Category Archives: DBWorks

IPS – Recognized as being “at the forefront of providing Document Management System solutions and transforming businesses – 2022”.

Because of MechWorks PDM’s ability to adapt to supporting today’s hybrid work environment, we are grateful to be recognized by CIOReview as being “at the forefront of providing Document Management System solutions and transforming businesses – 2022”. This recognition is a direct reflection of a strong partnership with MechWorks (www.mechworks.com) and once again proves that the overall flexibility of MechWorks PDM for vertical integrations allows customers to select best-in-class applications. At the core, [Offsite Mode] has greatly matured over the past year while many areas within MechWorks PDM were updated to embrace performance enhancements. Workflow enhancements include support for workflow branching (jump from one workflow into another), while also improving dynamic workflow states (conditional workflow states) as well as supporting parallel workflow states (taking advantage of the group workflow assignment utility). The advanced Workflow features within MechWorks PDM has proven to be critical for our customers to properly embrace IR/ECR/ECO/ECN processing that automate communications while ensuring documents’ access/visibility accordingly, embracing multiple department participation.

We are grateful for our customer relationships that have been critical in helping us improve MechWorks PDM and we look forward to helping our customers streamline their business processes. The employees at IPS hope to continue to build upon this recognition for successful business relationships in the years to come.

Please see the following article: IPS-Recognition.

Enhancements within every release of MechWorks PDM.

Please note that each service pack of MechWorks PDM is likely to include new enhancements/functionality (not just bug fixes). It is recommended to always reference the latest Release Notes to ensure that your environment is taking advantage of these additional enhancements. As always, we recommend that all upgrades are initially installed within a test environment (not within your production’s environment) so you can properly validate updated applications. Once MechWorks PDM is installed, the Release Notes can be accessed from within the installation folder, usually:

C:\Program Files (x86)\MechWorks\MechWorks_PDM\relnotes.PDF

For example, with R20 Service Pack 2.0, there is a new [ABBREV_NAME] feature that is now supported. If you are already familiar with how MechWorks PDM supports the automatic method of populating Custom Properties with the user’s INITIALS, then being able to accomplish the same task for the user’s ABBREV_NAME will be very familiar. The goal of this new enhancement is to allow the Title-Block data to be populated with the ABBREV_NAME value where desired (in addition to the already supported methods). Reference the following example, any of the following could be easily populated within the Custom Properties of registered files:

JD7348129: This is the user’s login for Windows (noted within DBWarm).
Joseph Designer: This is the user’s referenced full name (noted within DBWarm).
JD: This is the user’s referenced initials (noted within DBWarm).
J. Designer: This is the user’s referenced abbreviated name (noted within DBWarm).

Compatibility – MechWorks PDM support details for latest versions of CAD applications.

With the latest versions of MechWorks PDM, (R20 build (sp2.0) will be released soon), please reference the [Compatibility] tab from each of the URLs below to validate the latest versions of the CAD applications that are supported. Currently, they are:

Solid Edge 2022
Inventor 2022
SolidWorks 2022
AutoCAD 2023
DraftSight 2021

As always, we recommend that existing environments properly test/evaluate an upgrade to the desired CAD application with the proper version of MechWorks PDM before deploying the updated applications within their production environment. For more on the compatibility for the various CAD versions, please reference the [Compatibility] tab from the following sites:

Each of the [Compatibility] tabs from the pages above contain additional details regarding supported operating systems, etc.

R20 MechWorks PDM Administration Manuals have been released.

First, thank you for your patience. Over the past few months, we had received multiple inquiries for the release of the R20 MechWorks PDM manuals. For those of you waiting to access the R20 MechWorks PDM Administration Manuals, the wait is over. All seven MechWorks PDM Administrative Manuals have been updated to support R20 MechWorks PDM features/functionality. Please access them using your assigned login at the following site:

Administration Manuals (on-line)

IPS – Recognized as one of the “Most Promising DATA INTEGRATION Consulting Services Companies – 2020”.

We are grateful to be recognized by CIOReview as one of the “Most Promising DATA INTEGRATION Consulting Service Companies – 2020”. This recognition is truly a reflection of a strong partnership with MechWorks (www.mechworks.com) and once again proves that the overall flexibility of MechWorks PDM for vertical integrations allows customers to select best-in-class applications. MechWorks PDM has recently established partnerships with both CADLink (www.qbuildsoftware.com/cadlink ) and CADTalk (www.cadtalk.com ) for supported vertical ERP/SAP integrations. As always, we are grateful for our customer relationships and we look forward to helping our customers streamline their business processes. The employees at IPS hope to continue to build upon this recognition for even more successful relationships in the years to come.

Please see the following article: IPS-Recognition.

IPS – Recognized as one of the “Top 10 SolidWorks Solution Companies – 2020”.

We are grateful to be recognized by MANUFACTURING TECHNOLOGY INSIGHTS as one of the “Top 10 SolidWorks Solution Companies – 2020”. This recognition is truly a reflection of a strong partnership with MechWorks (www.mechworks.com) and once again proves that the overall flexibility of MechWorks PDM for vertical integrations allows customers to select best-in-class applications. We are thankful for our superior customer relationships and we look forward to helping our customers streamline their business processes. The employees at IPS hope to continue to build upon this recognition for even more successful relationships in the years to come.

Please see the following article: IPS-Recognition.

Support for 2020 versions of CAD applications.

October, 2019… With the release of MechWorks PDM R17 build (sp2.11), we are proud to announce the official support for the following CAD applications:

Solid Edge 2020
Inventor 2020
SolidWorks 2020
AutoCAD 2020

As always, we recommend that existing environments properly test/evaluate an upgrade to the 2020 CAD application with MechWorks PDM before deploying the updated applications within their production environment. For more on the compatibility for the various CAD versions, please reference the [Compatibility] tab from the following sites:

ECR and ECN presentation from Solid Edge University 2016.

The MechWorks PDM breakout session from Solid Edge University 2016 was focused on advanced Engineering Change Requests (ECR) and Engineering Change Notices (ECN) functions. The features were well liked and highlighted the flexibility of the core MechWorks PDM solution. If you would like to see a focused presentation on ECR/ECN functions, please contact us at info@na-ips.com . To see some of what the presentation contained, please select the following URL:

https://community.plm.automation.siemens.com/siemensplm/attachments/siemensplm/solid-edge-tkb/428/1/PonterG_SEU16_%20MECHWORKS_%20PDM.pdf

MechWorks PDM R16 – Task Manager.

R16 SP 0.1 was released on June 24^th, 2016. MechWorks PDM R16 has many customer-based enhancement requests, too many to try to write about in a single post. MechWorks continues to improve the overall user experience by embracing enhancements to the interface, improving core performance, and adding advanced features. MechWorks continues to lead the PDM/PLM applications with some superior features that make MechWorks PDM arguably the most flexible PDM/PLM application available. Its tight integration with SolidWorks (DBWorks), Inventor (DBInventor), and Solid Edge (DBSolidEdge) continues to push all related PDM/PLM applications aside.

One of the most exciting enhancements within MechWorks PDM R16 is its internal “Task Manager”. This is an advanced module within R16 that allows users to offload work to allocated workstation(s) that can address the tasks that consume computer processing time, allowing the users to continue to use their computer for tasks that they need to work on. As we all know, releasing an assembly and many children at once (perhaps automatically generating PDF output files, etc. for all related drawings) can consume computer processing time. Without the “Task Manager”, users would not be able to continue to interact with other design files within the related CAD application during this process because they would need to wait for their computer to finish the requested task. With the “Task Manager”, users are able to direct tasks that normally take time to an alternative workstation that is waiting for assignments – allowing the users to swiftly move onto their next task/assignment while the background requested task is handled by the “Task Manager”. This concept is very similar to how printers manage many spooled requests during the day – but it is now available for R16 MechWorks PDM environments.

As you can imagine, this is a pretty sophisticated module and it is directly available for all DBWorks, DBInventor, and DBSolidEdge R16 environments. It requires some initial configuration as there has to be at least one workstation (more if desired) that is configured to answer background requests. The database has specific tables for managing and reporting on these scheduled background tasks and the user’s interface has additional features as well. While we recommend hiring your MechWorks PDM resource to configure and validate this new functionality, it is certainly something that customers can configure on their own. As with previous releases, the R16 WhatsNew documentation has a pretty detailed explanation of the “Task Manager” environment’s needs.

Do yourself a favor and take some time to explore the R16 WhatsNew documentation. There are also webinars that will demonstrate specific details regarding features of MechWorks PDM R16 (please try to attend them). Integrated Partner Solutions, Inc. will be posting dates for these webinars on our calendar in the near future, so please monitor the following web-site [ https://na-ips.com/event ] for scheduled events. Also, please feel free to contact us at support@na-ips.com for details regarding the “Task Manager” that is available for all R16 users.

MechWorks PDM R15 SP 2.0 is released.

This release has bug fixes, behavior changes, and enhancements. One of the enhanced areas that is worth looking at is a new set of BOM Options (Options <=> General <=> Drawings). As an example, you can now configure the resulting balloon display based on these options. It is even possible to have the Part Number displayed instead of the BOM Item Number for NO_BOM items. Please reference the release notes for R15 SP 2.0 for additional details.