Creating New Project Templates in EPDM
One of the greatest features of the EPDM software is the ability to create Folder and Data structures from a template. This template can be used to collect information from the user and then carry this information down through the project folder structure. It can also be used to populate files with this metadata. There are even ways to set standard permissions differently with each type of template the system administrator creates.
The advantage of using these templates is standardization within your vault. Every Project/Product/Job/Customer data structure can be exactly the same as all of the other ones. This solves the “what do I name this folder” problem common when users are working off of a network drive. In one project the user creates a folder for 3D CAD data called “CAD Data.” Another user, in another project calls the same type of folder “Mechanical Data,” and a third user in a different division calls it “Engineering Data.”
When you hire a new employee and ask them to work on a project, where do you tell that person to look for the file they will need? Now imagine this happening with hundreds of folders across dozens of projects, and you see what can happen. By using an EPDM template, you simply tell the new employee, “Go to project 12345 and look in the CAD folder, and there are all your parts, assemblies, and drawings that you will need.”
Another advantage to using the EPDM templates is the ability to create standard documents (of any type) that you will need for each project. For example, every project might need a budget, Gantt chart, or other standard document that has to be created or copied into the new project every time. By using an EPDM template, these documents can be created automatically every time and be automatically named by the system as well. Some documents (MS Word and MS Excel) can even have information populated inside of them upon creation.
Throughout this article the term “project” has been used, however, the term project could easily be replaced with something such as customer, job, order, etc.
Tags: automation, Enterprise PDM, EPDM, PDMWorks Enterprise, software engineering, template
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