Creating and Saving a Catalog

When managing catalogs, the first step a librarian must perform is creating a catalog in CATIA. Then he needs to save it in SmarTeam and make it available to users by copying it into in a shared directory.

This task gives you the main instructions to follow for integrating CATIA catalogs into your SmarTeam database. This procedure can be divided in the following main steps:

Steps in CATIA

Creating a Catalog

  1. From the CATIA Start menu, select Infrastructure > Catalog Editor to open the Catalog Editor workbench.

  2. Create a catalog from scratch using one of both methods available:

    • Using the Catalog Editor interactive commands: Activate the chapter under which you want to create a chapter or a subchapter.
    • In Batch mode: Open the BatchCatalog.csv file with an editor like Microsoft Excel. This file file contains the information required to create a complete chapter referencing subchapters

For more about the Catalog Workbench, see the CATIA Component Catalog Editor User's Guide.

Resolving Part Families and Part Family Components

Resolving a part family or a part family component means generating the .CATPart documents referred to by the part family or the part family component. These documents are generated in a specific folder (you specify in the catalog settings) and each generated document is a copy of the generative part configured with the matching row in the design table.

  1. In the specification tree, select the part family to be resolved.

  2. Right-click then select xxx object >  Resolve.
    The corresponding reference documents are generated in the folder you specified in the catalog settings. To access these settings, use Tools > Options > Infrastructure > Catalog Editor > Catalogs tab.
    Note:
    Prior to resolving catalogs, also make sure that the Allow family component dynamic resolution in catalog option available too from the Catalogs tab is on.

Steps in SmarTeam

Saving a CATIA V5 catalog inside SmarTeam

  1. Define classes in which you will save your documents.
    For detailed instructions, see Customizing the Bulk Loading Command

  2. Connect to SmarTeam.

  3. Select SmarTeam > Bulk Loading...

  4. Choose the path to find all standard parts.

  5. Multi-select all documents you wish to save as Standard Part documents.

  6. Still in the catalog, select SmarTeam > Save.
    SmarTeam prompts you to save the generic part. At this stage, you need to switch the class to Standard Parts. SmarTeam will promote to save the design table.
    SmarTeam will automatically generate reference links between all saved parts and the catalog.

Releasing a CATIA V5 catalog inside SmarTeam

  1. Release the catalog.
    The Release operation automatically releases all documents. The catalog and all its children are now saved and released in SMARTEAM.

Setting Up a Shared Directory for the Catalog

  1. Set up a shared directory folder as default.
    To keep this shared directory clean and secured, it is strongly recommended to assign the Windows permissions as below:

    • Keep administration rights
    • Assign engineer designers read-only rights only.

Copying the Catalog in the Shared Directory

  1. Search for your catalog.

  2. Right-click and select Copy File.

  3. Propagate this operation on all standard parts to perform the operation on the catalog and all its children.

The librarian's work is now complete: the catalog is in the electronic vault and the shared directory contains a copy of it. Design engineers can then access CATIA Catalogs.