PLM interfaces directly with AutoCAD, facilitating direct transfer of product designs from the AutoCAD environment into PLM and then ERP. This eliminates the inherent risks and errors associated with data entry from multiple sources. AutoCAD files can be managed according to configuration management methodology, while facilitating the direct transfer of complete design Bills of Material (BOMs) to the production environment.

The following topics are available to help you getting started with the Infor PLM Discrete integration for AutoCAD:

This section contains the following topics that describes the tasks to be executed while working with PLM:

The Save to PLM process saves your AutoCAD file in the PLM database. The document is saved with the status draft. Each consecutive save updates the latest changes performed on the draft revision of the document in PLM.

The download manager retrieves the latest files from the PLM database and saves them to the local work directory of the user. The following PLM preferences controls the functions of download manager:

If a file that you are working on is supposed to be used in a business process, the business process cannot be launched while the file is locked. To avoid this situation, you should save such files using the Save and Unlock command. This automatically updates your data, while relinquishing ownership of the file. The business process can then proceed.

When you have finished working with a file, it can be released. The PLM integration for AutoCAD enables you to check in any AutoCAD file and its linked documents to the PLM vault.

You must check a file out of the vault in order to change it. The Check Out option is available after the file has been retrieved from PLM using the Download files from PLM menu option.

Thumbnail is a miniature representation of a AutoCAD file.

The owner of a file is determined by one of the following:

Header information is the PLM data that is stored in your local environment. This information is used by the PLM Integration for AutoCAD to verify whether a specific local file can safely overwrite the PLM file. The Synchronize Headers operation updates the headers of the AutoCAD files currently opened with the relevant PLM information.

Clears the storage information for the active/selected file and its dependents.

Use the PLM menu option Delete Local Files to delete the selected local files. PLM integration also clears the information about the deleted files from the local storage files.

You can click Refresh files from PLM () to update the currently open files from Infor PLM.

The Dispatch to Business Process option on the PLM menu enables you to link the PLM items and/or documents, which are generated for a file, to an PLM business process. This will link the PLM items and/or documents of the part file to a workflow, which will be distributed to the users associated to the workflow template.

We can use Mapping to transfer the values of Title-Block attribute tags from AutoCAD to PLM and also can use to update the Title-Block attribute tags values based on values from PLM.

A collection of AutoCAD Title Blocks used for a particular design purpose is called a Title Block Type. Integration provides features to Insert Title-Blocks and update the Title-Block tags using mapping rules.

The AutoCAD tab includes properties that control the behavior of the PLM integration for AutoCAD.

In addition to setting the preferences for individual users in the PLM - AutoCAD Integration Preferences dialog box, the administrator must set up various data in order to make the PLM integration for AutoCAD work in the preferred way.

This topic lists error messages, support log files, and the most commonly encountered issues.