Your Guide to Buying SOLIDWORKS Data Management Solutions

How to Choose a Data Management Solution

Which solution(s) is right for you?

Choosing the right solution depends on your team’s size and what functionality you need to support your business processes. Luckily, Alignex offers a wide array of options that are able to be customized for any team and the expertise to guide you through your decision. Whether you are looking for simple revision control for your team, process automation or robust project management functionality, we have a solution for you.

Here is an overview of the capabilities of each solution to help you choose the right package:

SOLIDWORKS PDM Standard
Perfect for small teams, SOLIDWORKS PDM Standard is included with every license of SOLIDWORKS Professional or Premium on subscription. This simple tool helps teams with data security, revision control and reusing design data easily.

SOLIDWORKS PDM Professional
SOLIDWORKS PDM Professional is a highly customizable tool for managing your product data. A step up from PDM Standard, the Professional version of this add-in is intended for larger teams with large amounts of data. Advanced features include designing workflows, automation, remote access and much more.

SOLIDWORKS Manage
Teams looking for robust project management features should look at adding SOLIDWORKS Manage to their PDM environment. This solution builds upon SOLIDWORKS PDM Professional functionality by adding a wide array of capabilities encompassing project management, process management, item management, user tasks and dashboards and reports.

Which license type(s) does your company need?

Both SOLIDWORKS PDM and Manage have three levels of license types to accommodate users with different roles. An example would be people who need access to your data but should not have full permissions or capabilities. This ensures users who just need to view data are not unnecessarily occupying a license that your designers need, without racking up a bigger bill for licenses than you need.

SOLIDWORKS PDM Viewer
PDM Viewer licenses are the most basic license type, allowing users access to read, view and print files from the PDM Vault.

SOLIDWORKS PDM Contributor
The Contributor level of license adds on the ability to check files in and out, use the web client to search remotely and work with all file types.

SOLIDWORKS PDM CAD Editor
PDM Editor licenses include all of the features of the Viewer and Contributor levels, but also enable users to access PDM functionality from within SOLIDWORKS CAD.

SOLIDWORKS Manage Viewer
Similar to PDM Viewer licenses, these allow users to search, view and print within the areas of Manage, including documents, data, dashboards, BOMs and more.

SOLIDWORKS Manage Contributor
Contributor licenses build on the Manage Viewer license functionality to allow for the creation and management of processes, tasks, workflows and non-CAD data.

SOLIDWORKS Manage CAD Editor
The SOLIDWORKS Manage Editor license grants full access to all areas of SOLIDWORKS Manage, including the creation and editing of CAD data.

Does Adding a Virtual or Cloud Solution Make Sense?

Do you need additional collaboration capabilities? Or want to limit on-premise IT infrastructure?

If your team does not all work together in a single location, collaboration and management of data and projects can become a challenge with traditional solutions. In these cases, customers often find that adding a Cloud solution can improve efficiency.

Cloud services available to enhance your SOLIDWORKS Data Management tools include:

ENOVIAWorks PLM Solutions on the 3DEXPERIENCE Platform
ENOVIAWorks is a portfolio of integrated services which provide data management and PLM capabilities without the investment in hardware infrastructure. Built on the cloud-based 3DEXPERIENCE platform, this solution serves as the backbone for managing data and product lifecycles. You can easily share SOLIDWORKS designs, manage projects and collaborate from any device.

EpiGrid: SOLIDWORKS CAD & PDM in the Cloud
EpiGrid offers private cloud solutions that address performance, support and collaboration needs of CAD and PDM applications, all while delivering best-in-class security for your data. The technology overcomes the previous limitations of virtual desktops caused by the graphics-intensive nature of SOLIDWORKS. Use your CAD and PDM in the cloud for easy collaboration and scalability. This is the solution for you if you need to improve data security, collaborate from anywhere and if you want to focus entirely on design and not managing your IT infrastructure.

How to Buy SOLIDWORKS Data Management Solutions

Contact Your SOLIDWORKS Reseller

In order to purchase and use a SOLIDWORKS PDM or Manage add-in package, you must first have a SOLIDWORKS 3D CAD license. Add-in licenses are purchased through your certified reseller.

If you need to purchase a SOLIDWORKS 3D CAD license first, we recommend starting with our Guide to Buying SOLIDWORKS with answers to common questions like:

Where to Buy SOLIDWORKS?
How to Buy SOLIDWORKS?
Types of SOLIDWORKS Licenses?
Benefits of SOLIDWORKS Subscription?
Options to Rent vs. Buy SOLIDWORKS

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What is the Price of SOLIDWORKS PDM?

How much do SOLIDWORKS Data Management solutions cost?

Costs of Data Management solutions vary greatly based on the type of license, size of your team as well as your company needs. As a starting point, a SOLIDWORKS PDM Professional CAD Editor Network License starts at $2,085. Annual subscription service on that license is $545 and covers technical support, upgrades and much more.

Contact Alignex to learn more about our current promotions or download our SOLIDWORKS PDM Price List (PDF) to get a comprehensive look at pricing for SOLIDWORKS Data Management Solutions.

Top 3 Data Management Resources

Need to dive in deeper on PDM to learn more?

Browse our recommended resources below to learn more about how adding a data management solution to your design process can increase your team’s productivity.

Data Management Video & Resource Library
Access all of our SOLIDWORKS Data Management resources in one place, including blog posts, videos and much more.

Benefits of PDM [Video Series]
This video series from the Alignex Application Engineer team explores some of the biggest beneficial PDM features.

SOLIDWORKS Data Management Product Matrix
This resources gives you a quick guide to finding the Data Management package with the best features for your design process.

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Ask an Alignex Expert a Question

Still Have Questions About Buying Data Management Solutions?

Fill out the form below and one of our SOLIDWORKS data management experts will follow-up with you.

Your Guide to Buying SOLIDWORKS PDM

This comprehensive guide was created to answer some of the most common questions people have before buying SOLIDWORKS Product Data Management software.

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