DriveWorks Pro 24

How To: Implementation Guide (KB12121022)

Setting up

Setting up a DriveWorks implementation requires the DriveWorks Pro Administrator module and will always involve the following:

• Creating the User Forms that will be used to capture the requirements of each product that will be automated.

  See Form Design

• Applying rules for the display of data and behavior of the Controls on the User Forms.
• Image creation/editing to display images on user forms and documents.

Depending on the output requirement the set up could also involve:

• Capturing and applying rules to 3D CAD models and 2D drawings that will be used as templates for the CAD output.

  See SOLIDWORKS

• Capturing and applying rules to documents that will be used as templates for any documentation outputs.

  See Documents

• Creating photo-realistic, web optimized 3D Documents for displaying and configuring on a user form.
• Connecting to internal company systems and databases to extract or write data to.

  See Info: Using External Data In DriveWorks

Depending on how the implementation is to be run, the set up could also involve

• Setting up and configuring DriveWorks Pro Server to allow other users to connect to the implementation.
• Setting up and configuring DriveWorks Live to allow the implementation to be accessed on any device in a web browser.

Running

Running a DriveWorks implementation is using the User Forms to capture the customer requirements of the product.

Once the user forms have been used in this way the data entered is referred to as a Specification

Running a DriveWorks implementation can be done by the following methods:

• From DriveWorks Administrator

  Pro's	Con's
  Allows an implementation to be tested before fully distributing Identifies usability of the implementation	Slows further development of the implementation if the Administrator is producing all of the specifications. Potentially exposes non technical users to the rules and workings of the implementation, if users are given access to specify in this way.

• From DriveWorks User

  Pro's	Con's
  Provides a secure means of processing as much data as possible, without an internet connection, to create the required outputs.	Only accessible internally (not to distributors or customers)

• From a web browser via DriveWorks Live

  Pro's	Con's
  Provides a secure means of processing as much data as possible, with an internet connection. Potentially allows distributors and customers access to create their own specifications.

Generating Outputs

Generating the outputs that are required from a specification can be done by the following methods:

• From DriveWorks Administrator

  Pro's	Con's
  Allows an implementation to be tested before fully distributing.	Prevents other manual tasks from being done on the machine while the outputs are generated

• From DriveWorks User

  Pro's	Con's
  Allows individual users to view the data being generated.	Prevents other manual tasks from being done on the machine while the outputs are generated Requires the appropriate software required to generate the outputs to be installed on each machine.

• Remotely from an unattended machine using DriveWorks Autopilot

  Pro's	Con's
  Frees other (attended) machines from generating outputs. Multi-Autopilot installations can be employed to generate specific output types. Multi-Autopilot installations can be employed to load balance CAD data generation.

  Additionally live 3D or 2D CAD data can be fed back to an internet browser, when a specification is made through DriveWorks Live, by using DriveWorks 3D Preview.

Project Champion

Project Champion or Team Leader is ideally someone with:

• a good technical understanding of the products being automated
• SOLIDWORKS proficient (for 3D/2D output)
• understanding of Microsoft Office applications (for document outputs)

Co-worker(s)

Co-worker(s) can contribute with specific skills, for example:

• SOLIDWORKS Engineer(s)
• UI Design

Sales Engineers

Sales personnel can supply:

• Costing data
• Sales document formats
• UI feedback

IT Technician

IT can play a crucial role in providing:

• Suitable location to be the file server
• Access to internal data
• Access to other business systems
• Any machines required to serve network licenses, shared groups (through DriveWorks Pro Server)
• Web server access if DriveWorks Live is adopted

Sales & Marketing

When the implementation is delivered to customers via the internet and corporate identity is to be maintained, marketing personnel can advise with:

• Branding
• Outgoing communications
• External visibility of the implementation

DriveWorks Pro Essentials

This training covers everything customers need to know to start automating SOLIDWORKS parts, assemblies, and drawings with DriveWorks Administrator.

DriveWorks CPQ Sales Portal Administration

This training covers the administration of the DriveWorks CPQ Sales Portal, including installation, licensing, user management, business objects, products, workflows, permissions, and data integration.

DriveWorks Pro Sales Configurator

This training covers the fundamentals of building a front-end sales configurator tool. It does not include any design automation concepts.

DriveWorks Pro Advanced

This training builds on the DriveWorks Pro Essentials training, covering more advanced techniques and features within DriveWorks Administrator, and introducing DriveWorks Autopilot

DriveWorks Form Design

This training covers everything customers need to design user-friendly DriveWorks forms, including UX best practices, responsive design, guided selling, project standards, custom navigation, Specification Macros, and form testing and validation.

1. Fully Automate One Product

Take one product and follow it all the way through. Automating not just CAD data, but integrating with other systems, automating documents and data export, as well as rolling it out onto the web.

Then do exactly the same thing for any other products in the company.

2. Best Return

Automate the areas where the bigger return is to be made. This could be producing CAD data for all products, or documentation for sales. Don't worry about integration to external systems or general document generation or data export.

Once all the key areas are automated, then start looking at other areas that can be automated and distribution throughout the company or even to the web.

1. Decide on the product to be automated.

Selection of the first product to automate is critical.

Don't select the simplest product, or the most complex, but do take into account the most time consuming at the current time (without automation) while factoring in how many of these products are produced. In short, which product do you spend most time producing.

When automating CAD models, next ask yourself if it is worth automating a subset of models first. This is particularly relevant for large and often very complex assemblies and may not be necessary for smaller, easier to manage assemblies.

If one particular area, of the selected product, currently takes a larger portion of time to design then that may be a good starting point.

Now is the time to create a New Group. The name or location for the group is not critical, it can always be changed. We recommend creating an Individual Group to start with. The article Info: Individual And Shared Groups lists the differences between the two types of Groups.

Once a group has been created a New Project can be created to start building the user forms. The New Project Wizard also allows data created with DriveWorksXpress or DriveWorks Solo to be imported into DriveWorks Pro.

2. Decide what information and input fields are required on the user forms.

Target Audience

Who will be using the forms to specify the product?

Identifying an initial target type will determine how much information is required on the user forms. For example specifying your product to produce sales outputs may require less information than when generating detailed manufacturing outputs. This can adapt as more target types are introduced.

Creating the User Forms

Before automating the design of this first product, we recommend taking time to create the user interface, even before the models are captured in DriveWorks.

Creating a user interface can help define the assembly structure of your models for scalability and flexibility going forward. It will also help with defining the information required on any documentation and structuring any data that is to be used.

Don't spend too long at this stage on making the user forms look nice, or setting up thorough form warnings as these can be addressed later. Also controls can be cut and pasted onto additional forms at any point, so form navigation is not very important at this stage (unless there are an exceptional large amount of form controls from the outset).

In creating the user forms, it may be necessary to link to data from other systems (such as bringing in Customer Information from a back-end database). Don't get too carried away with this at this stage as again, these links can be made at a later stage. For now just create a simple table that will replicate any database data.

Project Structure

Creating the user forms will also help define the project structure within DriveWorks.

The project structure will develop with the implementation, so do not be overly concerned with this for now but the project structure will dictate:

• If all products will be specified through a single project
• If separate projects are required for each product
• If products are required to be specified as part of a contract

3. Decide what outputs are required

Once the User forms have been created, the next step is to capture the master templates that will be used to automatically generate the required outputs.

The master templates could be SOLIDWORKS models that will ultimately create manufacturing or sales drawings. They could also be Microsoft Word and Excel files that become Quotes or other documents that are required.

DriveWorks will always create the native file the captured template, from here additional file types, that are required as deliverables, can also be automatically generated.

The chart below lists the most common additional file that can be produced from the native template file.

*Other additional file formats can be produced automatically.

Create the native templates

• SOLIDWORKS

  You may already have SOLIDWORKS models and drawings that can be used as templates to be automated. If so the chances are you have taken advantage of some SOLIDWORKS functionality designed to make manual manipulation of the models quicker. Be aware that these types of features do not necessarily mean things will be easier with full blown design automation. Our guide How To: SOLIDWORKS Best Practices highlights the areas to look out for.

  Additionally adding complexity to the models in the form of In-context (top down) design or equations only serves to slow down model generation and makes maintaining the implementation more difficult. We always recommend capturing the design intent firmly in DriveWorks.

  Assemblies

  If the structure of how the product is assembled is already in place capture the top level assembly.

  If the structure of how the product is assembled is not yet defined or could change then capture a sub set of components that will ultimately form part of the top level assembly. DriveWorks allows for changing top level assembly structures. More information can be found in the article How To: Maintain Rules For An Existing Model When It Becomes A Child Of A Parent Assembly

  Drawings

  Drawings are an essential part of design automation as they are invariably required to manufacture or even sell your product.

  As drawings are a by product of 3D models being produced for now just create a drawing with the required part or assembly detailed on it. Capture this to the corresponding model.

  At this point do not worry about drawing scale or if the views or dimensions overlap. Do not even worry about populating the drawing borders or including notes. This can be done later once you are confident the model on the drawing is doing what is required.

• Documents

  Again there may already exist document templates that can be used as templates in DriveWorks. If so all that will be needed is to add the tags that define what is to be driven into the document.

  If no document templates exist they are easily created in the desired Microsoft Office application or even notepad (for XML). See Documents for more information.

  As with models just concentrate on getting the driven information into the document. Formatting and adding logos can be done later.

  Where driven text is combined with non driven text, highlight the background of the driven area so you can clearly see what is being passed into the document from DriveWorks.

4. Decide what data is required or can be re-used.

What we mean here is data that already exists in databases and spreadsheets. Data that can be of use to DriveWorks, this can be anything from tolerance tables to pricing information, from product matrices to stock lists.

Spreadsheets

Spreadsheet information can be copied and pasted into DriveWorks or (with Microsoft Excel workbooks) be imported directly. Formatting of the data table is essential to make good use of the data in DriveWorks. The data can be re-copied or re-imported at any time if it has been modified or it can be edited directly in DriveWorks.

The topic Define Tables has more information on the types of tables that can be created in DriveWorks.

Databases

DriveWorks can read many types of databases, but at this stage just create a snapshot of any required database data as a simple table in DriveWorks. Particularly where the database holds large amounts of data.

Database data can usually be exported to a format that can be copied and pasted into DriveWorks.

5. Determine the rules required to automate the product.

Creating the Rules

Now is the time to create rules that will link through from the user forms to drive the models.

Rules are used throughout DriveWorks. This is not just limited to the parameters captured from the templates to be driven, but can be used on form controls to dynamically change appearance, layout and behavioral properties (see Form Design). Rules can decide which forms are shown (see Form Navigation) and even instigate a process the specification will take.

When building rules the DriveWorks Rules Builder is used. The rules builder provides rules insight to help with rule construction, links to make use of data, constants and variables created in the project and useful help and diagnostic feedback to ensure the rule is valid and equates to the result you expect.

At this point we should just be concerned with applying rules that will drive any data on the user forms and the parameters captured from the required template outputs.

Rules can be applied directly to any Captured parameter or Dynamic form control property, but if the same rule is used elsewhere it is better to create it as a variable.

Make as much use of Constants (see Define Constants) and Variables (see Define Variables) as you can, as this will give the most flexibility going forward. Do remember however to categorize your variables to make them easier to work with.

The following links provide useful information on creating rules for the more common outputs that DriveWorks can automatically generate:

• To apply rules to your Microsoft Word document templates see Document Rules: Word Document
• To apply rules to your Microsoft Excel document templates Document Rules: Excel Workbook
• To apply rules to your XML document templates Document Rules: XML Document
• To apply rules to your SOLIDWORKS model templates Model Rules Overview

The topic Common Functions lists the functions DriveWorks provides for rule building.

6. Test.

DriveWorks has extensive in-built testing and diagnostics to help verify the work you have implemented. The ultimate test will come by running sample specifications through and generating the outputs automatically, but the majority of inaccuracies can be identified during the setting up of the implementation.

The areas that can be tested effectively without generating outputs are as follows:

• User Interface - The general functioning of each individual user form and the controls on it can be tested using the Test button in the form designer.
• Data and Rules - Variables calculate in real time, as long as any form control used in any rule has a valid value.
• Output Rules - All output rules calculate in real time, as long as any form control used in any rule has a valid value.
• Model Rules - Model Insight allows you to step through every action taken by DriveWorks when generating a model.
• Specification - A specification can be thoroughly tested by using the Test Mode feature in DriveWorks Administrator. Using this feature in DriveWorks, it is now worth spending some time just checking that you have the correct rules for all outcomes.

Additionally DriveWorks produces reports post specification and post model generation. The reports appear in the Specification Explorer window along with the specification that has been made. See How To: Locate And Export DriveWorks Reports for more information on DriveWorks reports.

7. Add the detail to the project

This can be a fun exercise and will make your implementation appealing for colleagues to use and provide a greater level of automation in the outputs. Plus if you have followed the advice above, you are already benefitting from a good level of automation.

User forms - Follow these tips for enhancing the forms your target audience will use

• Ease of use - Think about how easy the forms are to use. Does the information presented flow? Can the user TAB between controls? Are there to many controls on a single user form?
• Bad Data - Don't allow invalid data to be entered. Apply form warnings (or even labels with a bold red font!) to verify data that has been typed into the control by the user. Make good use of DriveWorks Validation functions (see Validation Functions in Common Functions) to verify if the user has inadvertently entered any characters that will make subsequent rules fail.
• Captions - Do the captions on controls stand out? Controls with common properties can be multi-selected to apply fonts that stand out.
• Labels - Use labels to apply section headings when specifying a particular part of the product. Or use them to provide the user with feedback.
• Pictures - Make good use of the picture control to make the forms visually appealing. Picture controls are not only great for showing an image of what is being specified (Create JPEG images from your SOLIDWORKS models), but can be used to display company logos. Decorative borders and section lines to divide areas of interest can also be shown.
• Hide Controls - Any controls that are no longer needed consider using the visible property (set to FALSE) to hide the controls rather than delete them. Consider placing controls that hold similar information, but are opposing in display state, on top of each other to retain the users focus to the same area.

Documents - Tidy the document templates up

• Apply company logos
• Ensure the content is formatted correctly
• Remove any highlighting used to distinguish driven values

Data - Connect to other databases

• Integrating with company database (if appropriate) can now be undertaken, as you will be very familiar with ways of getting data into and out of DriveWorks. The article Info: Using External Data In DriveWorks provides more information on this.

Drawings

• Sort out overlapping views
• Set the scale
• Apply the notes
• Fix the dimensions
• Hide dangling dimensions
• By now you should have a good feel for which annotations and dimensions need controlling through DriveWorks. You should be getting to the point where you are comfortable with the output and the only reason you are opening each drawing is to tidy it up. Automating annotations and dimensions should reduce if not eliminate this need.

Names - Adopt your preferred naming conventions.

• Specification - Each specification must have a unique name. DriveWorks automatically assigns the special variable DWSpecificationID formatted to show 4 units. This name is displayed in the Name column of the specification explorer. Common alternatives are to use your companies Order or Quote Number (this information must be obtained by DriveWorks either by being entered on the user form or through a connection to a data source). See Specification Settings for more information.
• Models - DriveWorks identifies models that have previously been generated by the file name of each assembly and part. For a model to be generated it must have a name that has not been used previously. DriveWorks automatically assigns the special variable DWSpecificationID to each captured model which guarantees a unique number will be applied to the generated model. The article Concept: File Naming discusses the methods that determine how this can be applied. Now is the time to decide which models will always require to be generated and which models will become standards. Standard models require a intelligent naming convention, this could simply be applying the results of the changing parameters to the name, applying a part number stored in a custom database, or adopting a coded part number using lookup tables formatted in the project.
• Drawings - For a drawing to be created each time it's parent model must also be created. DriveWorks automatically assigns the special variable DWSpecification to each captured drawing, which means the name of the Specification will be applied to the generated drawing. The article Concept: File Naming discusses the methods that determine how this can be applied. If the file name parameter for a drawing has no rule it will take the name of it's parent model.
• Documents - Documents do not require a unique name to be generated, but will require a unique folder for them to be stored (otherwise any existing documents will be overwritten by the new one). The same methods discussed in Concept: File Naming are used for documents.

File Paths - Get the outputs stored where you want them.

All outputs will be created from the location defined by the Default specification folder setting (see General Settings), unless the result of the rule for the Path parameter of any output is an absolute path (for example - G:\DriveWorks\Alternative Generated Outputs). Where the result of the rule for the Path parameter of any output is relative (for example ON123\Models) and the location does not exist DriveWorks will create it.

• Specification - As well as having a unique name each specification must be located in a unique folder. DriveWorks automatically assigns the special variable DWSpecification to the Specification Path parameter and will place the specification files in a subfolder of this called DriveWorks Files. This will result in the Specification Name parameter being applied to the Default specification folder setting. Common alternatives are to use your companies Order or Quote Number (this information must be obtained by DriveWorks either by being entered on the user form or through a connection to a data source).
• Models - Models do not require a unique folder to be created. DriveWorks automatically assigns the special variable DWSpecification to the Relative Path parameter. This will result in the Specification Name parameter being applied to the Default specification folder setting. When using a Standard naming convention for models it is good practice to place these models into a "Standards" folder (or a sub folder of this location)
• Drawings - Drawings do not require a unique folder to be created. DriveWorks automatically assigns the special variable DWSpecification to the Relative Path parameter. This will result in the Specification Name parameter being applied to the Default specification folder setting. If this parameter has no rule the drawing will be stored with the parent model.
• Documents - Documents do not require a unique folder, but will require a unique name for them to be created (otherwise any existing documents will be overwritten by the new one). By default the Document Path rule is left blank, this will create the document in the Specification Path folder.

Specification Properties

• Decide what information about each specification is shown in the Specification Explorer, this will allow each user to easily identify each specification they have created. See Specification Properties for more information.

Security Settings

• Decide which users will have access to the implementation and add their details in the Security Settings stage.
• Your implementation can use the information from the logged on user with the Current User special variables (see Info: Special Variables)
• Decide if the users are to belong to any Teams and set project permissions for each.

Specification Flow - Customize the default specification flow to suit your needs.

• The default specification flow may have suited your needs up to now. But it can be used to effectively reproduce any work flow process ou currently use. The article How To: Modify Specification Flow discusses how this is done.

Plugins - DriveWorks Plugins and PowerPacks add extra functionality to your implementation.

DriveWorks Labs details the latest available Plugins and PowerPacks, with information on:

Plugins installed by default:

• SOLIDWORKS PDM Professional - add functionality to integrate with SOLIDWORKS PDM.
• DriveWorks PDF Integration - extends a DriveWorks implementation by adding advanced Functions and Tasks directly related to PDF file processing.

PowerPacks downloaded and installed manually:

• Specification PowerPack - extend your implementation by adding advanced Specification functions and tasks.
• SOLIDWORKS PowerPack - extend your implementation with advanced Generation Tasks.
• Image PowerPack - extend your implementation with advanced image processing and manipulation tasks.
• DriveWorks PowerPack for Microsoft Azure - allows management and interaction with Azure services.
• CAMWorks PowerPack - automates the creation of the G-Code for CNC machines.
• SOLIDWORKS CAM PowerPack - extend your implementation with advanced CAM related Generation Tasks.
• Salesforce PowerPack - add functionality to integrate with Salesforce.
• SYSPRO PowerPack - integrate with SYSPRO ERP Business Software for Manufacturing.

8. Deployment

You should now be ready to deploy your DriveWorks implementation.

If you have purchased other DriveWorks Pro Modules, now is the time to install these and set them up. See How To: Deploy DriveWorks Pro.

If you are working with an Individual Group, now is also the time to upscale to a Shared Group. See Group Upscale.

You can now get others to test your forms and verify the 3D output, selecting a number of users to see if they can break your data entry validation will be a good idea.

Theme Configuration

If you have purchased DriveWorks Live, then configuring your theme to change the look and feel can now be done. See Live for more information.