Frequently Used SolidWorks Preferences in the Preference Management Utility

Name in Preference Management Utility	Contexts	Description
Operation > Auto Associate > Auto Associate Naming Parameter	• Site • Organizations	Identifies the soft attribute in the CAD document that holds the name for parts during an auto associate operation like Auto Associate Part Search or New Part Creation.
Operation > Auto Associate > Auto Associate Numbering Parameter	• Site • Organizations	Identifies the soft attribute in the CAD document that holds the number for parts during an auto associate operation like Auto Associate Part Search or New Part Creation.
Operation > Auto Associate > Auto Associate Truncate Name File Extension	• Site • Organizations	Truncates the file extension (from the CAD filename) in the part name when the part is created.
Operation > Auto Associate > Auto Associate Truncate Number File Extension	• Site • Organizations	Truncates the file extension (from the CAD filename) in the part number when the part is created.
Operation > Auto Associate > Create Alternate Link On Check In	• Site • Organizations • Products • Projects • Libraries	Allows a link of the next available type to be created if the part already has an owner link.
Operation > Auto Associate > Create Associate New Part	• Site • Organizations • Products • Projects • Libraries	Specifies whether a new part should be created if a matching part is not found by an auto-associate operation.
Operation > Auto Associate > Disallow Product Structure Links by Document Sub-types	• Site • Organizations	Lists the CAD document sub-types which cannot create associations that contribute to part structure.
Operation > Auto Associate > Disallow Product Structure Links by Document Types	• Site • Organizations	Lists the CAD document types which cannot create associations that contribute to part structure.
Operation > Auto Associate > Disallow Structure CAD Document Sub-types	• Site • Organizations	Lists the CAD document sub-types which cannot create owner association.
Operation > Auto Associate > Disallow Structure CAD Document Types	• Site • Organizations	Lists the CAD document types which cannot create owner association.
Operation > Auto Associate > Disallow Structure Model Item Types > Force Autonumbered Part Creation	• Site • Organizations	Allows an auto-associate operation to create an auto-numbered part after check in.
Operation > Auto Associate > Disallow Structure Model Item Types > Part Master Class for Search	• Site • Organizations	Identifies the internal name of the part master type which is searched for during an auto-associate operation.
Operation > Auto Associate > Disallow Structure Model Item Types > Set Revision for Part	• Site • Organizations	Sets the revision of a part to match the revision of the CAD document during an auto-associate operation.
Operation > Auto Associate > Disallow Structure Model Item Types > Store New Parts with CAD Documents	• Site • Organizations	Specifies the location of newly-created parts to be the same as the location of their associated CAD documents.
Operation > CAD Data Management > Content Handling > Download[preference name]	• Site • Organizations	Sets the download preference for the selected content category.
Operation > CAD Data Management > Content Handling > Mark Out Of Date[preference name]	• Site • Organizations	Sets an out-of-date mark for the selected content category.
Operation > Edit Attributes > Collector[preference name]	• Site • Organizations • Products • Projects • Libraries • User	Allows you to manage the collected documents and their related objects during an Edit Attributes operation.
Operation > Remove from Workspace > Collector[preference name]	• Site • Organizations • Products • Projects • Libraries	Allows you to manage the collected documents and their related objects during an Remove from Workspace operation.
Operation > New CAD Document > Synchronize CAD File Name with CAD Document Number	• Site • Organizations • Products • Projects • Libraries • User	Specifies whether the file name for a new CAD document or design context should be set to the same value as its number.
Operation > Rename > Collector	• Site • Organizations • Products • Projects • Libraries • User	Allows you to manage the collected documents and their related objects during a Rename operation.
Operation > Set State > Collector[preference name]	• Site • Organizations • Products • Projects • Libraries • User	Allows you to manage the collected documents and their related objects during a Set State operation.
Operation > Undo Check Out > Collector[preference name]	• Site • Organizations • Products • Projects • Libraries • User	Allows you to manage the collected documents and their related objects during an Undo Check Out operation.
Operation > Update Operation > Update[preference name]	• Site • Organizations • Products • Projects • Libraries • User	Contains the Windchill Workgroup Manager preferences for an Update operation.
Operation > Update Operation > Update > Add Primary Contents to Workspace	• Site • Organizations • Products • Projects • Libraries • User	Controls the default behavior of whether content should be added to the workspace as a link or the actual file.
Operation > Update Operation > Upload[preference name]	• Site • Organizations • Products • Projects • Libraries • User	Contains the Windchill Workgroup Manager preferences for an Upload operation.
Operation > Upload Operation > Upload Collector[preference name]	• Site • Organizations • Products • Projects • Libraries • User	Contains the Windchill Workgroup Manager preferences for an Upload Collector operation.

Name in Preference Management Utility

Contexts

Description

Workgroup Manager Client > Define Library Used by Application

• Site

• Organizations

• Products

• Projects

• Libraries

Indicates a library in which library components are automatically added by SolidWorks.

Workgroup Manager Client > Disable Check out on the fly

• Site

• Organizations

• Products

• Projects

• Libraries

Controls the display of the Conflicts (for Check out on the fly) window upon execution of Save action and resolves the checkout conflict with one of the following options:

• Check-out — Disable the Conflicts (for Check out on the fly) window and checkout the document.

• Revise and Check out — Disable the Conflicts (for Check out on the fly) window; revise and checkout the document.

• Continue — Disable the Conflicts (for Check out on the fly) window and continue to save the document without a checkout.

Documents that are not explicitly checked out are not eligible for a check in.

• No (default) — Enables the display of the Conflicts (for Check out on the fly) window.

Workgroup Manager Client > Family Table Instance Creation > Auto Generate Family Table Instance Number

• Site

• Organizations

• Products

• Projects

• Libraries

When set to Yes, an auto-number is applied to an instance name after a new instance is added in a generic CAD Document.

Workgroup Manager Client > Family Table Instance Creation > Ignore managing model instances by specific names

• Site

• Organizations

• Products

• Projects

• Libraries

Allows you to specify a set of model instance names that must not be managed as family table CAD documents.

Workgroup Manager Client > Family Table Instance Creation > Include generic name with instance

• Site

• Organizations

• Products

• Projects

• Libraries

In order to avoid potential uniqueness issues, this option allows you to include the generic name as part of the CAD document file name of the family table instance.

If you rename or save as the family table dataset after this option has been set, an error for unsupported character is displayed. To avoid the error, refrain from using unsupported characters (For e.g. @) during rename.

Workgroup Manager Client > Family Table Instance Creation > Manage model instances as family table CAD Documents

• Site

• Organizations

• Products

• Projects

• Libraries

Controls whether CAD model instances are managed in Windchill as family table CAD documents.

Workgroup Manager Client > Family Table Instance Creation > Manage new model instances by default

• Site

• Organizations

• Products

• Projects

• Libraries

Controls the default value for the Instance/Non-Instance attribute PTC_IS_INSTANCE.

Workgroup Manager Client > Family Table Instance Creation > SolidWorks Evaluate Configuration Expression

• Site

• Organizations

• Products

Controls the evaluated values of SolidWorks configuration properties, at the cost of performance in the Save operation.

Workgroup Manager Client > Independently Modify Instances

• Site

• Organizations

When set to No, all members of a non-Creo family table are simultaneously checked out. When set to Yes individual checkout is allowed.

Workgroup Manager Client > Manage virtual components

• Site

• Organizations

Controls the creation of CAD documents for components that are marked as virtual in the CAD tool.

Workgroup Manager Client > Mapping System Attributes and File Properties > CAD Document Iteration System Attribute

• Site

• Organizations

Identifies the name of the property in the CAD tool that shows the CAD document's iteration.

Workgroup Manager Client > Mapping System Attributes and File Properties > CAD Document Life Cycle State System Attribute

• Site

• Organizations

Identifies the name of the property in the CAD tool that shows the life cycle state of the CAD document.

Workgroup Manager Client > Mapping System Attributes and File Properties > CAD Document Life Cycle System Attribute

• Site

• Organizations

Identifies the name of the property in the CAD tool that shows the life cycle of the CAD document.

Workgroup Manager Client > Mapping System Attributes and File Properties > CAD Document Name System Attribute

• Site

• Organizations

Identifies the name of the property in the CAD tool that shows the CAD document's name.

Workgroup Manager Client > Mapping System Attributes and File Properties > CAD Document Number System Attribute

• Site

• Organizations

Identifies the name of the property in the CAD tool that shows the CAD document's number.

Workgroup Manager Client > Mapping System Attributes and File Properties > Created By Attribute

• Site

• Organizations

The default name is set to a blank value.

Setting the property name to PTC_WM_CREATED_BY creates the property that displays the name of the user that created the CAD document.

Workgroup Manager Client > Mapping System Attributes and File Properties > Created On Attribute

• Site

• Organizations

The default name is set to a blank value.

Setting the property name to PTC_WM_CREATED_ON creates the property that displays the date and time when the CAD document was created.

The Date.Type.Parameter.Format preference in the wgmclient.ini file controls the date and time string.

Workgroup Manager Client > Mapping System Attributes and File Properties > Modified By Attribute

• Site

• Organizations

The default name is set to a blank value.

Setting the property name to PTC_WM_MODIFIED_BY creates the property that displays the name of the user that last modified the CAD document.

Workgroup Manager Client > Mapping System Attributes and File Properties > Modified On Attribute

• Site

• Organizations

The default name is set to a blank value.

Setting the property name to PTC_WM_MODIFIED_ON creates the property that displays the date and time when the CAD document was last modified.

The Date.Type.Parameter.Format preference in the wgmclient.ini file controls the date and time string.

Workgroup Manager Client > Mapping System Attributes and File Properties > Organization ID System Attribute

• Site

• Organizations

Identifies the name of the property in the CAD tool that shows the CAD document's organization ID.

Workgroup Manager Client > Mapping System Attributes and File Properties > Part Name System Attribute

• Site

• Organizations

Identifies the name of the property in the CAD tool that shows the CAD document's owner-associated part name.

Workgroup Manager Client > Mapping System Attributes and File Properties > Part Number System Attribute

• Site

• Organizations

Identifies the name of the property in the CAD tool that shows the CAD document's owner-associated part number.

Workgroup Manager Client > Mapping System Attributes and File Properties > Revision System Attribute

• Site

• Organizations

Identifies the name of the property in the CAD tool that shows the CAD document's revision.

Workgroup Manager Client > Open Collector > Include Dependent CAD/Dynamic Documents

• Site

• Organizations

• Products

• Projects

• Libraries

• User

Specifies which dependent CAD documents for the collected CAD documents are added to the collection by default upon opening.

Workgroup Manager Client > Open Collector > Include Related Drawings

• Site

• Organizations

• Products

• Projects

• Libraries

• User

Allows the user to specify which drawings associated to the collected CAD documents will be added to the collection by default upon opening.

Workgroup Manager Client > Synchronize Number and File Name

• Site

• Organizations

Allows the file name and number to be the same.

Workgroup Manager Client > Undo Checkout Overwrite Local Content

• Site

• Organizations

• Products

• Projects

• Libraries

• User

Specifies whether the model content is overwritten in the cache by default during Undo Checkout.

Workgroup Manager Client > Update Overwrite Local Content

• Site

• Organizations

• Products

• Projects

• Libraries

• User

Specifies whether the model content is overwritten in the cache by default during Update from Windchill Workgroup Manager.

Workgroup Manager Client > Upload After Native Save

• Site

• Organizations

• Products

• Projects

• Libraries

• User

Specifies whether the model is uploaded after a native Save action in SolidWorks (i.e., File > Save).

Workgroup Manager Client > Upload CAD/Dynamic Document and Attachment Filter

• Site

• Organizations

• Products

• Projects

• Libraries

• User

Allows configuring the content that is uploaded as additional content of a model.

Workgroup Manager Client > Upload Related Drawings

• Site

• Organizations

• Products

• Projects

• Libraries

• User

Native upload or auto check in of CAD documents uploads or checks in associated drawings.

• When you upgrade from an older release to Windchill 11.1 M020, a performance issue may be observed when you open a large CAD assembly saved in the previous release with one of the above properties configured with non-empty name. This is because for Windchill 11.1 M020 onwards, the Windchill Workgroup Manager enforces to propagate additional Windchill system attributes to CAD models when opening CAD documents from Windchill by default. This propagation of the Windchill system attributes increases the loading time of the files as compared to that without propagating these attributes.

• If these Windchill system attributes are not a part of your requirement, you can ignore these attributes by setting their attribute names to blank values. The Windchill Workgroup Manager will not propagate the Windchill system attributes to CAD models and performance degradation for legacy data will be avoided. The following image displays how the Windchill server preference setting were set and the default system attributes were propagated.

Name in Preference Management Utility	Contexts	Description
Workspace > Add to Workspace and Check Out > Add Primary Contents to Workspace	• Site • Organizations • User	Controls the default behavior of whether content should be added to workspace as a link or the actual file.
Workspace > Add to Workspace and Check Out > Add to Workspace Collector[preference name]	• Site • Organizations • User	Allows you to manage the collected documents and their related objects during an Add to Workspace operation.
Workspace > Add to Workspace and Check Out > Automatically lock objects added to workspace	• Site • Organizations • User	Sets the workspace lock to automatically lock all objects that are not being checked out during Add to Workspace and Check Out operations.
Workspace > Add to Workspace and Check Out > Check Out Collector	• Site • Organizations • User	Allows you to manage the collected documents and their related objects during a Check Out operation.
Workspace > Add to Workspace and Check Out > Open in Application	• Site • Organizations • User	Controls the default behavior of whether initially-selected items should also be opened in SolidWorks when Add to Workspace or Check Out is performed from the user interface.
Workspace > Add to Workspace and Check Out > Reuse Modified Workspace Content	• Site • Organizations • User	Controls the default behavior of how content should be handled when there is already-modified content in the target Workspace cache.
Workspace > Add to Workspace and Check Out > Set Configuration for Add to Workspace	• Site • Organizations • User	Controls the default configuration when a Add to Workspace action is performed.
Workspace > Add to Workspace and Check Out > Set Configuration for Check Out	• Site • Organizations • User	Controls the default configuration when a Check Out action is performed.
Workspace > Add to Workspace and Check Out > Set for Check Out	• Site • Organizations • User	Controls the default set of objects to be checked out.
Workspace > Add to Workspace and Check Out > Use Advanced Tab as Default	• Site • Organizations • User	Setting this preference to Yes allows you to set the Advanced tab as the default in the Add to Workspace and Check Out actions.
Workspace > Export from Workspace > Collector[preference name]	• Site • Organizations • User	Allows you to manage the collected objects and its dependent objects during Export from Workspace operation.