Create a SolidWorks Customer Portal Account and Win an iPad

Register for a SolidWorks Customer Portal account by May 22, if you want a chance to win one of 5 iPads and Ar.Drones*.

Register here

The Customer Portal provides you with tremendous value, and gives you 24/7 online access to vital information and resources, including:

• The latest versions of SolidWorks software and Service Pack updates


• The Knowledge Base - a wide range of technical documents and resources


• A complete view of SRs (Service Requests) and SPRs (bugs)


• Enhancement request privileges to help impact future releases


• The ability to participate in a wide range of discussion forums


• Registration of software licenses


• The ability to review license and Subscription Service information


• The capability to edit your Customer Profile

When you have registered for a Customer Portal account, you will also become eligible to participate in our annual customer survey, giving you a voice to provide valuable feedback. We hope that you will be willing to help us better understand your perception of our products and services, as it is very important for us to make sure that we always deliver the best possible service to you.

Register here

*New and existing Customer Portal Account holders are eligible after completing the quiz in our contest, which will be available in the SolidWorks News section of the Customer Portal home page. Look for the note about the contest.

How to submit a SolidWorks Enhancement Request

About a week and half ago I posted a article on how to remove the locks from the SolidWorks Customer Portal (http://blog.cati.com/2011/03/how-to-remove-the-locks-in-the-solidworks-customer-portal.html) so I thought it would be good to follow it up with how to submit a SolidWorks Enhancement Request.  So to put in an Enhancement Request you will need to do the following:

1. Log in to the SolidWorks Customer Portal (https://login.solidworks.com/nidp/idff/sso?id=cpenglish&sid=2&option=credential&sid=2)


2. Select the Enhancement Request link.
    


3. Search to see if there has been a similar request before.
    


4. If none of the results match yours then select the link at the bottom of the page and generate a new Enhancement Request.

           
Your Enhancement Request will be assigned a number and you will receive a confirmation from SolidWorks stating that their request was received. 

Enhancement Requests are tracked and put into production based on the requests submitted by customers via the Customer Portal.  If multiple customers show interest in seeing the same product enhancement, then the SolidWorks Developers will focus on adding that enhancement to the next release.  Requests need to be submitted by the customer through the Customer Portal in order to make issues visible to SolidWorks Developers.

Here is the link to the Enhancement Request form:  http://www.solidworks.com/pages/services/subscription/Enhancements.html

Josh Altergott

CATI Support Team Leader

How to Remove the Locks in the SolidWorks Customer Portal

So in looking back through our call log one of the calls that I see time and time again is a customer who is new to SolidWorks or new to a company that when they create a new account to the SolidWorks Customer Portal they see locks on a majority of the links in the portal.

 
When you create a new account to the SolidWorks Customer Portal (https://login.solidworks.com/nidp/idff/sso?id=cpenglish&sid=2&option=credential&sid=2) you have two options, to create an account as a Guest or as a Customer. If you create your account as a Guest you will the first time you log in see a series of locks on almost all of the selections in the portal. If you register as a customer and your serial number is recognized then you should have no locks on any items and be free to Download Software, search the Knowledge Base, etc…..

 
So after you create and an account and if you still need to remove the locks it is pretty simple to remove them. You will need to go to one of the few unlocked links for Register My Products in the My Support section and when you do so you will be prompted to enter in your SolidWorks Serial Number.   If you do not know your serial number the easiest way to get your serial number is to go into SolidWorks and from the Help dropdown menu and select About SolidWorks. Once you enter the SolidWorks Serial Number you should now see all of the locks removed from the portal. If you are still locked out then you will want to check your subscription end date and make sure that has not passed, if your subscription has expired then you will want to contact your local VAR to find out your options to get you current again.

 
Josh Altergott

CATI Support Team Leader

Why are there so many Hex Bolts in Toolbox?

The question that was asked the other day was “Why are there so many Hex Bolts in the Inch Standard of Toolbox and where doe the information come from.

The answer to this is simply because there are many different standards, to go into a little more detail we need to look at where SolidWorks gets their information from and where we can find out more about the different sizes in SolidWorks.

To answer the question of where does SolidWorks get their information from the answer is the Machinist Handbook. SolidWorks does not put every last nut, screw, bolt, bearing, washer, etc… into the Toolbox but they do put the most commonly used hardware into the Toolbox.

To answer the question of where to find more information on the sizes of the fasteners you can do this by either looking it up in the Machinist Handbook or if you do not have one you can simply look at it through SolidWorks by going to Tools, Options and from System Options select Hole Wizard/Toolbox.

If you look at the 2 examples below you can see the differences between a regular and heavy Hex Bolt. Besides the difference in the size of the head the heavy starts at ½” vs. the ¼” of the standard, there are also differences in length that can be viewed.

 
 

Remember if there is something that you want to see added to the Toolbox, log into the SolidWorks Customer Portal, through the SW website (www.solidworks.com) and submit an enhancement request. You can also make changes to your Toolbox by copying a standard and adding or subtracting the different features, sizes, and lengths.

Thanks,

Josh Altergott
CATI Support Team Leader