file management

GrabCAD Announces Integration with PTC Creo and Workbench Summer 2014 Release

June 18, 2014 By Barb Schmitz Leave a Comment

It appears the folks at GrabCAD have been quite busy. The Cambridge-based startup is making two significant announcements today: the integration of its Workbench cloud-based file management platform with PTC Creo CAD software and the release of Workbench Summer 2014.

Since PTC Live Global was just held this week in Boston, we’ll start with that one. The integration of Workbench with Creo means that users will now have a host of new capabilities that are available only to PTC Creo users. These new capabilities include:
● The ability to view native models
● The ability to view Creo drawings and other proprietary Creo documents
● The ability to interact with assembly information, such as family table instances

In addition, the processing power for all of the above actions will be provided by the GrabCAD cloud platform, freeing up the user’s desktop for other tasks. GrabCAD and PTC will roll out these new capabilities over the next several months to both new and existing PTC Creo and Workbench users.

“PTC Creo is the CAD tool of choice for many of the companies that use Workbench, whose users appreciate the ability to access an integrated set of design, simulation and manufacturing tools in one suite,” said Hardi Meybaum, founder and CEO of GrabCAD. “We’re excited that this integration with PTC Creo will make it even easier for these users to keep track of CAD files and bring others into their design process quickly and easily.”

GrabCAD Workbench is a cloud-based file management platform that makes it easier for users to manage and share CAD files.

Summer Release 2014

The company also announced that July 1st it will ship its Summer Release of GrabCAD Workbench. Already boasting CAD file management and external collaboration features, Workbench makes it easy for mid-sized companies to better deal with CAD file management.

The Summer Release’s new capabilities include:
● Flexible search capabilities. Search on metadata such as date, type, author, revision, version, and custom file properties
● “Whereused” reports. Shows where a part is used in other assemblies
● Assembly BOM Views. Display, filter, and export the parts list of any CAD assembly
● Configuration and family table support. View different configurations and families of parts and assemblies from major CAD systems

Many engineering organizations rely on more than one CAD provider, so Workbench is designed to support them all. This “multiCAD” approach is supported by a number of new CAD-specific enhancements:
● SolidWorks. Intelligent notifications alert users of document changes such as when a file is locked or affected by changes to another document
● Creo. Automatically detects the latest Creo file for upload; view native parts, assemblies, and drawings
● Autodesk. Support for 3D DWG

In addition to these new features, GrabCAD has made more than 100 enhancements to existing features over the last six months, including:
● Revision control. Links assembly revision to part revision
● Version control and backup. Restores deleted files or restore to a point in time
● File locking. Lock status now available inside SolidWorks Workbench add-in

Learn more about GrabCAD Workbench by clicking here.

Barb Schmitz

ETRAGE Announces PTC Windchill-SharePoint Integration App

June 18, 2014 By Barb Schmitz Leave a Comment

ETRAGE, a systems integration and design process automation company, announced at PTC Live Global that it’s releasing Windchill EasySearch app for PTC Windchill PDMLink for CAD files and documents.

A little background on ETRAGE: The company has been building solutions for PTC customers that help automate viewable file creation and management, integrate PTC Windchill with ERP, MRP, CRM & SharePoint systems and clean and migrate data for PTC Windchill.

ETRAGE PTC Windchill EasySearch provides a fast and optimized way of delivering the desired design data to customers, suppliers, purchasers, speeding the information flow through engineering, manufacturing and service.

Windchill EasySearch application for PTC Windchill PDMLink for CAD files and documents

• Offers a customizable Windchill search mechanism providing various options by: name, number, context, and object type, from a text file list. These search fields can be easily enabled or disabled on the User Interface by a company administrator.

• Through search results, users can list the files, gain access to the representation files, secondary content files such as PDF, DXF, STEP or IGES, open files in Creo, open files in CreoView, download files to a Workspace and use other Windchill operations.

• Windchill EasySearch allows fast and simple access to representation files and secondary content files from a standard Windchill search result page or object list in the Windchill folder through the Action Menu or a right mouse button click.

ETRAGE SmartPDF

• Provides users with the ability to get the note text as an annotation each time a user hovers their mouse over the note symbol in the PDF.

• The solution also provides the functionality of selecting section view call-out symbols and automatically changes the view of the drawing to the sheet and location of the related section view.

• SmartPDF is an add-on to the ETRAGE Plot Service for PTC Windchill, which improves your viewing experience of the created PDF by adding Annotations and Zone References.

WXML Universal Integrator for PTC Windchill

• WXML automatically exports Bills-of-Material (BOM) metadata and viewable files from PTC Windchill PDMLink in structured XML and PDF format files to a Windows folder for transfer to the ERP application. The BOMs and PDFs are then read into ERP. WXML also automatically reads structured XML files from a Windows folder in which ERP provides requests for data extraction from Windchill. Besides BOM and PDFs, WXML also supports Change Requests transfers between Windchill and ERP.

• WXML is targeted at those companies that look for an easy to deploy, out-of-the-box solution to integrate Windchill with ERP. Typically, companies already have in house ERP IT resources to export and import data to and from the ERP application. ETRAGE provides an affordable option to companies to integrate their ERP systems with Windchill.

• ETRAGE’s Universal Windchill Integrator provides, real-time updates of BOMs and change requests into ERP, streamlines data flow between the engineering, manufacturing and purchasing departments, eliminates manual data entry or processes of large sets of data and insures that manufacturing and purchasing has access to the most up-to-date engineering data and drawings inside the ERP system.

ETRAGE Drawing Notes Search application for PTC Creo Parametric and PTC Windchill PDMLink

• The Drawing Notes Search application provides companies with a simple, yet powerful method for managing notes that are on PTC Creo drawings and stored in Windchill PDMLink.

• The Application provides an automatic method for capturing notes from Creo drawings and storing them in a database. Once in the database, notes content can be accessed with a Web-based interface by searching and selecting on a drawing name or number, note character string or drawing parameter or attribute. Notes can be sorted, filtered and reviewed. Drawings can be opened for editing from links in the application. Note lists can be exported to Excel or CSV formats.

For more information on ETAGE, click here.

Barb Schmitz

GrabCAD Workbench Rolls out New CAD File Management Features

January 22, 2014 By Barb Schmitz Leave a Comment

After the successful completion of its beta program, GrabCAD announces the general availability of its Workbench cloud-based CAD file management solution. With its cloud deployment and affordable pricing plans, GrabCAD Workbench provides a cost-effective and easy-to-implement PDM/PLM alternative for small- to mid-sizes businesses.

The beta version of Workbench, which launched in November of last year, enables users to manage and share CAD models with zero IT investment. Since its roll-out, more than 20,000 Workbench users have been able to automatically synch their desktop files to cloud projects, lock files, manage file versions, visualize version differences, resolve conflicts and more.

New file types supported

GrabCAD Workbench now also offers a SolidWorks add-in and neutral file translator, opening up even more options in file types for users. Workbench users can now upload and download files as well as resolve conflicts from within SolidWorks. According to the company, SolidWorks was chosen to be the first CAD program supported, because it is the most popular among current Workbench users. Support for other CAD systems is in the works.

With the new SolidWorks add-in, Workbench users can now upload and download files as well as resolve conflicts from within their SolidWorks CAD system.

A neutral file translator has also been added to Workbench Professional that allows users to download a CAD file in STEP, IGES and STL formats, regardless of the format it was uploaded in, making it easier to share models with partners who don’t use the same CAD system.

The new Collaborative Product Design (CPD) features will be available to all Professional Plan users while the free plan users will still have access to CAD file sharing and viewing tools. Enterprise customers will have all Professional features as well as additional IT controls and support as well as more storage.

Current pricing and plan options

All file management features, along with all sharing features, will be available to users during a trial. With the release of the new advanced features, Workbench pricing has changed for Professional and Enterprise plans, to $59 and $89 per user per month respectively. Check out the GrabCAD pricing page for more details.