Items capture a complete product definition. They collect CAD assembly
designs, software, packaging, documentation, and other components into a single comprehensive
view of the product.
Items consist entirely of metadata that live in the vault database. Although
items can link to files, they do not contain files themselves and therefore do not exist in
the vault archive and do not appear on your local disk.
Items are similar to files in that they:
- Are edited using check-out and check-in operations to create new
versions.
- Have data cards and
properties.
- Can be organized into
folders.
- Can participate in
workflows.
SOLIDWORKS PDM
File Explorer lets you create and search for items, but you perform most
item operations from Item Explorer. See SOLIDWORKS PDM Professional Item Explorer Help.
Item Explorer is not installed by default. To install
Item Explorer, perform a custom client installation or upgrade and select the Item Explorer
feature. See the SOLIDWORKS PDM
Installation Guide.