If you’re just getting started with 3DEXPERIENCE and you’re looking for a guide to get you up and running in your platform, you’ve come to the right place. In this blog, we’ll take a look at gaining access to your platform for the first time, navigating the platform, adding new users, and assigning them roles.

Before we dive in, first things first, you’ll need to be sure you have submitted your order for your 3DEXPRIENCE roles. Contact us today if you need to submit an order or need some discovery to find the right solution for your organization!

Topics covered in this post:

1. Gaining Access to Your 3DEXPERIENCE Platform

2. Navigating the Platform

3. Adding Users and Assigning Roles

Once you submit your order, you will receive an email with a link to Launch your 3DEXPERIENCE platform. Upon clicking on that link you will be brought to a sign-in page, known as the 3DPassport.

If you have an existing MySolidWorks ID, you can use that here, otherwise, create a new account and log in to access the Terms and Conditions.

NOTE: If you have not used your MySolidWorks ID in a long period of time, it may be inactive. It is recommended that you successfully log into MySolidWorks before proceeding with the 3DEXPERIENCE log-in. If you have forgotten your password, carry out the password recovery through MySolidWorks. If you are not receiving the password recovery emails, call 800-693-9000 (SOLIDWORKS Customer Center) and they will assist in activating your account or resetting your password.

IMPORTANT: When you log in for the first time to activate the platform, you WILL consume a license and it will be locked to your account for 30 days. If you are not an intended user, please forward this activation email to the desired platform administrator.

Upon clicking on the link to launch your 3DEXPERIENCE platform, you will be brought to a confirmation window to confirm you will be a platform administrator. Keep in mind, this will use one of the licenses and lock it to your account for 30 days. If you are not the intended administrator, please log out and forward the email to the desired administrator.

Once you confirm as an Administrator, you will be brought to the terms and conditions Agreement Acceptance. Scroll through the agreement and select Accept to activate and launch your 3DEXPERIENCE platform.

Now that you have access to your platform, it’s important you know how to get around. One of your main navigation tools will be the 3DCompass, which can be found in the upper-left corner of your window.

This will contain all the roles and apps you have available to your account. As the first user of the platform, you will only see the Collaborative Business Innovator and its associated apps until you assign further roles.

One of the other common navigation tools we need to learn about is the Dashboard List. This can be found slightly left of the 3DCompass and is signified as a hamburger menu icon with a small arrow. This will allow you to navigate from dashboard to dashboard as you set up more over time.

NOTE: If you’re not seeing the Dashboard list icon, you may not be on the 3DDashboard app. You can check with the context given in the title bar to the right of the 3DCompass.

If you’re not in 3DDashboard, you can access it by clicking on the 3DCompass and selecting 3DDashboard.

If you’re having trouble finding it, be sure to try out the search function in the upper-right corner of the 3DCompass flyout.

Now that you know how to get around, let’s go ahead and invite some new members and assign them roles. This can be done in either the Member’s Management or Platform Management dashboard. My description will be proceeding with the Platform Management dashboard.

You will find the invite members option on the Invite & Grant Roles sub-tab under the Members tab.

Step 1 - Members

1. Invite by email: Enter the email of the users you would like to invite.

2. User rights: Assign the desired permissions to the invited users.

   1. Member – Internal member of your organization without access to admin settings.

   2. Administrator – Administrator of the platform with access to all administrator settings (multiple admins are allowed).

   3. External – A member external to your organization, allowing you to restrict their permissions further.

3. Select users location: The default location should be the closest option to you, as this will optimize performance. Note that if this location is separate from the default, the data will be duplicated between servers and this could result in increased storage consumption.

4. Invitation Email language: Users will receive an email with information on accessing the platform in the selected language.

5. Add a message (optional): If you would like to include a custom message with the users invitation email, enter it here.

Step 2 – Roles

As a default, all members will be automatically assigned the Collaborative Business Innovator role. A message will appear notifying you of how many available you have remaining. If you would like to assign additional roles to users automatically, scroll through the options (or search with the search roles option), and select the desired roles. If any of the roles require a prerequisite, a notification will appear showing which ones are required and stating that they will automatically be assigned.

NOTE: These roles will be applied to every user, so if you plan on applying different roles to each one, it’s best practice to just assign the Collaborative Business Innovator and assign additional roles in the future.

Step 3 – Additional Apps

Depending on which roles you have access to, you may or may not have available additional apps that can be assigned. For example, if you purchased 3D Creator, you will have the SOLIDWORKS Add-in, which will allow users to connect SOLIDWORKS Desktop to the platform with all of the PLM capabilities. If you just have the Collaborative Business Innovator, the SOLIDWORKS Add-in will only allow for 3DDrive and Marketplace via SOLIDWORKS Desktop.

Once you select ‘Invite’, all members that were included will receive an email with a link to access the platform. Once they log-in with their existing MySolidWorks ID or new 3DEXPERIENCE ID, their roles will automatically be assigned.

Assigning Roles to Existing Members

There are two primary ways to assign roles to existing members. The first method is to assign various roles to a single user. The second method is to assign the same role to various users.

Assigning Various Roles to a Single User

Once your members are invited, under the Members section, select the Details icon next to the desired user.

As a default, this will open on the roles tab and then select the ‘View all’ sub-tab. From this tab, you can scroll through all of your available roles, and then select the checkbox for each one you would like assigned. The roles will then automatically be assigned to the user.

Assigning a Single Role to Various Users

This will follow a similar process to the previous method. Instead of selecting the details icon next to the desired user, you will select the details icon next to the desired role.

Then under the ‘View all’ sub-tab of the ‘Members’ tab, you will select the checkbox for each member you would like the role to be assigned to and it will automatically assign to the users.

NOTE: This process can be used to unassign roles as well, however the user must have had the role assigned over 30 days ago and not accessed the 3DEXPERIENCE Platform for at least 2 hours.

Conclusion

It’s as easy as that! You and all your teammates should now have access to the 3DEXPERIENCE Platform with the appropriate roles assigned. 3DEXPERIENCE makes the administration and startup of a new solution a breeze and resolves many headaches of traditional on-premise solutions. Now get out there and start diving into your new tools!