Welcome to this new edition of the SOLIDWORKS Support Monthly News, coauthored by members of the SOLIDWORKS Technical Support teams worldwide.

SOLIDWORKS 2017 Beta is Coming…Are You Ready?

By Tom Siemaszko

June is a great time of year. It marks the beginning of summer (at least for those of us in the northern hemisphere), backyard barbecues, trips to the beach, the NBA & NHL Finals, and, of course, the start of another SOLIDWORKS Beta Program!

SOLIDWORKS beta testing takes place during an eleven-week period from late June to early September. During this time, access to the beta software is automatically made available to our SOLIDWORKS Subscription Service customers; no sign-up is required! Access to the beta software is an opportunity for you to help fine tune the software before its official launch in September.

The benefit of beta testing SOLIDWORKS is that you get to work as a team with SOLIDWORKS R&D to ensure that we deliver the quality, performance, and user experience that you expect. Sure, we want you to test drive new features to get a first look at what to expect from the next release, but we want more! We want you to stress test the software with your workflows and models to ensure that everything works smoothly for you and your organization. Specifically, we want you to test your production workflows using your largest and most complex models. Yes, there are prizes you can win, but what we need most from you are your bugs, frustrations, comments, and yes, your irritations.

To make it easier for you to give us this valuable feedback, SOLIDWORKS 2017 Beta will introduce a new ‘Give Beta Feedback’ toolbar. This new toolbar will give you quick access to our problem reporting system and our Beta forum. It will also give you the ability to quickly tell us what you like and what you don’t like.

We realize that you may not be able to dedicate a lot of time to beta testing, if at all. That’s OK. Whether you can spend several hours testing, or can only spare a few minutes to browse the Beta forum and give us a quick comment, any and all feedback is greatly appreciated!

SOLIDWORKS 2017 contains hundreds of new user-driven enhancements. Key focus areas for SOLIDWORKS 2017 include:

• More core power and performance
• Unlock any 3D model to work with SOLIDWORKS
• New capabilities to address emerging technologies
• Flexible product portfolio for your business
• Innovation Ecosystem for creating breakthrough designs
• Data integration from concept to manufacturing

For more information on the Beta Program, please visit the Beta website. If you have any specific questions, don’t hesitate to email us at beta@solidworks.com.

Spotlight on Features: Why is the flat pattern drawing view out of synch with the part?

By Mario Iocco
Users often ask: why –at times — did the flat pattern drawing view not update after changing the part? First, let us recall that flat pattern drawing views are created from a flatten derived configuration. When you create a flat pattern drawing view, the system automatically creates a flatten derived configuration (Fig. 1)

This means that there could be circumstances where the default and derived configurations are out of sync with each other.
Want to see why? Read more here.

Simulation Step-Up Series

After the North America SOLIDWORKS Simulation experts introduced themselves and Mike Sande shared best practices with preparing your manufacturing-ready CAD models for Simulation, it’s time to dig in the “real” simulation topics. This month: Contact modeling (parts 1 & 2). Once you start analyzing assemblies (instead of single parts), you must understand the fundamentals and details on contact modeling.
Ramesh is here to take you through it all!

Here is part 2:

Noteworthy Solutions from the SOLIDWORKS Knowledge Base

General Hotfix for SOLIDWORKS 2016 SP3 that addresses general crash when rotating any part when attempting to extend surface which has the “propogate” icon (SPR#944803)
A hotfix is available for SOLIDWORKS 2016 SP3 which addresses a general crash when rotating any part while attempting to extend a surface which has the the ‘Propogate’ icon.
Find the hotfix and the procedure to install it in Solution Id: S-071391.

When configuring a new vault for the SOLIDWORKS® PDM Standard software, what are the differences between the ‘Empty’, ‘Quick Start’ and ‘Default’ options?
The ‘Empty’ option creates a data folder with no files. This option makes it easy to import or create data cards, and workflows from predefined or custom .cex files.
The ‘Quick Start’ option installs a simple data set that includes predefined groups and permissions. This option enables companies installing SOLIDWORKS® PDM software for the first time to use the software in training, demonstration, and production environments.
The ‘Default’ option installs the baseline data set for the SOLIDWORKS PDM software. This option provides a fully functional vault environment. You can customize the environment by adding categories, data cards, users, lists, serial numbers, tasks, custom columns, templates, workflows and more.
From Solution Id: S-071226.

Can my SOLIDWORKS® Simulation user settings affect the SOLIDWORKS SimulationXpress software?
Yes, the SOLIDWORKS® Simulation user settings can affect settings in the SOLIDWORKS SimulationXpress software.To reset both the SOLIDWORKS Simulation settings and the SOLIDWORKS SimulationXpress settings to the default values, follow the steps in Solution Id: S-071306.

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That’s it for this month. Thanks for reading this edition of SOLIDWORKS Support News.

Originally posted in the SOLIDWORKS Tech Blog.