Friday April 24, 2020 at 9:57am
If you are a SOLIDWORKS Electrical user planning to take your PC or laptop offsite to work remotely, there are a few things you will want to consider. Please refer to the relevant section below.
SOLIDWORKS Electrical – Local or Client/Server Setup?
Firstly, you need to understand if you are currently working locally (SQL on your machine) or on a client/server basis (SQL on a server). To realise this, check on a client machine, within SOLIDWORKS Electrical > Tools > Application Settings…
If both the 'collaborative server' and 'databases' tabs are reading 'localhost' throughout (or your machine name) then this indicates that everything is already local on your machine. Everything will continue to work away from the company network if you are able to take your machine with you. If you need to move your license of SOLIDWORKS Electrical to another machine, then please refer to the below page on our website:
www.solidsolutions.ie/Blog/2020/03/Working-from-home-with-your-SOLIDWORKS-Licences
If you need to pass projects to colleagues, you can simply 'archive' projects (which is like a .zip file) and email this over to a colleague. This is actioned from the projects manager in SOLIDWORKS Electrical. You can then 'unarchive' to bring in these projects. The project will appear exactly the same as on the source PC.
**THIS IS THE RECOMMENDED SETUP TO WORK LOCALLY ON A SINGLE PC WHEN WORKING FROM HOME**
SOLIDWORKS Electrical Users – SQL on Company Server:
The SOLIDWORKS
Electrical Server (SQL) can exist on a separate machine to the client software.
If the application settings mentioned above refer to a machine other than your
own, then this means you need continuous, bi-directional communication to the
server to effectively use SOLIDWORKS Electrical. This setup works brilliantly
when in the office, on the same network, although it can be problematic when
you take your machine away from the office. The
following two options should be considered:
Option 1 (Recommended)
– Remote Desktop to Work Machine in the Office
Speak to your IT department about getting a dedicated
machine in the office that can be used for remote working. When away from the
office you access your work PC as normal, switch on your VPN to connect to work
systems, but then remote desktop (or equivalent) into the dedicated machine in
the office. This is the machine with SOLIDWORKS Electrical installed.
Using this setup will
give performance as if you are sat in the office as the communication between
the client and server is on the same office network. There is also the argument
to say that this dedicated machine could be the machine you use all the time
for your design work, even when in the office. This would give the added
benefit of not needing to transfer licenses between machines.
Option 2 – VPN Use to Company Server
You could take your work machine containing the SOLIDWORKS Electrical
client away from the office. SOLIDWORKS Electrical (with VPN enabled) can
connect to the SQL on the company server through your 'Work Network' just as if
you were on site, however, this is not a supported setup and we do not
recommend this approach. This is mainly due to known issues with VPN
connections potentially causing port forwarding protocols to incorrectly
associate connectivity between the users and the collaborative server. We are
aware of connection time out issues, the locking of schematic sheets as well as
overall slow performance.
If you have any questions relating to the points above or would like further advice and information on remote access for SOLIDWORKS Electrical, please get in touch with our Technical Support team or call us on 01926 333 777.
Written: April 2020, Dave Ashford Updated: July 2022, David Ashford