Transcript SolidWorks Enterprise PDM and Microsoft SharePoint

SolidWorks Enterprise PDM and
Microsoft SharePoint Interoperability
Marc Young
xLM Solutions, LLC., www.xlmsolutions.com
Contents
• SharePoint on the Rise

Usages and Advantages

Document Management and Data Presentation
• EPDM in Collaborative Environment
• Integration: the Best of Both Worlds
• EPDM-SharePoint Integration (Data Presentation) Approaches

SharePoint DataView Control

Microsoft Office SharePoint Server (MOSS) with Business Data Catalog

Custom Integration Web Part Solution
• Application Scenarios
• Integration Examples (Demonstrations)
• Considerations
• Integration Benefits
• Conclusions
2
SharePoint on the Rise
Companies are…
• Deploying Microsoft Windows SharePoint as cost-effective and
simple internet and intranet solutions:

WSS (Windows SharePoint Services): included in Windows 2003
and 2008 (no additional licensing costs)

MOSS (Microsoft Office SharePoint Server) 2007 contains
additional corporate level support and templates

SharePoint 2010
• Increasing demand for accessing PLM/PDM data and functionalities
from within SharePoint
3
Why SharePoint?
• Provides focused and integrated browser-based
workspaces for

Facilitating collaborations within and across units,
departments, and sites

Sharing documents and other essential information

Implementing business processes and intelligences

Searching for and utilizing information on organizational
and technical resources

Adding values to existing Office and PLM/PDM
applications
• A set of services and tools for easy construction and
management of purpose-specific web sites and
collaboration portals
• A cost-effective platform for building scalable and robust
web-based applications
4
SharePoint: Enterprise Portal & Collaboration Environment
• Organize and manage meetings
• Share and manage documents, contacts, tasks, calendars, and
announcements
• Develop repositories of knowledge and information through wiki sites
• Allow easy participation in discussions, meetings, and document
creations
• Manage projects with task and participant lists
• Share ideas with blogs
• Provide mobile access to contents
5
The SharePoint Advantage
• Present data- and user-centric experiences similar to other Office system
products

Already familiar with and preferred by most users
• Web sites may be easily created for long or short term applications:

Corporate internet and intranet portals

Individual-, meeting-, project-, team-, and division-based, or other
special purpose web sites

Custom web parts may be developed to provide specific functionality or
feature
6
SharePoint Document Management Features
• Metadata shared with document contents

Customizable Document Information Panel for entering and displaying document
metadata
• Granular Security with Inheritance

Security may be set for a document, folder, or library, with inheritance
• Auditing—Create and Analyze Audit Trails for Document Libraries Events:

Open, download, edit, view item in lists, view item properties, check-in, check-out,
move, copy, delete, and restore of documents
• Document Protection Outside of the Repository

If an Information Rights Management (IRM) policy is set on a library, any
document leaving the library is encrypted and only accessible (viewing, printing,
etc. with expiration periods) after user validation and for the approved action.
• Support for Major/Minor Versioning
• Built-in Document Workflows
• Content Types Definitions

Support definition of templates for specific document types to standardize
associated metadata, business rules (e.g., workflow), and type-specific actions
7
Document Management Key Component: SharePoint List
• Is an OOTB (out-of-the-box) component of SharePoint
• Is a collection of similar items (that share the same metadata schema)
• Contains columns or fields that define the item data or metadata schema
• May have documents attached to the columns/fields
• Resembles a database table in structure and behavior
• Supports various fields or data types
• Provides various methods of visualization in entering, editing, and displaying
of item data
• May be queried--supports filtering, sorting or grouping based on item data or
properties
• May have triggers that react to list events such as creating, updating or
deleting items
• Supports workflows
• Supports content types
8
SharePoint as a PLM or Document Management System
• Pros

Built upon robust Microsoft technologies

Vest support and resource bases
Tight integration with other Microsoft Office products
• Cons


No document level options
− Does not support document markups
− Relies on Microsoft Office suite for document manipulations

Documents are housed within database
− Traditional PLM/PDM and document and content management system house documents and
contents on external storage medium for efficiency

Many options, not enough functions (offering is broad but not deep)
− Not a true PLM/PDM system

Need for heavy customizations
− Not aligned with most business processes and models OOTB

Performance limitations in SharePoint 2007:
− 15 simultaneous workflows per library
− 2000 lists per web site
− 2000 items per view using ListView
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Disadvantages of Managing SolidWorks Data in SharePoint
• Lack of Native SolidWorks Integration with SharePoint*

No SolidWorks toolbox support

No SolidWorks configuration support

No interrogation of SolidWorks relationships and dependencies

No SolidWorks BOM modules

No SharePoint interface for PDM functions in SolidWorks
• Non-Ideal Solutions:

Use SharePoint to manage SolidWorks files but not contents
− Disregard SolidWorks file relationships and dependencies

Manage PDF files of released SolidWorks Drawings
− Does not support content revisions directly
*Third-party solutions exists for SolidWorks and SharePoint integration
10
Customer Requirements
• Customers with EPDM and SharePoint environments are seeking solutions
to:

Provide customer-specific EPDM functionalities in SharePoint

Ensure data consistency and document lifecycle integrity

Eliminate redundancy and potential complications from user ad-hoc
solutions
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Integration…The Best of Both Worlds!
• Provide selected and focused EPDM features in the SharePoint
environment
• Easily extend EPDM to SharePoint users

Familiar, intuitive, and customizable browser-based user experience

Minimal EPDM concepts and skill set required
• Add values to both investments
12
Integration Advantages
• Excellent access and utilization of EPDM and SharePoint data:

Expose side-by-side data previously available only in separate
environments

Facilitate business and engineering processes by combining data from
both platforms in a single business process, while maintaining data
integrity

Preserve and utilize existing data—no need for large-scale data
migration or duplication across platforms

Exposes EPDM data to mobile users
13
SharePoint Primer: SharePoint Components
Shared Documents
Summary of Active Web Parts
Purpose-Specific Workspaces
Team Announcements
Useful Links
14
14
EDPM-SharePoint Integration Approaches
Three Integration (Data Presentation) Approaches:
• SharePoint DataView Control

Available with WSS or MOSS
• MOSS with BDC (Business Data Catalog)
 BDC is available with MOSS
• Custom EPDM-SP Integration Solution (e.g., EPDM-SP Integration
Web Part)
 Licensing required
 Minimal to no customization required
15
SharePoint DataView Control
• SharePoint DataView Control

No addition cost or licensing requirements

Requires editing SharePoint content in XML; or

Use Microsoft SharePoint Designer 2007 (free download at:
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads, keyword: SharePoint Designer)

Requires extensive customization
16
SharePoint DataView Control
Sorting Support
SharePoint
2007
EPDM
Data inDesigner
a SharePoint
DataView Control
WSS Site
Sorting Support
DataView Control
EPDM Data in SharePoint DataView Control
Customizable Paging
Support
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MOSS With BDC
• MOSS with BDC (Business Data Catalog)

MOSS requires licensing

BDC is available as part of MOSS

Required extensive customization

Administrative action is needed to setup the data source as a shared
data provider in SharePoint
18
Microsoft Office SharePoint Server With
Business Data Catalog
Minimal query flexibility supported
Example BDC web part
EPDM Data in BDC
EPDM Data in MOSS with BDC
Minimal User Action Supported
19
Custom EPDM-SharePoint Integration Web Part
EPDM-SharePoint Web Parts
• are constructed to present EPDM data and
functionalities to SharePoint users
• may be hosted in SharePoint sites and portals
• may become standalone web applications if desired
• interact natively with both EPDM and SharePoint
• provide customizable document level accesses (e.g.,
downloading, viewing, and editing contents)
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Customizable
Query Attributes
EPDM-SharePoint Integration Web Part
Sortable Columns
EPDM Data
Multi-page query results
21
Statistics of
File States
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Summary of Integration Advantages: Centralized Data
Access
• Exposing a list of selected documents from EPDM in SharePoint
• The document list is formed from the results of a EPDM query
• The site administrator governs the syntax of the query, thus the contents of
the SharePoint web part
• The document list is invalidated and refreshed according to a policy set forth
by the administrator
• EPDM data statistics may be exported and displayed in a graphical web part
Additionally Advantages of a Custom EPDM-SP Web Part Solution:
• When the user selects a document, it is retrieved from the EPDM vault and
optionally displayed using an appropriate viewer (e.g., eDrawings Viewer)
• The menu of functions supported on an EPDM Document may be
customized and expanded
23
Application Scenarios
Application Scenario I: A Joint Meeting Between
Engineering and Sales
• A SharePoint Meeting Workspace is created as the centralized resource
repository for the meeting
• A web site is set up for participants to view the agenda, previous meeting
minutes, and all related technical and business documents
• PLM data from EPDM is referenced in the portal

EPDM data is live: data changes (revisions) are reflected immediately
• The web site and shared workspace may persist to support future meetings
and collaboration projects, or may be removed when no longer needed
25
Application Scenario II: Centralized Data Access
• EPDM is tightly integrated into product development and other business
processes
• Corporate IT Department deploys SharePoint Services to support
manufacturing, business , and other non-technical collaborations
• Non-technical departments may require access to technical data
• For example, the Purchasing Department may require access to EPDM (as
well as other ERP) data from a central location or application
• PLM data access across the two systems is inefficient, time-consuming,
tedious, and may jeopardize data integrity and consistency (e.g., when
copying data across systems)
• The EPDM-SP integration solution allows user accesses to selected EPDM
data and functionalities in SharePoint without requiring extensive EPDM
knowledge
• The solution provides a familiar, easy-to-use web-based experience for the
SharePoint users
• The integration increases efficiency while maintaining data consistency
26
Application Scenario III: Supply Chain Collaboration
• A SharePoint Site is created as the centralized resource
repository for collaborating and sharing data with the supply
chain (suppliers, vendors, etc.) and customer communities
• The SharePoint site is located outside of the corporate
firewall to provide controlled access to data
• Suppliers and customers may access product specifications,
data sheets and manuals; participate in workflow (e.g.,
design outsource); and access technical and business
documents through the SharePoint site to support design
and production outsourcing
• Live EPDM PLM data is referenced in the SharePoint site:
data changes (revisions) are reflected immediately
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Application Scenario IV: Project/Upper Management data
access
• SharePoint Web Parts are configured to access various project- and datarelated information in EPDM
• For each web part, a custom query is created to expose the data of interest
(e.g., the status of documents for a project, the duration of the workflow
stages)
• Data may be exported and shared with other web parts or Microsoft Office
applications
• Data may also be displayed visually using a graphing web part
28
Other EPDM-SharePoint User Scenarios
• Solution can be expanded to many other corporate-specific scenarios…
29
EPDM-SharePoint Data
Presentation Demonstrations
Considerations
• Generic vs. Specific Solutions

DataView/BDC
− View data only—no file access support
− Difficult to change view contents
− (BDC) Requires administrative action to instigate site-wide shared data resource
changes
− Requires knowledge of XML and familiarity of additional authoring tool(s)

EDPM-SP Web Part
− Supports item/file access for viewing, editing, printing, etc.
− Easy to update view contents
− Customized item-level actions through configurable menus
• Automatic Notifications

SharePoint Users

EPDM Users
• Licenses

DataView (free), MOSS/BDC (required), EPDM-SP Web Part (required)
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Integration Benefits
• Extends the reach of product lifecycle and document collaboration across
boundaries
• Leverages existing IT strategy and infrastructure
• Connect people, resources, and knowledge base for better and faster
accesses
• Optimizes team performance and synergy for maximum project, product,
and program achievements
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Conclusions
• A EPDM—SharePoint integration harnesses the powerful
features from two complementary collaboration systems to
provide a rich user experience
• The integration facilitates the adoption of EPDM by
SharePoint users
• The integration also expands product and document
management options and ultimately simplifies both
engineering and business processes
• The EPDM-SharePoint web part provides the most
practical, flexible and powerful solution—the best ROI
33
For More Information…
Thank
You!
Questions
?
Marc Young
xLM Solutions, LLC
248-926-5932
[email protected]