SOLIDWORKS CAD Admin Dashboard

The SOLIDWORKS CAD Admin Dashboard provides administrators with tools to be able to monitor performance, hardware and drivers, SOLIDWORKS session statistics and system options across all SOLIDWORKS users in your organization.

This can be a power tool to help identify issues, such as systems with unsupported graphics card drivers, or experiencing large percentages of SOLIDWORKS sessions that were either killed or crashed (“terminated unexpectedly”) vs sessions that terminated normally.  Users with SOLIDWORKS system options that are not matching those set out for the organization can also be identified through the dashboard.

Accessing the CAD Admin Dashboard

The CAD Admin Dashboard is accessed from Admin Portal in my.solidworks.com.  If you’re organization hasn’t set up the Admin Portal yet, these step by step instructions will guide you through the initial login and setup of an Administrator.  Only Admin users will have access to the Admin Portal and the CAD Admin Dashboard.

Step 1:  Log into my.solidworks.com, click on your name in the top right corner and from the dropdown list select Admin Portal.

Step 2:  In the Admin Portal, select the CAD Admin Dashboard

Features and Benefits

The main (upper) dashboard displays a listing of the systems where SOLIDWORKS has been installed using a serial number associated to your organization with key information shown in the summary columns.

The dashboard is automatically filtered by SOLIDWORKS release with installations of the latest release displaying by default.  You can change the release listed through the droplist on the toolbar.

The Status column displays a red flag for any systems that meet certain conditions.  The conditions can be adjusted using the “Set Red Flag Options” button on the toolbar.

The lower section of the dashboard shows detailed information about the system selected in the main dashboard, including the SOLIDWORKS System Options settings, specific Machine Details, RX Benchmark if the Benchmark test has been performed on that computer and a history of the systems SOLIDWORKS Session Details.

The SOLIDWORKS Customer Experience Improvement Program

All this dashboard goodness is made possible by the information gathered from the systems by opting into the SOLIDWORKS Customer Experience Improvement Program.

If a user does not select the option to join the program, the the system’s information will not be displayed in the CAD Admin Dashboard.

The option to join the program is presented immediately after installing, upgrading or repairing SOLIDWORKS.

The program can also be joined directly from within SOLIDOWRKS by going to Tools > Options > System Options > General and checking the box for “Help make SOLIDWORKS products better by automatically sending your log files to DS SolidWorks Corporation.

If SOLIDWORKS is being deployed using the Admin Image, this option can be enabled and locked on using the SOLIDWORKS Setting Administration tool.

The Customer Experience Improvement Program can also be enabled directly in the windows registry by going to the key HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\SolidWorks\SOLIDWORKS <CURRENT VERSION>\SW Event Log setting the value “Send Feedback Enabled” to a value of 1.