Using the SOLIDWORKS CAD Admin Dashboard to track, review and troubleshoot machines– Part 1

Welcome back to our second deep dive blog series. If you missed the first series, be sure to go back and check out "How to configure SOLIDWORKS Toolbox and Hole Wizard". Today we are going to take a closer look at the CAD ADMIN DASHBOARD and how this can be used to track, review, and troubleshoot machines in your organization that have SOLIDWORKS installed.

This series will breakdown:

• What is the CAD ADMIN DASHBOARD
• How do you organize this data and what is available from the system options
• How to use the Dashboard to view crash data
• How to run the SOLIDWORKS benchmark and what does this tell us

What is the CAD ADMIN DASHBOARD?

The dashboard is a web based portal that allows a user that is currently on subscription services to monitor the performance, hardware status, and changes to SOLIDWORKS System Options for each machine in their organization.

To access the CAD ADMIN DASHBOARD, log into the SOLIDWORKS Customer Portal:

https://customerportal.solidworks.com

Once you are inside of the SOLIDWORKS Customer Portal, you will find a link to the CAD ADMIN DASHBOARD in 2 locations. One is under the Quick Links on the left hand side of the page, and the other link is under References.

Here is what the Dashboard will look like:

How does the CAD ADMIN DASHBOARD get its data?

The dashboard gets its information from 2 sources. First, Hardware and System Options get loaded each time SOLIDWORKS is launched. The data collecting and sending is a separate process from the startup process so there is NO impact on the startup time for SolidWorks. Second, information is pulled from the performance logs to provide per session data. There are 3 ways the performance logs are collected. These are uploaded once a week, sent once the file reaches 100kb, or when you crash.

***Note: Performance logging does not impact SOLIDWORKS performance. The program is recording this data regardless if you send the data or not!

What can I do if the DASHBOARD is not showing my data?

The first thing you need to do is verify that you have enabled the Customer Experience Improvement option. This option is available at the end of every installation, in the SOLIDWORKS Admin Options Editor, or inside the SOLIDWORKS System Option.

If you are still not seeing the data:

The session data may take up to 48 hours to post.

Contact your VAR tech support to start an SR with customer center.

Please check back to the CATI Blog as the Dedicated Support Team will continue posting our series of articles that goes further into the details of each section of Using the SOLIDWORKS CAD Admin Dashboard to track, review and troubleshoot machines. All of these articles will be stored in the category of Daily Dose…..of SOLIDWORKS Support and links to each article with their release date are listed below:

• Using the SOLIDWORKS CAD Admin Dashboard to track, review and troubleshoot machines – Part1 (Bryan Pawlak 1/21/14)
• Using the SOLIDWORKS CAD Admin Dashboard to track, review and troubleshoot machines – Part2 (John Van Engen 1/22/14)
• Using the SOLIDWORKS CAD Admin Dashboard to track, review and troubleshoot machines – Part3 (Blake Cokinis 1/23/14)
• Using the SOLIDWORKS CAD Admin Dashboard to track, review and troubleshoot machines – Part4 (Neil Bucalo 1/27/14)

-Bryan Pawlak, CSWE
Computer Aided Technology, Inc.