Smarter EPDM Drop Lists Using SQL

Out of the box SOLIDWORKS Enterprise PDM gives you the ability to populate your drop lists based on SQL query results. I use this functionality all the time to give my users a list of qualified suppliers from a purchasing database, lists of users in a specified group, choices of product type, etc.

The limitation is that these queries are all based off of constant values. These queries are run by the EPDM server on a predefined interval, and the results are stored in the EPDM database. This method is fast, but it eliminates the ability to populate the lists based on properties of the file itself.

Granted with EPDM’s “Controlled by variable” option,

you can change the query based on one other variable, but if you want to use more than one variable or the file’s physical properties, PigeonHole makes the process very easy.

This video gives a quick demonstration showing how.

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SanFf-S47CM[/youtube]