My company has a PDM Professional environment. We are in the planning phases of switching our electrical schematic and panel layout drawings from straight AutoCAD to AutoCAD Electrical. As the PDM administrator, I am tasked with determining the file handling aspect for PDM.
My initial thought is to create a PDM folder for each schematic and store the panel layouts, schematic drawings and project files together. One of the things I am not sure of is variable handling for the individual dwg files and project files. Because our schematics are technically a single part number, the part number variable on all the files should be the same part number. There are about 12 variables that should be the same on all files. And should I create a datacard for the project files with the variables.
I am looking for advice from anyone who may be using PDM with AutoCAD Electrical.
PDM and AutoCAD Electrical
Re: PDM and AutoCAD Electrical
Autocad Electrical uses a single WDP file for each project. This file has project specific info that can appear on each schematic in the package. If the Autocad title blocks are set up to use this information, you can map the title block attributes to PDM and your data cards will have the correct information. Also, each drawing has it's own info that can also be mapped to a title block attribute so that each drawing can have unique info. This info can also be mapped to PDM.
We were using Autocad Electrical when we first started using PDM. Like you, I was given the task of integrating it with PDM. Several department restructurings and company restructurings resulted in the Acad integration not happening but I had most of it in place before that point.
I had an Autocad Electrical project card and a drawing card:
and set things up as you describe with a folder for each project where the WDP and DWG files lived.
A PDM template was used to prompt the user for the project name and description and it would then create a corresponding folder with that name.
I also created a PDM add-in to automate the release of Acad Electrical projects which would rename the project folder, WDP file and drawing files and move them from a WIP area to a Released area. Another add-ins would handle publishing the project as a PDF (using the Autocad API) and placing it in a folder accessible to other groups outside Engineering. A third add-in was used to handle the creation of new Autocad Electrical components (since these also had to have part numbers assigned from our ERP system) and updating the ACE_JIC_MENU.dat file so that the catalog in Acad Electrical would show those items.
The project (wdpt) and drawing (dwt) templates were also in the vault.
So, there is a lot you can do with PDM and Acad Electrical, but the fancier stuff requires some programming knowledge.
We were using Autocad Electrical when we first started using PDM. Like you, I was given the task of integrating it with PDM. Several department restructurings and company restructurings resulted in the Acad integration not happening but I had most of it in place before that point.
I had an Autocad Electrical project card and a drawing card:
A PDM template was used to prompt the user for the project name and description and it would then create a corresponding folder with that name.
I also created a PDM add-in to automate the release of Acad Electrical projects which would rename the project folder, WDP file and drawing files and move them from a WIP area to a Released area. Another add-ins would handle publishing the project as a PDF (using the Autocad API) and placing it in a folder accessible to other groups outside Engineering. A third add-in was used to handle the creation of new Autocad Electrical components (since these also had to have part numbers assigned from our ERP system) and updating the ACE_JIC_MENU.dat file so that the catalog in Acad Electrical would show those items.
The project (wdpt) and drawing (dwt) templates were also in the vault.
So, there is a lot you can do with PDM and Acad Electrical, but the fancier stuff requires some programming knowledge.
Re: PDM and AutoCAD Electrical
Thanks for the info.In the test sample my EEs sent me, there were 2 other project files: aepx and wdt. From my what I understand, the wdt file keeps track of the title block attribute mapping. I'm not sure what the aepx one is for. Also, I was thinking about having the folder datacard be the "master" of the project information but it gets harder to manage that way because of how PDM maps to AutoCAD files. In our environment, we store the title block information in the drawing properties and create Fields to display them. When PDM changes a datacard variable, it overwrites the field link. I'm not sure how Acad-E would behave in this situation as I haven't tested it yet. Were you able to map datacard variables for the wdp files?
I assume you wrote the add-in for renaming because using the PDM Move Tree command would not be able to modify the references for the changed filenames. Without an add-in, do you know how renaming a project would be handled?
What about workflows for the project files? I was thinking they should be in our usual CAD workflow and transitions/revisions would occur together with the dwg files.
I assume you wrote the add-in for renaming because using the PDM Move Tree command would not be able to modify the references for the changed filenames. Without an add-in, do you know how renaming a project would be handled?
What about workflows for the project files? I was thinking they should be in our usual CAD workflow and transitions/revisions would occur together with the dwg files.
Re: PDM and AutoCAD Electrical
The WDT file is an alternative way to set up title blocks. Here we were using the WB_TB method. You can read about the two methods here.
The .aepx file is a 'secondary project file" that is automatically generated, even if it is deleted. It is never edited directly. You could probably ignore it for the most part. It never figured into my processes and I never noticed a problem due to it. I never really noticed it actually.
Autocad Electrical has a whole different approach to title block handling. You may want to read through this with your electrical folks to determine if you want to change your approach to the ACADE way.
It looks like we had several variables mapped to the WD_TB attribute, which both the project properties and drawing properties can access. It's been 10+ years so I'm a bit fuzzy on the details there.
The add-in I created handled a bunch of different things to make the ACADE experience with PDM more like the SW experience.
The .aepx file is a 'secondary project file" that is automatically generated, even if it is deleted. It is never edited directly. You could probably ignore it for the most part. It never figured into my processes and I never noticed a problem due to it. I never really noticed it actually.
Autocad Electrical has a whole different approach to title block handling. You may want to read through this with your electrical folks to determine if you want to change your approach to the ACADE way.
It looks like we had several variables mapped to the WD_TB attribute, which both the project properties and drawing properties can access. It's been 10+ years so I'm a bit fuzzy on the details there.
The add-in I created handled a bunch of different things to make the ACADE experience with PDM more like the SW experience.
- It would verify that the WDP file has been checked out and not allow the user to continue until it was
- It added a 'Create Drawing' right click menu item so that if you were in a folder with a WDP file, it would display a form for entering the drawing data and then it would copy a dwt template file to a new drawing in the project.
- The drawing would be pasted as a reference under the WDP file so that when you check in/out or change state on the WDP, the drawings would be included in the operation
- It would modify the WDP file to include the newly created drawing.
- It would push the data entered by the user on the form into PDM variables.
- When a project was complete, it was 'released' and the add-in moved/renamed the project file and drawings and updated the WDP and file variables to reflect the new file names and locations.
You can do all this manually, but you will want a very clear step by step guide. If you rename DWG files, you have to go into the corresponding WDP file and change the names there as well.
As far as workflows go, we did what you describe. The WDP file is in the CAD Documents workflow along with all the SOLIDWORKS files and the DWG files. Having the DWG files as references under the WDP files makes things a little nicer, since Contains and Where-Used will show those relationships.