One of the more powerful options for CAD administrators and managers in PDM is the ability to export search results to Excel for further analysis. Exporting your search results from PDM is quick and easy to do once you know where to look, but let’s think about a few ways we might use this type of exported search:

• • Evaluating how many files have been modified within a period of time to determine monthly throughput of CAD files created and/or modified
  • Generating a list of files and folder paths to use for automation scripts/macros
  • Enforcing best practices by checking for files that have been left checked out but have not been modified for a long time

Excel is a powerful tool for diving deeper into data to find patterns which we can use to help improve our processes, plan for future capacity or provide qualitative data to see if our hunches and assumptions are correct. The Microsoft Support page for Excel has some great resources for everyone from beginner users of Excel to long-time power users who want to learn more about tools that have been added in recent years. Check out these resources here