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SolidSmack Mystery Tip: Motivating SolidWorks Users to Use More Features

Published
by
Josh
on May 14, 2008
in SolidWorks Mystery Tips and SolidWorks Tips
. Tags: , .

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I’m liking this topic, so we’re gonna keep going with it till it breaks into a million tiny pieces. Here’s why. I get a bit of emails asking questions about SolidWorks and a lot of them are really good questions that I’d love to turn into posts. So, here’s your chance again to have your question answered.

First Person to Ask a Question!
The first person to asks a question about SolidWorks in the comments below will turn this post into a 100% grade-A tip for everyone to join in on. All I ask, is that it’s not a question like, why does SolidWorks suck or can I put milk in an envelope… this is serious stuff people.

So ask away, chime in if you know the answer, and we’ll crank out another topic that will send people home to their families in a pleasant mood.

The Mystery Question IS…

UPDATE! Chris Chastine asks…
“Does anyone else have trouble motivating their users and getting them to use some more common features? It continues to baffle me why my users still don’t use patterns or hole wizard so that when time comes to work on the assembly they can save themselves hours of sheer torture by not having to place (and keep updated) hundreds of fasteners. I still have users that draw and dimension each and every hole instead of making them all “equal” or using relations to force the design intent.

Before you ask - no, we don’t have modeling standards. And no, I am not a full time CAD Admin, I design during the day and mysteriously transform into an admin during my slower periods.”

Chris, sounds like a tough situations. Let’s see what everyone has to say!

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Viewing 6 Comments

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    Does anyone else have trouble motivating their users and getting them to use some more common features? It continues to baffle me why my users still don't use patterns or hole wizard so that when time comes to work on the assembly they can save themselves hours of sheer torture by not having to place (and keep updated) hundreds of fasteners. I still have users that draw and dimension each and every hole instead of making them all "equal" or using relations to force the design intent.
    Before you ask - no, we don't have modeling standards. And no, I am not a full time CAD Admin, I design during the day and mysteriously transform into an admin during my slower periods.
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    Without a doubt, but again it all depends on the intent. Sometimes it's better to use a pair of dimensions to relate a symetrical 4 hole set than dimensioning 1 and using a linear pattern in 2 directions. Otherwise you don't have that symetrical intent built in.

    With getting people to follow good practices. It's always difficult, but I like to lead by example and not only talk the talk, but walk the walk and show them that it's better to think about how to dimension a set of holes with actual design intent and challenge yourself to think of using as little dimensions as possible and more relations. I've noticed in doing this the first few times it does take a little longer to develop your parts, but in the long run when you understand real design intent it actually takes less time. Also it's easier for someone coming behind to understand how and why you did what you did and makes it easier to update and manage 10 fold than without.

    -James
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    Chris, I was in a similar situation a couple years ago. I realized that a lot of people just didn't know about some of the features that are obvious to more knowledgeable users. I started to doing SolidWorks Tips in emails, then putting them into a document for them to reference. That ended up turning into this blog where I'm able to share them with more people.

    The pattern stuff you talk about is actually one of the first tips I did on this site.
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    I have tried showing them a few times in some of our inter-company users groups but to no avail. Maybe it's just my teaching style and they don't see the tremendous benefit to some of the things I have shown. Or maybe I am just too anal - who knows.
    Anywho... about your first tip - I use sketch driven patterns all the time and never realized you could do that. That's just way too easy!!!
    See, you can teach an old dog new tricks.
    BTW - nice surprise shots on the surfacing book post. I just ordered mine today to see what it was you were so excited about ;c)
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    I'm doing a itern ship and I am using a lot of tips from this site and from swgeeks. And I am using more features then most of my colleges and I jsut started... (6 months). So tip 1 hire some motivated swgeek student :) or get your self an expert status and a megaphone.Also de basic functions are to easy to use and you can do almost everything with them, so user stop looking deeper.BTW, The Width mate RULES thx swgeek :)
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    OK I stuck with SW2004 way too long but What happened to the scroll bars in the drawings and assembly's do I ahve something turned off or what?

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