CUSTOMTOOLS Batch Operation

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• CUSTOMTOOLS Command Bar
  + Export
  + Where Used
  + File Operations
  + Print Order
  + List
  + Process Drawings
  + Preview
  + Videos
• Setting Up a Batch Operation
  + Print Profile
  + Batch Conversion
  + Tasks
  + Layer Definitions
  + Overwrite Property Values
  + Additional Options
  + Videos
  
• Documents to Process
  + Handling the Configuration Drawings
  + Things to Notice With the SOLIDWORKS PDM
• Virtual Components in Batch Operations
• Documents Search Feature
• Removing Files From The List
• Customize the Navigation Pane

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Export	Export the structure information of the selected document into another information system. (Not available in CUSTOMTOOLS Viewer)
Where Used	Shows where the selected document is used.
File Operations	Operations for adding files to the batch operation and for maintaining documents already included in it:

	Add Files	Add files to the printing queue. You can select one or more files simultaneously. With the Print/Convert feature you can print any type of files supported by your workstation like Adobe PDF documents (.pdf), Microsoft Office documents (.docx, .xlsx, .pptx...) and so on. Files that are not in the SOLIDWORKS document formats, are always being printed to the default printer of your workstation.
		TIP: To add more than one file simultaneously, hold down the CTRL key and select the desired files.
	Add Folder	Use the Add Folder command to open SOLIDWORKS documents from the desired folder for a batch operation. You can also include sub folders to a batch operation by selecting the Include subfolders option in the Browse for Folder dialog box.
	Add Assembly	Adds all the documents related to the opened file to the printing queue. If you have selected an assembly to be added with a structure, please ensure that you have rebuilt and saved the assembly before performing the CUSTOMTOOLS batch operation.
	Delete File	Removes the selected documents. NOTE: Specific permission is required on the database level to delete the design data. Because of that, the Delete command is enabled only when the user has the necessary database level permissions. The reference data is deleted only from the database by default, but the user is able to delete the file completely also from the hard disk by selecting the Delete associated files from hard drive as well option in the Delete Files dialog box, that appears once the Delete command has been performed.
	Open File in SW	Opens the selected document with SOLIDWORKS and closes the Search Results dialog box.
	Open in Explorer	Opens the file location of the selected document in the Windows Explorer window.

Print Order

Options to setup the printing order.

	View Order	Views the current printing order of the selected documents.
	Manage Order	Opens the Printing Order dialog box used to set the printing order.

List	Commands to export and open the document list:
	Export	Export the document list into an external file for the later use. The following file types are supported to export the list to: - CSV files (*.csv). The exported values in the CSV files are separated by the Tabs in the output file. - Text files (*.txt). The exported values in the Text files are separated by the commas (,) in the output file.
	Open as CSV	Open the document list in default application assigned for the CSV files in your workstation.

Process Drawings

Options related to the processing of the drawing documents.

	First instance by level	Processes the first instances of the drawings level by level. See image.
	First instance recursive	Processes only the first instance of the drawing recursively. The batch operation processes the sub-assemblies first. See image.

	Clear selection of both options available in the Process Drawings menu to process all drawings wihtout processing order rules. See image.
	Click the See image link associated to the Process Drawings options above description to open a figure describing the way the drawings are processed by the option selected. The figure associated to the selected option appears into own window.

Preview	Opens a preview of the selected document. You can switch the document shown in the Preview window on the fly by clicking the desired document in the Selected Documents To Process list.
	TIP: You can also select the desired sheet of the drawing to be shown in the Preview.
Close Preview	Closes the Preview window.

Video Links:

Use the following video links to watch instructive videos about the associated batch operations' additional options. All of the following videos are located in the CUSTOMTOOLS YouTube channel. Video links opens in the new tab, or if you are opening them from the CUSTOMTOOLS offline helps, the video links opens in a new tab in your default internet browser.

Manage Order

Manage the documents' processing order during the batch operation. For example, the processing order could follow the order in the Bill Of Materials.

 

Batch Operation Profiles

Select the batch operations you want to process by selecting the desired batch operation profiles from the tabs available in the Batch Operation dialog box. A number surrounded by the brackets at the end of the tab name indicates the number of batch operation profiles selected from the specific tab. If no batch operation profile are not selected in the tab, the number or brackets are not included in the tab name. The number of items selected is shown in the following tabs' name:

• Print Profile
• Batch Conversion
• Tasks
• Layer Definition

Example: When you have selected three file conversion rules in the Batch Conversion tab, one batch printing profile in the Print Profile tab and, two layer definitions in the Layer Definition tab, the tab names in the Batch Operation dialog box appear as follows:

• Print Profile (1)
• Batch Conversion (3)
• Layer Definition (2)

Print Profile	Batch print your documents. You can select the desired printing profiles from the Print Profile list. If you do not see this node, you may not have any print profiles defined in the CUSTOMTOOLS Print Properties options.
Batch Conversion	Batch convert your SOLIDWORKS documents into another formats. You can select the desired conversion rules from the Batch Conversion list to convert selected files with. The Batch Conversion rules could be maintained in the CUSTOMTOOLS File Conversion options.

Documents that match with the selected batch operation profile are selected automatically in the Documents to process list when you select the desired batch operation profile from the profile list.

When you select a batch printing profile, the automatic selection also apply the sheet naming based processing rules defined in the selected batch printing profile.

On batch file conversion, the automatic selection notices the document types the selected file conversion rule is scoped to. Also the possible limitations on model configuration processing rules and/or on the drawing sheet naming rules are applied on automatic selection of the documents.

When you have manually changed quantities of the components for the batch operation rule and then you clear selection of the batch operation profile of which the quantities were manually set for, the manually set quantities are reset. The user gets prompted in this case for whether or not to continue clearing selection of the batch operation rule.

Answer Yes to a prompt to reset the manually set quantities and clear selection of the selected batch operation rule.

Tasks

Generate special sheets to the SOLIDWORKS Drawings converted on the batch operation. In the Tasks. With the Tasks you can execute the Cutting Profile and Bend Sheet features against your SOLIDWORKS drawings referenced by the Sheet Metal parts.

• Create Cutting Profile Sheet
  
  Select the Create Cutting Profile Sheet task to your batch operation to create the cutting profile sheets to the sheet metal parts' drawings. Sheets created on the batch operation by the Create Cutting Profile Sheet task are generated based on the Cutting Profile feature options setup in the CUSTOMTOOLS Cutting Profile Options.

• Create Bend Sheet
  
  Select the Create Bend Sheet task to your batch operation to create the cutting profile sheets to the sheet metal parts' drawings. Sheets created on the batch operation by the Create Bend Sheet task are generated based on the Bend Sheet feature options setup in the CUSTOMTOOLS Bend Sheet Options.

• Rebuild Files
  
  Select the Rebuild Files task to your batch operation to rebuild the processed documents during the batch operation. Operations performed to the documents by the Rebuild Files task are similar to the SOLIDWORKS Rebuild command (Edit, Rebuild). The Rebuild Files task applies the Rebuild operation to the files in the documents to process list, in a reverse BOM order (from bottom to top) to avoid out-of-date files in SOLIDWORKS. Due to that, CUSTOMTOOLS automatically sets the Print Order as descending BOM order while processing the Rebuild Files task.

NOTES: • Operations available in the Tasks tab, does not support multibody parts. • Files added after the task selections will not get automatically selected by the tasks. • If you have any unsaved changes in open documents that are included in the batch operation which have any task selected, you get prompted to choose whether or not to save the changes. Changes saved on the batch operation may not be undoable.

Layer Definition

Sets the layer definitions used while printing the drawings. You can setup the layer definitions in CUSTOMTOOLS Layer Definitions options. Layers' visibility in the batch operation output documents is determined based on the layers' visibility set in the Layer Definitions options.

Layer definitions that have the Selected by default option selected in the Layer Definitions options are selected automatically but those selections could be cleared if necessary.

Empty language layers are ignored on the batch operation.

Overwrite Property Values

Setup new values for the Properties to be written to drawings on batch operation. Properties that have the Enable changing of value in printing option selected in the property's additional options are shown in the pane and their values could be changed on batch operation. Any property values in SOLIDWORKS document properties does not get overwritten on batch operations, just the value written to the drawings could be customized in here.

The property specific additional options are set in the Addtional Options page of the Property Wizard.

NOTES:

• The Enable changing of value in printing option in the Property's Additional Options overrides the Hidden option so you can also overwrite values of the hidden properties in the CUSTOMTOOLS Batch Operation.
• To overwrite value of a combination property, you need to inactivate the combination link by clicking the Property linking button associated to the property you want to overwrite in the Overwrite Property Values view of the Batch Operation dialog box.
• Overwriting of the values stored in the documents' revision data is not supported in CUSTOMTOOLS batch operations.
• Changes on the values of the Properties that are included in the target path or filename of the selected File Conversion rule, are also applied to the output files' paths and/or filenames.

Additional Options

The Additional Options tab in the Batch Operation dialog box contains the advanced features you may apply to the supported types of files selected in your batch operation.

	Add quantity	Writes the quantity value into the custom property for printing time. You can insert the Property containing the quantity value into your drawings by customizing the drawing sheet formats. For the further instructions about inserting the quantity value to the drawings, please see a video available in the CUSTOMTOOLS YouTube channel.
	Select translation language	Specifies the language of the drawing layer to be used to translate the drawing template. Multilingual model properties in the drawing are also translated into the selected language if the selected translation exist in the dictionary.
	Sheet Format action	Determines the reload or change action to apply to the selected drawings' sheet format. Sheet format actions are defined in the Sheet Format Action options of your active CUSTOMTOOLS Profile.
	Save changes to drawings	Save the changed sheet formats to the source drawing files on the CUSTOMTOOLS batch operation. NOTES: • Changes made to the source document properties on the CUSTOMTOOLS batch operation, are not stored to the source files so changes in the property values are not present in the source files after the CUSTOMTOOLS batch operation. • Selecting the Save changes to files option without selecting any files from the documents list, makes all the SOLIDWORKS Drawing files (*.slddrw) in the list as files to be processed so then the Sheet Format Action selected is applied to all the files. • The Save changes to drawings option is available only when the Add quantities option or any Sheet format action is selected.

NOTE: If you have any unsaved changes in open documents that are included in the batch operation which have the Add quantity option or any Sheet format action selected, you get prompted to choose whether or not to save the changes. Changes saved on the batch operation may not be undoable.

Video Links

Use the following video links to watch instructive videos about the associated batch operations' additional options. All of the following videos are located in the CUSTOMTOOLS YouTube channel. Video links opens in the new tab, or if you are opening them from the CUSTOMTOOLS offline helps, the video links opens in a new tab in your default internet browser.

	Layer Definition	Select the layers to be shown and the layers to be hidden in the output documents.
	Overwrite Property Values	Setup values for the Properties to be written to drawings on batch operation.
	Add quantity	Insert the manufacturing quantities into the printed/converted documents.
	Reload sheet format	Reload the sheet format used in your drawings. For example, if the company logo has been changed then drawings can easily be updated by reloading the sheet format on the batch operation.
	Change sheet format	Change the sheet format used in the drawings. For example, you can change the sheet formats in all drawings currently using the A4-P-ATR Soft sheet format to use the A4-P-CUSTOMTOOLS after the batch operation.

 

The Select documents to process list shows the structure of the document to be processed by the batch operation. By default, the Select documents to process list is filled based on the bill of materials order of the document which you execute the Print/Convert command against.

For example: When you execute the Print/Convert command against an assembly that you have open while clicking the command, the assembly structure gets automatically loaded into the Select documents to process list based on the assembly's bill of materials order.

NOTE: Recently created documents which are not yet saved at all, does not appear in the Select documents to process list. Unsaved changes in the documents are not included into the output files either so, please ensure that all files to be processed by the batch operation are saved and rebuilt before performing the Print/Convert command.

As you can also execute the Print/Convert command also without having documents open in SOLIDWORKS, you can then add documents to the CUSTOMTOOLS batch operation using the following methods:

• Click File Operations, Add Files to add the desired files to the batch operation using a file browser.
• Click File Operations, Add Folder to add all supported files from a specific folder to the batch operation using a folder browser.
• Click File Operations, Add Assembly to add the desired assembly to the batch operation using a file browser.
• Drag and drop the desired files from e.g. Windows Explorer window into the Select documents to process list.

Inserting documents into a batch operation using the Add Files or Add Folder command in the File Operations menu or by using the drag and drop method, the files' bill of materials order is not read. For that reason, the files inserted to the batch operation mentioned above in this paragraph, appear in the Select documents to process list in an order the files were inserted in.

Name	Name of the document. SOLIDWORKS drawings with their sheets are shown as tree structures in under the Name column in the Select documents to process list. When you open any drawing in CUSTOMTOOLS Batch Operation, the last active sheet is always included in the Select documents to process list in association to the selected drawing.
Configuration	Name of the referenced SOLIDWORKS model configuration or, in association to the SOLIDWORKS drawing documents the Configuration column shows the model configuration referenced in the specific drawing. If your assembly uses several configurations of the same part, all instances of the part and referenced configurations in association to the specific part instances are listed in the CUSTOMTOOLS batch operation's list of the documents to be processed.
Copies	Shows the currently set number of copies to be printed. You can change the value of copies by clicking the current value and then you can type or select the desired number of copies.
Qty	Shows the quantity of the component. The quantity value edited by the user is shown in the list as Blue colored. The quantity shows how many times the specific part is needed for the assembly it refers to. Changing the quantity of an assembly multiplies its children documents quantity automatically as well.

Drawing sheets handled by the selected batch operation profile gets automatically selected on selection of the desired batch operation profile.

Changing between the selected batch operation profiles updates also the Select documents to process list to show the selected documents by the selected batch operation profile.

Component quantities are also calculated based on the selected batch Print Profile/Batch Conversion rule. For that reason, the component quantities shown in the Select documents to process list may also change when you change the batch operation rule selection.

Changing the component quantity by hand, you get prompted to choose whether or not to apply the changed quantity to all selected batch printing profiles and the file conversion rules. Once the changes in the components' quantities are accepted, the Add quantity option located in the Additional Options tab gets also selected automatically to print the quantity values to the output documents of the batch operation.

TIP: Hold down the Ctrl or Shift key to select multiple documents simultaneously, then select the check box of one of the selected documents to select the check boxes of all the selected documents.

 

In a CUSTOMTOOLS batch operation, the derived configurations are considered as references of their parent configuration. The following examples describe the way CUSTOTMOOLS considers drawings created from the different level configurations of the referenced model.

The following picture presents the part structure the following examples are referencing to.

Figure 1. The structure of the example part used in the following examples.

Example 1:

The assembly called Assembly is referring to the Default configuration of the Part1. However, the only drawing created from the Part1, is referencing to the part’s DefaultFLAT-PATTERN configuration.

Figure 2. Opened structure and a summary of the drawings processed from the associated structure.

In the case presented in the Figure 2 above the drawing referencing to the DefaultFLAT-PATTERN configuration is considered as a drawing of the Default configuration and for that reason, it is included in the CUSTOMTOOLS Batch Operation.

Example 2:

The assembly is referring to the Default configuration of the Part1 but, the only drawing created from the Part1 is referencing to the part’s other configuration called MyConfiguration.

Figure 3. Opened structure and a summary of the drawings processed from the associated structure.

In case presented in the Figure 3 above, any of the drawings referencing to the Part1 are not processed at all because none of the drawings is being referenced in the configuration referenced in the assembly structure.

Example 3:

The assembly is referring to the MyDerivedConfiguration configuration of the Part1 but, the only drawing created from the Part1 is referencing to the part’s other configuration called MyConfiguration.

Figure 4. Opened structure and a summary of the drawings processed from the associated structure.

In case presented in the Figure 4 above, a drawing exist but the existing drawing references to the parent configuration (MyConfiguration) of the one referenced in the assembly structure. For that reason, the drawing is not being processed in the batch operation.

 

While you are working in an environment that have the SOLIDWORKS PDM system, the processed files' vault file version is being checked. If the file processed is not the latest version, the user gets prompted to decide what to do:

Do this for all	Select this option to apply the action selected, to all files that are not the latest version, and are being processed in this batch operation.
Get Latest	Gets the latest version of the file from the SOLIDWORKS PDM Vault.
Get As-Built	Gets a version of file from the time the assembly was last time checked in.
Use Local	Select this option to process your local version of the file in the batch operation.

 

SOLIDWORKS virtual components could be physically located in the local temp folder. For that reason CUSTOMTOOLS determines the source path of the virtual components based on their physical parent documents. Because of that, the virtual components' output path on the CUSTOMTOOLS file conversion points to the same folder where the virtual component's physical parent document is located at.

Parent document of the virtual component does not have to be open while processing the virtual components with the Print/Convert feature. While processing the virtual components, the parent documents are opened for the batch process time. After the documents are processed, the parent documents are automatically closed.

NOTES: - Virtual components appear into the documents to process list but they cannot be selected. However the virtual components are still processed in the CUSTOMTOOLS batch operation as described above. - Virtual components are not processed with the file conversion rules that are executed on the file save operation.

 

A documents searching feature is located under the Select documents to process list in association to it. The search feature allows you to search for the specific documents from the list of the files you have added to a batch operation to be processed.

Search string	A keyword to be looked for, from the document list. Keyword typed in the Search string box is searched from the document names and also from the values of the Properties that have the Display in Print/Convert option selected in the property settings. The Display in Print/Convert option of the Properties is located in the Additional Options page of the Property Wizard.
Search	Click the Search button to execute the search using the search string specified in the Search string box.
<	Jump to the previous matching row in the document list.
>	Jump to the next matching row in the document list.

 

Linked properties means CUSTOMTOOLS Properties that have a link for example to a combination of multiple properties. Each linked property have a button associated for controlling the link state (Enabled/Disabled). The following table describe the link states available:

	Link Status	Meaning
	Active	Property link is active. Property value is automatically retrieved based on the source property set in the Property settings.
	Inactive	Property link is inactive. Property value could be typed by the user.

 

Right-click the desired filename and select Remove to delete file from the list of files to be processed in batch operation.

Other commands in the right-click menu:

Select all	Selects all documents from the list.
Clear selection	Clears the current selection.
Reset quantities	Resets all the quatitiy values to defaults, which the user has been modified.

Right-click the parent level document to open a context menu having the following options in addition for the options mentioned above:

Select all children	Selects all children level documents.
Clear children selection	Clears all selections from the child level documents.

 

By default, all tabs for setting up the batch operation are visible in the Batch Operation dialog box. You can select the visible tabs and change their order using the (Toolbar Options) button located in the bottom right corner of the Navigation Pane.

You have three basic commands for making changes to the tabs shown in the Batch Operation dialog box.

Show More Buttons	Adds a tab to the navigation pane. If you already have all available tabs visible in the navigation pane, the Show More Buttons button turns disabled.
Show Fewer Buttons	Removes a tab from the navigation pane. If you already have all available tabs hidden in the navigation pane, the Show Fewer Buttons button turns disabled.
Navigation Pane Options	Opens the Navigation Pane Options dialog box. Use the Navigation Pane Options to select the visible tabs in the pane and, set them into your desired order.