From the course: Learning SOLIDWORKS PDM

SolidWorks PDM Pro vs. Standard - SOLIDWORKS Tutorial

From the course: Learning SOLIDWORKS PDM

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SolidWorks PDM Pro vs. Standard

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- [Instructor] Now that you've decided to look into Solidworks PDM, we have to begin by understanding what product data management means for the CAD user. For us, this means that we'll be using a software package to manage all of our digital files, CAD and non-CAD based, for various projects and teams of engineers. This management can include things such as version and revision control, engineering approval processes, and automating drawing creation after these processes have been followed through. Solidworks has two different offerings in this realm. Going to the Solidworks Product Data Management page, we can see that they list both Solidworks PMD Professional and Solidworks PDM Standard. Beginning with Solidworks 2017, Solidworks PDM Standard is now included for all 2017 premium subscription services holders. So if you have Solidworks 2017 Premium installed in your office, you also have the ability to install Solidworks PDM Standard at no additional charge. Please reach out to your value-added reseller, because they'll have the information that you need based on the type of licenses that you have, if it's a server network license or just a set of standalone licenses. They also offer Solidworks PDM Professional, which is a more complete and full package with many tools that can be used in product data management. If we jump over to the Product Data Management Matrix, which can be found following this link, we see the differences between the two versions. So with Solidworks PDM Standard, you can have secure logins, version and revision control, copy and move data, all over the place really. You can have an audit trail, this means that you can track all of your changes. There's an integrated search function which is very possible. And then inside the Windows Explorer, it has an integrated e-drawings preview, so that you don't need to go to files and open them to see what's going on in the latest version. As you can tell, Solidworks PDM Professional has many other capabilities, and included beyond this, are things like macros and APIs that you can download through the Solidworks 3D Content Central, find on the Solidworks forums, or through your local reseller by talking to their applications engineers that handle Solidworks PDM. All-in-all, the main thing we want to focus on is revision control and the check-in check-out functionality of Solidworks PDM.

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