How to Set Up Solid Edge to Work With Dropbox

If you’re already sold on the benefits of using Dropbox with Solid Edge & have set up Dropbox to work with Solid Edge, the next step is to set up Solid Edge to work with Dropbox.

From the application menu on Solid Edge, navigate to Options. This will open Solid Edge options. From here navigate to Manage & enable “Use Solid Edge data management”.

This will open up a series of tabs and options for Solid Edge Data Management. The bare minimum to use Solid Edge with Dropbox is to select “Enable distributed file access when using file replication services”.

With this option enabled, every time a user opens a Solid Edge file for editing, Solid Edge will generate another file with the same filename, but the file extension “.selock”. This is actually just a simple xml file with information about the user who has opened the file for editing, their computer, date, etc. If you are curious you can open it in notepad to take a look.

After Solid Edge generates the .selock file it is synced to other computers you have shared your Dropbox folder with. If another user attempts to open the model you have open in Solid Edge, their install of Solid Edge will first check for a .selock file associated with the model, when it finds this, it will open the model read only and open the Read-Only Assistant. When you close the Solid Edge model, Solid Edge automatically deletes the .selock file & Dropbox deletes the .selock file from your collaborators’ computers. The model is then available to other users to edit.

This is a nice simple system, which prevents the carnage which can happen when multiple people try to edit a file at the same time.

This has only touched on the bare minimum to get Solid Edge working with Dropbox. Data management has been integrated into Solid Edge very nicely, the earlier it is implemented, the better. Even setting up a folders for PDM life cycle can make the transition to a full blown PLM system much smoother in the future, should your needs change.