Project: HELiOS PDM for Inventor

New in HELiOS

In the Data function group you can choose the New in HELiOS function to call a dialogue window for the transfer of CAD model structures to the HELiOS database.

Please note:

You can also find the function on the Ribbon tab for the Active part. From there you can carry out the derivation for the active part (rather than for the complete drawing).

In the structure tree beneath Create you can see the model structure:

The top part shows (depending on the Inventor version) the Inventor file name or a different designation; sub-assemblies are indicated with their HELiOS article number.

Associated drawing documents are marked with this symbol:

If identical parts or assemblies occur multiple times in the model drawing, these multiple occurrences will be automatically activated if you choose one of them in the structure.

You can exclude individual elements of the model drawing from a transfer by deactivating their checkboxes.

Special dependencies between parts are marked as follows: 

• indicates dependent parts.
• indicated parameter references.
• indicates 3rd party references.

Standard parts that were not inserted via the Inventor Content Center and whose Family and Member ID can therefore not be transferred to the HELiOS article master are marked with a symbol.

Important:

The original documents will not be changed by the New in HELiOS in the process, unless an original document is not transferred while subordinated documents are checkmarked for transfer. In such a case, the references will also be exchanged for the superordinate document. This scenario, however, makes only sense in a context where the same user want to successively transfer a complete structure to HELiOS, since an assembly that has been changed in this way can no longer be loaded on other workstations (as the references to the documents that have been transferred to HELiOS would be missing).

At the top of the window you find the following options:

Click and to expand or collapse all levels of the entire structure.

Select all selects all elements of the structure, Deselect all removes all selections again.

Click  Do not automatically (de)select complete substructure upon (de)selection if you want to select or deselect only one particular element of the structure, and not its entire sub-structure together with it. Click once more on Automatically (de)select complete substructure upon (de)selection, if you also want to select or deselect the sub-structure of the selected element.

Click if you do not want superordinate models of the selected element to be checkmarked automatically. Please note that in some cases this dependency cannot be broken up; for instance, superordinate levels of released models must always be selected, too (this selection will happen automatically). Clicking resets the option to the mode that automatically selects superordinate models when selecting an element in the structure.

Beneath General settings you can choose between the following three options for number assignment:

• Standard: The assigning of article and document numbers takes place according to the standard principle of HELiOS, or the settings applied with genummer.exe, respectively.
• Uppermost model (Top): Subordinate articles and parts continue the naming of the uppermost part ("Head").
• Superordinate model: Subordinate articles and parts continue the naming of the (immediate) superordinate assembly. Example: If an assembly has the Article number "SN-025877" and the Document number "DN-000425", the subordinate articles and parts will be consecutively numbered as "SN-025878", "SN-025879", "SN-025880", and "DN-000426", "DN-000427", "DN-000428" etc.provided that these designations do not already exist (in such cases the next free number will be applied).

When marking the documents and articles for derivation, the generation of the designations will in all three cases be carried out in the order in which the individual elements were clicked (and not, for instance, according to their hierarchical position).

If a manually entered number already exists, this will be indicated by a message when you click OK.

If the When selecting a model also select all occurrences in the model structure checkbox has been activated when you select a specific part or assembly with a mouse-click, each individual occurrence of that part or assembly will also be selected for derivation in the model structure. If the checkbox is deactivated, multiple occurrences can also be derived individually.

If the When deselecting a model, deselect all occurrences in the model structure checkbox has been deactivated, the option will only affect the selection but not the deselection, that is, you can use the option to select all occurrences with one click and, after this, you have the option to deselect individual occurrences of your choice.

In the process, one distinguishes between dependent models (=referenced or derived in SOLIDWORKS and "directly built-in" models. In all cases, all occurrences of a part will be selected.

The When deselecting a model, deselect all occurrences in the model structure checkbox applies the same principle to the deselection of elements in the model structure.

The When selecting/deselecting a model, automatically select/deselect drawings and presentations checkbox allows you to determine with one mouse click whether drawings and/or presentations which are linked to a model are to be selected or deselected together with the model. Default: Checkbox active.

The Allow pure document selection checkbox allows you to derive documents without their linked articles (i.e. if only the document is selected for derivation, the newly derived document will not be linked to any article master).

Beneath Input settings you can choose an Import configuration for the attribute mapping of the database transfer from the pull-down menu (if several configurations have been created). Furthermore, you can specify a Project, Folder, Article Workflow and Document Workflow. Further down you find options for the Recognition of already transferred documents.

If you activate the Take over original file name checkbox, the file name of the CAD model drawing will be taken over into the HELiOS database.

Important:

This makes only sense if unique file names have always been used. If file names occur multiple times, a search for documents in the database according to file name will, of course, make little sense.

Further down you can find options for Recognition of already taken over documents:

If Recognition has been set to Off, parts can be re-entered in HELiOS, i.e. the same assembly can be entered multiple times. If you do not want this, you have the following two options:

• By file name: Each document to be transferred will first by searched in HELiOS. If a HELiOS document with the same file name is found, the document will not be transferred, but the one that already exists in the database will be reused.

In this context the Take over original file name option plays an important role, since it ensures that no "cryptic" file name will be generated by HELiOS. Only then can documents be recognized by the file name with the help of this option.

• By original path: During data transfer, HELiOS saves the (complete) original file path. If this option has been activated, the system searches for documents in HELiOS for which this original path has been set.

A recognition by file name makes sense if you want to transfer old data in a local directory, e.g. because they were stored there by a CAD designer for a later transfer. For a successive data transfer from a central directory (e.g. on a Server), in contrast, the recognition by original path would be the preferred option.

In the Graphic preview at the bottom right of the dialogue window, the currently marked document in the model structure is shown. If the top part is active, you will see a graphic of the entire model drawing or HELiOS assembly; if you clicked any sub-assemblies or individual parts, only these will be shown in the Graphic window.

Use the Check button at the bottom left to perform a check for completeness or consistency. If mandatory inputs are still missing, an error message referring to the affected documents and/or articles will be displayed (this will also happen if you click the OK button while inputs are missing).

After saving the model structure in HELiOS, the original model drawing will be closed, and you will continue your work in the HELiOS document.

Please note:

• Referenced models:
  If you work with referenced models, you have the option to influence the selecting/deselecting behaviour through referencing of associated models via the When selecting a referenced model also select superordinate model checkbox beneath General settings.

References of geometries in Inventor that have been placed via imports from other CAD systems cannot be edited after their transfer to HELiOS, as the Inventor APIs do not allow access to them.

• Linked drawings
  If a drawing is found for an assembly or a part, its transfer to the database as a linked HELiOS document will be offered.

A prerequisite for this is that the drawing is located in the same directory as the part or the assembly, and that it has the same file name preceding the file extension.

However, the file name preceding the extension needs not necessarily be identical (Example: The drawing "MyAssembly.idw" belongs to the same-named assembly "MyAssembly.iam"), but linked drawings will also be recognized if they begin with the same name as the corresponding part, e.g. if the file names of the drawings are composed of a particular file name, plus an additional number: For instance, for an Inventor part called "InventorPart.ipt" the drawing "InventorPart-01.idw" will be found and assigned accordingly.

You have the option to define a fixed suffix value in the Registry at HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\ISD Software und Systeme\Inventor\DrawingNameSuffix. In this way, each drawing file with this suffix will be assigned to an .iam- or .ipt file which has the same file name minus the suffix. Example: If "-03" has been defined as fixed suffix in the Registry, a drawing file for the assembly "MyAssembly.iam" would then be called "MyAssembly-03.idw", and a corresponding link would be established.

When saving drawings, please also note that Inventor will mark the contained models as "locally changed". HELiOS will recognize that the change of the previously unchanged models was caused by the takeover of the drawings, and will carry out an automatic saving of the corresponding models. However, no saving will take place if models have already been locally changed before the taking over of the associated drawing.

• Standard Parts from the Inventor Content Centre
  If Beam Standard Parts (or semi-finished products) are transferred from the Inventor Content Centre to HELiOS, one part master per beam type will be created, and further sub-types (with different usage attributes) of the type will be automatically assigned to it upon saving.

For beams from the Inventor Content Centre which have been set to "As Custom" in the model drawing (and not to "As Standard") own article masters will be created. Standard parts that are already known in HELiOS will be automatically entered into the product structure or model structure, respectively, upon saving. Part that are not known in HELiOS yet must be selected with New in HELiOS and entered manually.

Standard parts from the Content Center will be "completely" managed in HELIOS in the process (instead of being taken over in read-only mode, as in previous versions).

The saving of the standard parts as HELiOS documents allows a complete export of assemblies including standard parts on systems where HELiOS has not been interfaced with Inventor.

While the Content Center remains the source of the standard parts, the management of permission takes place via HELiOS.

It makes sense to use the option As Standard, to ensure that multiple occurrences of a standard part obtain the same article master.

Generally, if there are multiple document masters for one standard part article, it is always the current Standard Part representation that is defined as document master and exists in the model drawing.

For Standard Parts in conjunction with replacement geometries the following applies: Document masters which are marked as replacement documents, will be ignored during the article synchronization of the Standard part ID.

For semi-finished products, not only the semi-finished product article master will be checked and recognized, but it will also be checked and recognized, on the basis of the semi-finished product length, whether the respective occurrences have already been saved to the database.

Notes on iLogic:

If you work with iLogic parameters, activate the required Registry key to ensure that the HELiOS designation of the new document that will be created during transfer to the PDM database (or during derivation) will also be applied in the iLogic tool.

To do this, open the Windows Registry, go to Computer\HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\ISD Software und Systeme\HELiOS Desktop\Settings, and set the key InventorILogicRuleAdjustment from 0 to 1.

HELiOS Info Center