Razorleaf Corporation » Enterprise Portal (SharePoint) Articles

Configuring EPDM Dashboard in Office2PDM

Jonathan Scott — Tue, 02 Aug 2011 13:30:32 +0000

EPDM Dashboard is a very interesting part of the Office2PDM package - it provides a quick look into the status of files in your SolidWorks Enterprise PDM vault. Despite its obvious usefulness, configuring the tool requires a few pieces of information, and following a couple of simple steps. Here are the basics of getting EPDM Dashboard for Office2PDM setup and running. EPDM Dashboard is installed by default with Office2PDM. No separate installation is required. However, because EPDM Dashboard generates reports directly from Microsoft SQL Server database, additional configuration steps are required after installation, in order to configure EPDM Dashboard to connect with your SQL Server database. You must enter the server name of your database as well as provide credentials for accessing the database.

Step 1 - Determine Your EPDM Database Server Name

Log into the SolidWorks Enterprise PDM Administration Tool (typically requires Administrator privileges). Locate the file vault of interest (the one that you want to report against), and select the Properties command from the right-click menu. In the File Vault Properties dialog, take note of the Database Server field - this is your EPDM Database Server Name. The two screenshots below depict this process:

Step 2 - Determine Your SQL Server Credentials

Next, you need an account for your Microsoft SQL Server system that allows you to read data in the database that houses your EPDM information. This will require some discussion with your SQL Server DBA (database administrator) about accounts and authentication modes. For the purposes of this article, let's assume that you'll use integrated authentication (your Windows account provides you access to SQL Server). You can alternatively specify a username and password for your access to Microsoft SQL Server.

Step 3 - Configure EPDM Dashboard

Launch the EPDM Dashboard Options dialog from within Outlook (depicted in the image below). Once the EPDM Dashboard Options dialog is open, be sure that Enable EPDM Dashboard is checked and then set your EPDM Database Server Name, and provide your access information for Microsoft SQL Server (see the image below).

Now you are all set to start accessing EPDM Dashboard from within Microsoft Outlook. If you're still having trouble, contact us.

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