SmarTeam
SmarTeam
By the end of Q1 2025, the PLM will completely replace CDD and will become the official platform for verifying all Design data.
Depending on the state of your CAD data:
Control process already started, but not finished in CDD
You need to ensure that signatures are completed for any CDD drawings you want to validate. If this is not done, signatures applied in CDD will be lost.
If you want to validate the design afterwards, the verification workflow will need to be restarted, and signatures re-applied in the PLM via the Design Verification Workflow. This can be done after either manually launching the 'Ready for Check in PLM' feature in SmarTeam or after moving your data onto the PLM upon request to PLM Support.
The standard 'Ready for Check' will no longer be available in SmarTeam.
The up-to-date list of drawings that are undergoing a Control Process in CDD is available at this link.
After verification in PLM, any subsequent changes to the design data will still be performed in SmarTeam, except for the data that has already been moved onto the PLM.
Verification process has yet to start in SmarTeam
The standard 'Ready for Check' will no longer be available and you will only be able to use the 'Ready for Check in PLM' feature to initiate a Design Verification Workflow in the PLM to verify your design.
Please find more information at:
Verification process already started in the PLM
You are already on the new system. You are not affected by the phase-out of CDD.
After verification in PLM, any subsequent changes to the design data will still be performed in SmarTeam, except for the data that has already been moved onto the PLM.
To get started with the PLM, please check out our e-learning modules:
- Search & Navigation in the CERN PLM
- Workflow & Votes in the CERN PLM
- Design Verification Workflow preparation in the CERN PLM
The complete training catalogue is available at this link.
Also see the CDD to PLM informative session presentation and recording here.
Do not hesitate to contact us at plm.support@cern.ch in case of questions / doubts.
In most situations all Master CAD documents in a CAD structure are contained in the assembly's BOM. However, there is a valid use case where this is not true.
For example, a component in a structure will be manufactured from a standard SCEM part, such as a long tube. The component is ‘Master’, but very simple and does not require its own drawing (dimensions will be placed on the assembly drawing). Rather than putting the modified CAD part in the BOM, the SCEM part is included instead to aid purchasing and manufacturing. See the schematic of this example below, where the BOM structure was defined using the ‘BOM Compare tool’ in SmarTeam.
Currently a structure of this type will be blocked during the ‘Ready for Check in PLM’ action, due to the master document not being in the BOM. A warning message will be shown stating "This component in the CAD structure of the parent document is not found in the BOM".
This check is in place to aid the smooth migration of other use cases and prevent an out-of date BOM migrating to the PLM, which will affect what is validated during the sign off procedure.
To avoid causing issues to other use cases, or creating over complex migration rules, we have taken the decision to not change this rule. Therefore, if you have a structure of this type, we would kindly ask you to use CDD to validate it.
Please note, once the documents are released, they will be migrated to the PLM via simpler checks. This will be done by the CAD-Support team before all users move over permanently to the PLM. In addition, for CAD structures created natively in the PLM, there is a system in place to create a BOM of this nature. Please see here for more information on this topic.
Please be aware, if CAD B is ‘Non Master’ RFC in PLM can still be used. In this case you will be shown a warning message reminding you to attach the ‘Non Master’ document as a root object of your workflow in the PLM, else it will not be released.
This may be an issue with the access rights of your user account in SmarTeam. Please contact CAD Support using catia.support@cern.ch so they can check if this is the problem.
Here is how to proceed to easily retrieve all drawings you are responsible for and that are pending for the CDD second control signature (whose lifecycle state is currently “Checked”):
- Run a SmarTeam Query by clicking on the command “Find by attributes”:
- Then fill the following properties in the SmarTeam query menu:
- Select the document type to be queried -> CATIA Drawing
- Specify that the document must have a CERN Drawing Reference by stipulating that the value of the “CDD Number” field must not be empty -> To do so, enter > in this field.
- Select the Life Cycle state -> “Checked”
- Specify the name of the responsible for the documents to be retrieved -> Click on the button located at the right of the “Responsible” field and browse for your name.
- (Optional step) If needed you can select additional properties to be displayed in the result grid by clicking on the “Attributes…” button.
- Click on the “Run” button to proceed with the query.
- All drawings with a CDD Reference, under your responsibility and currently in “Checked” lifecycle state will be listed in the result grid:
- You can then contact the project leaders that have the appropriate rights to proceed with the signature control 2 on these drawings.
To locate, view or open files of SmarTeam(ST) CAD Documents through the PLM platform, follow the subsequent steps.
1. Optional prerequisite to enable the opening of STEP files of ST CAD Document directly into SpinFire Ultimate:
Install the software below from CMF. These are available on any CERN Windows machine.
- CERN - PLM Desktop
- Actify SpinFire Ultimate
Note: There is an embedded viewer in the PLM to allow users to view the documents without installing Actify SpinFire Ult., but for a comprehensive review of a document Actify SpinFire Ult. is required.
For the subsequent steps, use either the PLM Desktop app (open the PLM website as shown below), or open the following link in any web browser, https://plm.cern.ch/. However please note, to open a file directly into SpinFire Ult., the PLM desktop must be running. An explicit error will be returned if it is not.
2. Search for the document in the PLM
2.1 It’s recommended to search for a document through the Folders (ST Projects) and Parts (ST Items) it is in, rather than directly, as these queries load much faster and have improved accuracy. Access these search boxes through the table of contents on the PLM Website (or webpage), as shown below.
Note: the Part (Item) reference can easily be deducted from the ST CAD Doc reference: just remove the _ and the 2 last digits
ex: CAD Doc ref :ST1234567_01 -> Part ref: ST1234567
2.2 Query for the desired Folder or Part using the filter fields. Double-click to open the object in its own window.
2.3 Navigate to the document from the Folder or Part window.
The contents of both objects are shown as icons under the main information boxes, click to open them in their own window. Alternatively, navigate using the ARAS grid and different tabs at the bottom of the window as shown in the images below.
2.4 Ensure you open the required revision of the document. A warning will be displayed in the header of the profile card if it is non-latest, with a link to the latest revision.
3. The 3D data of a CAD Document can be viewed from its Profile Card.
- For quick visualisation there is an embedded viewer window on the right-hand side of the window (installation of Actify SpinFire ult. is not required to view this).
- For a more in-depth review, the data can be opened in the local default CAD viewer using the button below (SpinFire Ult. if installed and the PLM desktop is running).
- To download a .stp file of the document, press the arrow in the top box and choose the filetype from the dropdown list.
4. For a drawing, the 2D data can also be viewed on the Profile Card.
- For quick visualisation there is an embedded viewer window on the right-hand side of the window.
- To download a .pdf file of the CAD Document, press the arrow in the top box and choose the filetype from the dropdown list.
- If it is saved in EDMS, there is also a link to this area.
For more information on how to use SpinFire Ultimate please read the following documentation.
FAQ: SpinFire Ultimate
To reset/abandon a "Ready For Check in PLM" command, you need to:
Access the object in your CS Dashboard select More Life Cycle "Reset (abandon) Ready For Check in PLM".
As a consequence:
- the selected CAD Document will be reset to the "Preliminary" state in SmarTeam, and can be edited again.
- The corresponding CAD Document in the PLM will transition to "In Preparation" and baselined (frozen).
The transition from "Ready For Check" or "Checked" to "Ready For Check in PLM" is not allowed.
When executing the "Ready For Check in PLM" command on CAD documents that are either in the "RFC" or "Checked" state, or contain dependencies in those states, the report will display:
"Current workflow state (Ready for Check/Checked) is not valid for this workflow transition"
To proceed, you need to:
- Either reject them: you can then check them out and in again to create a new minor version.
- Or wait for the second control to be performed, so that the CAD Documents transition to "Released".
In case the Design Verification Workflow is successfully completed, the state of the objects collected by the Workflow evolves to:
- Approved in the PLM and EDMS.
- Released in SmarTeam.
The signatures performed in the PLM will be available in CDD as well.
In case one control activity is rejected, the state of the objects collected by the Workflow transitions back to:
- In Preparation in the PLM and EDMS
- Preliminary in SmarTeam
The CAD Documents can be worked on again in SmarTeam and the Ready For Check in PLM command can be re-launched on their new version.
The "Ready for check in PLM" command is available to all SmarTeam users with lifecycle modification rights. if you require access to this please get in touch with the Support Team at: plm.support@cern.ch
The aim of Ready For Check in PLM is to validate SmarTeam data via the PLM, instead of CDD.
This command needs to be executed in SmarTeam and triggers the migration of the collected data to the PLM.
The Design Verification Workflow replaces the CDD control process and it is composed by:
- Design Documentation Check: replaces the CDD Control 1
- Part Design Approval: replaces the CDD Control 2
- Review by Approval Group: replaces the CDD Control 3 / Approval Process (mandatory for QAC A Control Rule, optional otherwise)
Complete documentation:
The user must be responsible for the documents in SmarTeam and the status of the documents in SmarTeam must be Checked In or Preliminary, with the last version.
Each document must be linked to a single Item in SmarTeam and incorporate the latest changes made to all its related documents.
The drawings must have a title block created with the current TitleBlock Editor tool and a CDD number.
All documents related to the document concerned must already be in one of the following states: In Work, Preliminary or Released.
Complete documentation: Ready for Check in PLM FAQ
To launch the Ready for Check in PLM command in SmarTeam, you have to be set as "Responsible" on all the CAD Documents (Master and non-Master) attached to the Item.
Moreover, you must also take “Responsibility” for the CAD Documents attached to the Items that compose the BOM.
In other words, you must be “Responsible” of all the CAD Documents collected by the Ready for Check in PLM command (dependencies that are not already "Ready for Check in PLM" or "Released".)
Complete documentation: Ready for Check in PLM FAQ
- Open the CS Dashboard.
- Click on "More..." from the document you want to set, then on "Life Cycle" and "Set to Ready For Check in PLM". This command can be executed on any of the CAD Documents linked to the Item, and as a result, all the CAD Documents attached to the Item will transition to RFC in PLM (this differs from the regular RFC). Please contact the support if this command is not available for you.
If you want to know more about the criteria, please see the How To below:
What requirement must be met to use Ready For Check in PLM?
Complete documentation: Ready for Check in PLM FAQ
This site contains the help documentation for the CAD Support Launcher and is the general information site for Launcher Dashboard related things.
If you want to understand what exactly it is, please check the link below.
More: CS Dashboard
The "BOM Ordering Tool" is a simple tool to manage the "order" of the rows in the drawing BOM. This tool is integrated with the CartWeb application and therefore it will launch each time use decides to take the BOM information form SmarTeam into the drawing.
If you want to understand how to use it, please follow the document below.
When the document is not used, or the lifecycle is not very mature it may be possible to delete, but it will not be possible due to all the documents that it depends on. In these cases, you can use the command “Cancel”. It abandons a document that is "In Work", "Preliminary" or "Rejected".
"Set to Cancel" is like deleting a document, but the differences are that:
- people are still able to see the document in the system,
- it will be possible to "Set to Cancel" a document that is used by others.
If you want to study this process, please follow the link below.
More: Cancelled
After having validated the quality of the documentation, verified that the standards are respected and that the 2D and 3D are consistent with each other, it is possible to change the state of the document (2D) to “Checked”. Until now the actions were performed in SmarTeam, validation steps must be performed in CDD.
Please follow the document below to explore more about this action.
More: Checked
The image below in the document shows the overview of the "Life Cycle" implementation.
PDF Version: Lifecycle Implementation in PDF
The "New Release" is the action of creating a new revision, in work, when the previous revision is "Released" in SmarTeam and "Archived" in CDD.
Please click on the document below if you want to understand more about this process.
More: New Release
The "Ready For Check" state means that, according to the person responsible for the project, the document:
- is complete,
- respects the design rules and methodologies,
- corresponds to the requirements and to the specifications,
- is consistent with the documents it depends on,
- is thus ready for validation.
If you want to know more details, please follow the document below.
More: Ready For Check
The "Rejected" is the status when a project is cancelled after it is checked (or even if it is "In Work" or in "Preliminary"). It may be rejected even if it is passed on to the second control after the first check, which was positive.
For more details about how to perform "Set to Rejected", please follow the document below which describes this process.
More: Rejected
"Released" is an operation which involves validating the object's feasibility and the fulfillment of the technical requirements. It must be done by an engineer.
If you want to know more how to "Set to Released", please follow the instruction which is in the link below.
More: Released
The command "Set Released For Integration" allows any user with proper access rights to release a structure (3D part or product) following a certain number of prerequisites. Once finished the process, these structures will show a green tick (in both SmarTeam and Catia) and will be usable as "Released" elements inside other assemblies.
In the document below, there are the common requisites to respect (whatever the use case is) and the procedure how to do it.
More: Released For Integration
The command “Set Valid For Integration” allows any user with proper access rights to validate a structure without drawings (3D part or product). Once finished the process, these structures will show a green tick and will be usable as “Released” elements inside other mechanical assemblies.
To know more about the procedure, please check the document which is under.
More: Valid For Integration
This question is intended for people at CERN that are new to CATIA/SmarTeam and that would need access to the software or some help to get started. If you do not find what you are looking for in the document below, please contact catia.support@cern.ch.
The BOM Ordering Tool is a simple tool to manage the "order" of the rows in the drawing BOM.
If you want to use it, you launch the tool by pushing the icon in the Assembly Design workbench. To know more about this tool, please follow the document below.
More: BOM Ordering Tool
What is the procedure to follow when I have a CATProduct and I want to make a copy of it with the same components, or with some variations inside? Here we will explain it with an example in the link.
More: Copy documents
Currently, there are specific groups configured in CMF ("NSC" groups) that allow the installation of CATIA/SmarTeam in a CAD Workstation. This division has been created with the purpose of cover the needs of different CAD users at CERN.
The purpose of the following document is to describe the various options available.
What is the difference between CATIA Supported and CATIA Unsupported NSC?
After creating a file in CATIA, it should be saved into the SmarTeam database. You can choose if you want to link it or not to a project in SmarTeam. This project link is not obligatory but if no other link is created (like Item to Project), the document will be findable only via the SmarTeam Search.
For more information how do it, please click on the link below.
In order to use CAM tools sometimes it is necessary to export files from SmarTeam to the Job folder structure.
For accessing this tool, it is needed to have:
- A CATIA account opened, “view only” accounts are valid to use the tool.
- Belong to the SmarTeam group “CAM users”.
- It is necessary to have written access to the folder \\cern.ch\dfs\Projects\MA_Project. The 2 first points can be granted by CAD Support, the 3rd point has to be granted by the CAM Team (e-group: en-mme-ma-cam).
To discover more on how to use it, please consult the following document.
More: Documents for CAM
Sometimes it is useful to compare two revisions of a document in CATIA. Due a limitation of the tool this is not possible to do it in a direct way (open) but there is a command and a workaround that can allow you to do this operation.
To learn more how to create it, please consult the following document.
Due the new lifecycle implementation there will be a lot of data which state will be:
-
“Archived” in CDD.
-
“In Work” or “Preliminary” in SmarTeam.
To learn more how to use the Catch Up tool, please consult the following document.
The integration baseline feature allows to freeze any integration structure, in order to keep a trace. This feature sets all documents belonging to a structure to “Preliminary” if they are not already in this state and tags all of them as a part of a Baseline.
In order to discover more on how to use baselines in SmarTeam, please consult the following document.
Before you contact the CAD Support to ask for the creation of a new TEAM, please note that the TEAM name has to respect some criteria.
Please consult the document below to understand these criteria.
If you have to create an e-group with the people that will belong to the Team in SmarTeam: Go to e-groups website and create a static e-group with the same name as you want to have in SmarTeam.
A full tutorial can be consulted in the document below.
The use of Teams eases collaborative work by giving you possibility to:
- Take responsibility: Any member of Team can take responsibility of documents belonging to the Team.
- Access management: The design office can manage all the rights
- Optional: It's always possible to work without a Team. Use the No Team, to work on your own
In order to know how to work with TEAMS inside SmarTeam, please consult the document below.
You can save any modification during work, including during a network problem. The other users know that you are performing some modifications nevertheless, no one else can do some modifications at the same time. Before Check-In, it is still possible to cancel the modifications using "Undo Check- Out" command. You are also able to delete the Checked Out Documents in SmarTeam.
In order to know more about this operation, please check out the document below.
More: Which are the different way to perform a Check-Out operation, for which usage?
In order to know how to open or check out previous revisions inside SmarTeam, please consult the document below.
To cover those cases where detailed modelling could be a drawback, the simplification tool proposes to users a way to create a simpler representation of CAD models.
In order to understand more how to use the simplification tool, please consult the document below.
In SmarTeam each modification of the settings is kept. If you want to go back to the initial configuration you have to click in “Reset SmarTeam settings”.
In order to understand more how to reset in SmarTeam, please consult the following document.
When saving a new document in SmarTeam, a window pops-up where you can select a project to link your document with.
Unfortunately, the interface is not that good to browse the projects tree.
In order to understand more how to access a specific project in the first saving, please consult the following document.
It is possible to access the 'CAD Data Navigator' (CDN) to navigate and view SmarTeam data via the EDMS portal. This provides a read only view of 3D data that has been published from SmarTeam. 3D models published from SmarTeam will be possible to view and measure.
In order to understand how to publish 3D data outside SmarTeam, please consult the document below.
More: How to publish 3D data outside SmarTeam?
In order to understand how to navigate in SmarTeam using the ITEM structure, please consult the document below.
In order to understand how to navigate in SmarTeam using the ITEM structure, please consult the document below.
A tool is available in the Support Team to help you to import a large amount of Catia V5 models in SmarTeam. But these models must respect some rules.
Before contacting the CAD Support, you will have to ensure that the following points are respected.
Consult the document below to understand more how to import CATIA models to SmarTeam.
The data exchange process provides the functionality to send and re-integrate CATIA V5 designs to-from people anywhere using EDMS. The exchanges are traced and the access right are managed. Models and drawings can be sent for editing and the updated models can be re-integrated to SmarTeam as a new revision of the sent model.
In order to understand more how to send and receive these models from external design offices, please consult the following document.
More: How to send and receive models stored in SmarTeam with External Design Office?
The Excel BOM extraction helps to generate an excel file representing the BOM of an assembly. A lot of information is available in this file, regarding the composition of the assembly, the quantities, states, and many more, giving you an overview of your project.
In order to know how to export this BOM to Excel, please consult the document below.
All the documents that were selected in Euclid to be kept are stored in the SmarTeam database.
You have different ways to find these files.
In order to learn how to search and access them, please consult the following document
To ease the collaborative work with SmarTeam, there are some steps to validate before your CERN departure. In order to learn more about them, please check the document below and complete the check list presented before you leave CERN.