Exporting a Workgroup Vault

SOLIDWORK Workgroup PDM has treated you fairly well over the years, it had a good run. Now you are looking forward to switching to SOLIDWORKS PDM Standard where you can get the ease of use for Windows Explorer and the speed that SQL can provide over Workgroup’s indexing system. All you have to do is install it and maybe migrate your data out of Workgroup.

You have three choices to export the data.

1. You can manually export the data yourself

This method has a lot going for it. Everything is at your own pace and you don’t have to spend any money. In SOLIDWORKS Explorer, highlight a group of files and chose to check them out. The files will be copied out of the vault and into your selected working directory location. Next you can copy the files from the working directory into your PDM vault. With this method you can do an entire project at a time. Highlight the first file, SHIFT select the last file, RMB click “Open / Checkout Document”

Cons: Only one project at a time; if a file is used in more than one project, this method created multiple files; can be very time consuming if you want to export more than just the latest version of each file.

2. You could purchase 3DVision’s ExportWorkgroup application https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Qu-KX5-G5E

This is the fastest and easiest of the three choices. 

Cons: It isn’t free; only exports the latest version of each file

3. You could have one of 3DVision Technologies consultants work with you to export your data

These guys can solve just about anything during the migration. All versions, change folder structure, re-unite data inside and outside of your vault, change file names, manipulate file properties, swap sheet formats. They do this type of thing very often and have been doing it since SOLIDWORKS first started.

Cons: It isn’t free. Contact 3DVision Technologies for a quote.