Hi all
As some of you have asked, we are setting up this conversation around the topic of 3DEXPERIENCE. Our Visiativ expert @alexia.fernandes will be able to answer your questions and enlighten you on the use of this platform 
You can ask any questions you may have about the use and features of the 3DEXPERIENCE platform (any questions about the price or your licenses should be asked to your Visiativ sales representative)
Have a good day everyone, Coralie 
Hello Coralie, Hello everyone!
Thank you for this little introduction
I am a Customer Success Manager at Visiativ, some of you may already know me from our webinars or myCADday!
I am delighted to be able to contribute to the Visiativ forum 
I will try to answer your questions as precisely as possible.
However, if I see that the same question comes up often, we may make an article or a webinar out of it in order to answer as many people as possible!
Have a good day to all!
Alexia
Thank you for the opening of the topic @Coralie and thank you for taking part in the game @alexia.fernandes
So, I'm going to open the ball of questions with a very simple ... What exactly is 3DEXPERIENCE?
The site is made of generic blah that doesn't allow me to understand the thing (like many sites now, unfortunately). And I don't question the quality of the webinar, it is surely very well done... It's just not in the culture of my society to be in front of the screen with an earphone
And so, the second question that comes with it: what will the new subscription model mentioned by @Maclane change us?
As a SOLIDWORKS Solutions customer, we would like to inform you that Dassault Systèmes has made the decision to change the engagement model for all new license and maintenance purchases effective July 1, 2023.
> Indeed, the major areas of development for Dassault Systèmes are the adoption of the 3DEXPERIENCE SOLIDWORKS solution and the 3DEXPERIENCE PLATFORM.
> These areas of development have an impact on the mode of engagement by moving from a traditional model (purchase of a perpetual license with maintenance) to a subscription model.
>The traditional acquisition model is still possible, under special conditions.> Dassault Systèmes SOLIDWORKS has decided that as of July 1, 2023 , for the acquisition of a SOLIDWORKS Classic range license (SOLIDWORKS, Simulation, PDM, Electrical, etc.), it will now be mandatory to associate it with an initial 2-year maintenance contract including as standard roles from the 3DEXPERIENCE platform that provide data management features, collaboration as well as the benefits of the cloud.
>The cost of acquiring a new license will therefore be mechanically increased and will be associated with 2 years of support for this new service."
Hello
First of all, thank you for your question!
I can't answer it in a unique way but I'll try to explain it to you!
The 3DEXPERIENCE platform aims to be a PLM at the heart of society, the platform that connects all the actors of a project regardless of which department they belong to (Design, Methods Office, Project Manager, etc.).
Below is the definition from Dassault:
The 3DEXPERIENCE Platform is a platform that provides a set of software solutions tailored to each business stakeholder involved in the product lifecycle.
The platform integrates interactive tools ranging from project management to 3D design and simulation, among other things.
However, there are several levels of use of the platform depending on the size of the company and the user(s) needs.
Below is a small diagram that we present to our customers to explain this:
For your second question, I strongly invite you to contact your Visiativ sales representative who will be able to guide you much better according to what you already have, the current offers and the specifications of this new offer.
In summary, starting July 1st, any new additions to the SOLIDWORKS lineup will be associated with access to 3DEXPERIENCE. VISIATIV adds access to the CSM service which allows you to have a person dedicated to 3DEXPERIENCE, at your disposal, to allow you to set up what you want with the platform.
Don't hesitate if you have any more questions!
Alexia
Haaaa ... It's a PLM! It's much clearer that way. Now I know what we're talking about 
And so, if I understand correctly, we will end up with a PLM system to install when we buy new licenses. Whether you need it or not.
As a result, we will have to install it, or it will be like a module that we have without using it. In other words, can Solidworks continue to work without this tool?
It's a bit like forcing the hand to switch to a PLM. I understand the approach of Industry 4.0 but imposing your tool that may not be useful or not compatible depending on the industrial environment (compliance with certain regulations) without leaving the customer a choice vaguely reminds me of Microsoft and IE which ended up being sued for abuse of dominant position.
It has the PLM overlay, it's the main goal if I may say so. But many of our customers today use it as storage space++ by adding the technical data management aspect that you don't have in other DMS software or storage space (especially for the increment of revisions in the space, not in the title and design history).
It is not a mandatory module but a browser-based platform, it is like your myCAD space, you connect to it and manage your data on it. If you want to put your SOLIDWORKS data, you will need to install an add-in that will connect your SOLIDWORKS to your 3DEXPERIENCE interface, like for the myCADTools (for those who know 
).
No one is forcing you to use it, you will still have the SOLIDWORKS you know and it will continue to work conventionally.
Dassault simply offers you the opportunity to test the 3DEXPERIENCE so that you can make up your own mind
In addition, VISIATIV provides you with CSMs to help you define your needs (if you have one) and help you discover the interface!
Hello
For people who already have a PDM and want to add more licenses after July, how will it work? Is there a link between the PDM and 3D Experience?
@Domino_Day , I'm not sure it's only for adding licenses. I wonder if this is not also valid for the renewal of a licence
For your questions about the email you received on Friday, I reiterate my advice to contact your sales representatives. It's not that I don't want to answer you, but I don't have all the information and all the details about what is going to happen and how it is going to be put in place.
3DExperience is intended to replace PDM or as a complement?
Hello
I think the email is clear, whether you have the use or not of the "3DEXPERIENCE", when you buy a new license (to be checked for the renewal of the maintenance contract,) you will have to pay 2 years of mandatory maintenance for "3DEXPERIENCE".
3DEXPERIENCE is not intended to replace PDM.
Rather, it's about introducing a new way of managing technical data to companies that don't have it, on a full cloud platform, which is different from PDM.
A compulsory and paid discovery of the 3DExperience, even for those already equipped with a technical data management solution such as SW PDM or other (e.g. SMARTEAM, ARAS...)?
Personally, it doesn't go well. Especially after establishing that 3DExperience is (by far) not the most suitable solution for an SMB in the context of a PLM change study.
3DExperience has significant drawbacks:
its operation as a nominative license with assignment for a minimum of 30 days.
To avoid paying a license/role for each member of the BE, a company manager told me during a MyCADday that he had created a "common" user, to carry out certain operations and lamented the loss of traceability (who did what).
Some basic SW features that are only supported with a specific 3Dx role, such as envelope components.
Envelope components. are excluded from the BOM in SolidWorks by default. As seen during a presentation of the 3DExperience product, a specific role for BOM management is required for envelope components to be effectively excluded from the BOM. In the end, you pay 2 times for a feature!
Hello;
Thank you @alexia.fernandes for this information, it's clearer like that.
However, what about the purchase of a new license... only the latter will be given (imposed) access to the 3DExperience and its OS-PLM-like environment?
(Well, if you have to pay for it, you might as well use it, right?)
The old "historical" licenses in progress in society, they, tinrin, nib, nada? How will they coexist serenely? (I completely agree with @Silver_Surfer ... it's inflated as a coup de force all the same!).
Kind regards.
Hi all
First of all, thanks to alexia.fernandes for answering our questions.
Personally, I have already called our sales representative Visiativ to find out a little more. According to him, there is no impact on license renewals. He does not know if renewals will be impacted in the future.
According to him, the price of updating current licenses to the 3DExperience solution would be higher with equivalent functionalities.
… It reminds me of the extremely judicious and super-appropriate choice of Dassault Systèmes to remove the registrations of "online (1) " licenses in the middle of the " Covid " lockdown under the pretext of the cost of maintaining the server...
(1): allowed you to easily switch a Solidworks license between your work PC and your " Telecommuting " workstation and vice-versa...
A nice decision no doubt well thought out...
I'll try to revive the discussion with questions about the uses and features of 3DExperience.
In the 3DExperience, we have the notions of:
Physical product : The configuration of a part or assembly that can be manufactured. When saving a .sldprt or .sldasm file to a collaboration space, each configuration becomes a physical product with a unique part number.
Representation : The configuration of a part or assembly that cannot be manufactured (exploded, flattened, or collapsed)
CAD family (and objects in the CAD family): Consists of one or more configurations of a part or assembly. It can include several physical products.
It is specified that an object in the CAD family is the root or top-level configuration.
Hence my question:
Is a physical Product necessarily a top-level configuration (checkbox)?
Is the distinction between Physical Product and Representation made at the time of recording in 3DX in a collaboration space?
A major problem can arise at the time of data migration: we often notice a misuse of configurations and display states. We can say bluntly that display states are misunderstood and misused and in the majority of cases, manufacturers will prefer a configuration when it should be using a display state.
When the choice of 3DX is made, the amount of data is such that it is unthinkable to make a file-by-file recording to identify the configurations that are actually Physical Products and those that are Representations.
@alexia.Fernandes, has this issue ever appeared in a migration project? How was it managed?
I understand your question. The subject you mention concerns the migration of existing data to 3DEXPERIENCE and more specifically the management of configured SOLIDWORKS parts. This is a true PDM/PLM project to deploy 3DEXPERIENCE as an enterprise solution. My answer below is therefore only for this type of project and not for the people who will benefit from 3DEXPERIENCE from July to do data archiving and sharing.
This data recovery is indeed a project within the project of setting up a technical data management solution, regardless of the solution you choose (Dassault, Siemens, PTC, etc.). I will try to give you some answers.
First of all, I see that you have understood the configuration management mechanism in 3DEXPERIENCE. For good management, it is necessary to dissociate the structure configurations (e.g. the different sizes of the same screw) and the representation or display configurations (e.g. open/closed piston). If your configurations have been created in a "clean" way in SOLIDWORKS, then the platform will be able to recognize the "physical product" elements and the "representation" elements automatically. Unfortunately, this is rarely the case with our customers, who have to take these elements back manually before importing. Hence the data preparation work you have seen.
Generally speaking, VISIATIV recommends doing real pre-import preparation. The main stages of this work are:
Sort it out, keep the essentials, don't import all the history.
Work on the naming of these files. Indeed, PLM provides features that will allow you to no longer need to use meaningful naming that is often cumbersome to maintain.
Mourning the loss of SOLIDWORKS configurations. Using tools like 3DEXPERIENCE will allow you to automate the use of library parts so you can easily design and reuse content. Conversely, in the PDM / PLM context, the configurations weigh down your assemblies. It is always explained that it is better to waste 3 minutes designing a new screw reference VS 1 minute each time you open or save the assembly for the rest of the time of the project.
Finally, we have heard rumours that Dassault is working on new mechanisms to streamline data transfer and simplify the management approach to configured parts.
Implementing a technical data management solution requires an investment of time. Visiativ can help you go faster, in particular through packaged services that include data recovery assistance.
Hello
I have been a user of the platform for 2 years and we use PDM very little.
I would even say that the 3D Experience is much more than a PDM. It should be seen as a new work ecosystem where the notion of collaboration takes on a very strong dimension.
Our society is broken down into remote sites. The platform is the digital place in which we have all our projects that we share. It's a microsoft drive to the power of 100. And our particularity is that we use it even with our customers who are not equipped.
