to prompt us for a name of the project.
So we've added the value
by putting it between the two percentage signs here.
Let's see how we created that variable.
You click on template variables.
And because we've already created it, it's here.
But if not, we would've created new
and it would just pop up.
You can see here, we've put the name of the variable.
The type, so we're going to prompt the user.
And then we're going to prompt to show the user
we're going to enter the project info.
So the prompt is going to come up with a window
and say enter the project info
and then have an option below to enter it.
So we're going to go ahead and click okay.
Go through to next step
now that we're done with our folder structure.
We've given this a cvs file extension,
which is the custom vault file extension.
So this way,
there's not any confusion when people see the icon.
Pretty simple.
You can do this
for most of your PDM related activities and templates.
Go ahead and click next.
And here we decide who gets access
to this specific template.
So we can go by groups and click on all users
or we can set permissions for specific users
over here in our user list.
Now that we're done, we click okay.
I'm going to close our administration tool.
Go over to Windows Explorer.
Jump into our vault, which we're already signed in.
I'm going to right-click in the white space over here.
You'll notice if you try to right-click
anywhere in the slightly gray space,
you're going to get different options.
So I typically try to go over into the white space
or well below the file structures.
So I right-click, go down to new.
And here you can see we've added in project one.
We click on that.
The dialog box comes up asking us to enter the project info.
We're going to call this test.
Go ahead and click okay.
And you can see we've created a projects folder on top.
Inside of that we've got our test folder.
And this has the cad concept work
documents and images folders we created.
And the sub folders and documents
for our client supplied info and spec sheets.
So you can see this tool is pretty powerful.
You can create file structures
as large or as small as you want.
And you can prompt the users to add more info,
if there's multiple levels
that require project names or project information,
for example.
You just have to use that variable tool
and set it up very carefully.
But a very great tool.
Very easy to create custom folder structures.