guidance on drawing and sheet names and references

Andrew_Michell

I am migrating from Solidworks. Are there any tutorials, videos or white papers giving guidance as to how to use the drawing and sheet names and references?  Here are some questions which I would like to address BEFORE I create too many records all of which subsequently need to be changed:
1) In SolidWorks, parts have file names which by default are the same as the file names of their drawings. These file names are generally not names or descriptions but numbers, and the drawing number is the same as the file name of the part. But in Onshape, if I describe every part by a number, then in the feature tree all I see is a number (with no description) and so the feature tree becomes pretty opaque. Do most people give their parts descriptions, and only apply numbers to drawings, or what?
2) If I put a number in the "part number" field of the properties dialogue box for the part, it gets treated by the Onshape drawing template as the "drawing number" but does not automatically have any linkage to the corresponding field in the properties dialogue box for the drawing. So how is it intended that I relate drawings (which have numbers) to parts (which have names or descriptions)? If I pick up a printed drawing in the factory, it is obviously important that I should be able to find the 3D part which it references in Onshape
3) The drawing number is definitely not the same as the part number! (The drawing number is the number on a drawing which defines a part or some aspects of a part, whereas the part number is a number which is used by our stock system). So can I change the descriptions in the properties dialogue box so that they say what they mean?

It would be really nice to find some sort of tutorial which explains how the makers of Onshape intend all these things to be used.

Axel_Kollmenter

Hi @Andrew_Michell
1) If you create a new Drawing-Sheet it is named "Sheet1", "Sheet2",... by right clicking you can rename the sheet to your choosen name. Only the Drawing Tap on the bottom got the same name if you rightclicking on the part in the featuretree on the left and click create drawing from part.
2) The Partnumber should shown in the textbox on the bottom right in the drawing.
3) You can change the it in the discription of the part. Just right click on the part and select description.

If you want to learn more about the drawing go to the "Learning Center" on the top right. There are some Learning pathways where you could watch trought a ton of tutorials. I was also coming from Solidworks but the tutorials helped me a lot! https://learn.onshape.com/

If you got any further questions feel free to ask

Best regards
Axel

KatieHuffman

@Andrew_Michell

Yes! We do have some resources on this topic in the Learning Center. Your specific questions seem to be related to the part number property between drawings and the parts/assemblies referenced in the drawing. You can easily customize the default drawing templates to use the fields your company prefers if the default templates to not meet your needs- it sounds like you would prefer the drawing part number instead of the sheet reference part/assembly number. Another thing I would encourage you to look at is the release management settings, there is a setting here where you can define if drawing part numbers should re-use the part/assemblies referenced or have their own part number. 

Here are some resources to check out:

• Best Practices for Creating Onshape Drawing Templates
• Understanding Release Management in Onshape
• Detailed Drawings course- the videos on Parametric Properties
• Administering Onshape Enterprise course- the videos on Categories, Properties, and Items (they are the same even if using Onshape Pro)

Also- if you would like more help don't hesitate to reach out to your customer success manager, who can help you get signed up for instructor-led trainings like Onshape Bootcamp or the Release Management course and more!

tim_hess427

Each part, assembly, and drawing have Name, Description, and Part Number properties. Lately, I've been defining a Part Number and Description, then I combine those in the "Name" property. For example: Part Number = "PRT-000123", Description = "Electronics Enclosure", Name = "PRT-000123 - Electronics Enclosure". This way, I see both the PN and Name together in part lists, and I can also reference the Part Number and Description separately in drawing fields. When a drawing is created, our system uses the drawing's part number to the referenced part's number, so they would both be PRT-000123 in our system.

Drawings can also have their own "Part Number". Depending on your setup, this can be the same or different from the part/assembly that's included on the drawing. In your title block, you can reference either the drawing's part number, the reference parts' number, or both. 

The fields and properties, I think, are flexible enough to accommodate most systems. The issue you may run into is having to enter duplicate information in multiple properties and keep them in sync manually. 

romeograham

One other thing to keep in mind: the Custom Property "Part Number" is the main (and only!!) property that Onshape uses to keep track of an object (part, assembly, or drawing, or other type of file) for Release Management.
Therefore, regardless of what Custom Properties you show on your drawings, the Drawing itself needs a Part Number, so that Release Management works properly. The revision callouts and revision table rows etc on the drawing are all tied to the drawing's part number ( not the sheet reference (the part that's on the drawing). You cannot have two things (parts, assemblies, or files) that have the same Part Number - except drawings can be allowed to share in your settings.

The part and drawing rely on different Part Number custom properties - however, Onshape allows you to use the same part number for a part and a drawing:


This way, you will have two objects with the same part number (P3256) that may have different revisions as the project progresses. They will both show up in a search for "type:all partnumber:P3256 state:RELEASED foundin:v when:latest"



For me - I don't want the ambiguity of two things with the same part number (even if they are parts & drawings) so I make a small change to the Part Number of the Drawing. (I set this manually in a new Custom Property that I've added to Parts & Assemblies "Drawing Number" when I create a new part number for a part. Then use that custom property later on the drawing title block - and I have to manually set the Part Number of the drawing itself, since Onshape doesn't automatically assign a part number to the drawing when it's created).

You can also assign different part numbers (in the custom property for the drawing) for the drawing. I prefer to change the "P" to a "D", for example:
Part Number custom property: P3256 
Drawing Number custom property: D3256
Since Onshape treats them as different objects - the fact that the numeric part of the value is shared is only for my convenience - it's easy to understand the relationship between the part and the drawing when looking at them. (My main complaint about this is that it's not easy to see from the drawing part number if it's a drawing of an assembly or part).

I also combine the part number and description in the filename so that I can see both. Unfortunately, this is (in most conditions) a manual process. However, you can use your Export Settings to "build" the filename of exported PDFs and STEPs etc like @tim_hess427 above.
Go to your account preferences to set Export Rules

Export rules can be "Enterprise-wide" and can also be set in user's individual accounts. I think that the Enterprise-wide rules override the personal ones. They only work when exporting - they don't help you build the Name custom property that shows up in your instance list and part list in modeling tabs.

Hope this helps a bit!
Romeo

Andrew_Michell

thank you all for your help. I will require some time to study your answers before asking any further questions.