SOLIDWORKS PDM Sandbox Vault for modification and troubleshooting

A SOLIDWORKS PDM Sandbox Vault (test vault) should be used when modifying or troubleshooting your vault. Working with a SOLIDWORKS PDM Sandbox vault can help prevent problems, with your production vault, when you make changes. Some changes such as modifying workflows, may result in problems that can take a very long time to resolve. It is highly recommended to test any change in your Sandbox vault, before applying these changes to your production vault.

Creating a Sandbox vault is a simple procedure and well worth the time invested. In SolidWorks Enterprise PDM Administration, right-click on the server where you wish to create the Sandbox Vault and choose Create new vault.

Enter a name for your Sandbox vault.

Select the root folder where new file new file vault will be created.

Choose the location of the database server. If you wish you can give the database a different name

You will be prompted to enter the database server “sa” password.

Chose the Language and the Date format.

Enter the admin password, or use the default password created during the archive server installation.

For the configuration of the vault, choose the Empty standard configuration. We will populating the Sandbox vault with nodes from the production vault and do not want  add any additional content.

After the Sandbox vault has been created, by clicking on Finish on the last screen, we need to Export the nodes from the production vault. Right click on the production vault and choose Export.

Save the Export as a .cex file.

Lastly, right click on the newly created Sandbox vault and import the .cex file created earlier. You will be prompted to select the .cex file.

Now that you have a SOLIDWORKS PDM Sandbox vault you can use it to develop, troubleshoot and test the various nodes and items of your vault (i.e. cards, workflows, templates etc..). Once you have created and thoroughly tested  an item and would like to migrate it to your production vault, you can export that item and import it into the production vault. Individual nodes and items can also be exported from the production vault, for development or troubleshooting in the Sandbox vault. Items and nodes can also be dragged and dropped from vault to vault.