The Onshape Document is a new concept for mechanical CAD users. In a nutshell, it is a project-level container that holds your Part Studios, Assemblies and Drawings. But it also offers many more productivity tools that may not be immediately obvious. This versatility is one of the key reasons why Onshape is the leading platform for Agile Product Design. Here are 10 things you may not know about Onshape Documents.
1. Documents Are Project-Level Containers
Onshape Documents are more like folders than files. A single Document can contain dozens of Part Studios, assemblies, drawings and other uploaded material. Starting a new product line? Use an Onshape Document. Trying an alternative design to an existing product? Use an Onshape Document.
2. You Can Reference Other Documents Within a Document
This is a very powerful feature that not everyone knows about yet. Onshape now supports Linked Documents.
With Linked Documents, your Onshape parts, assemblies, and additional items from other Documents can now be inserted into your current Document. You will find a new “Browse Documents” command when inserting parts, assemblies, drawing views, derived features, and even sketch images and DXFs.
3. You Can Upload Your PDFs, Images & Videos in Onshape Documents
Here are some examples of things you might consider uploading into your Document:
- Safety spec sheets
- Test reports
- Marketing documents
- Other spec sheets
- Product videos
4. Your Onshape Document is the Most Secure Way of Protecting Your IP in any CAD System
Contrary to what some might think about cloud security, Onshape’s cloud-based CAD system is actually more secure than your desktop-installed CAD system. Yes, more secure.
Imagine if you could start from scratch and design a system where all authorized users could create and view CAD data without having a local copy of it? Such a system could enable:
- You to securely share and unshare your data.
- Everyone working with the data to always have the right version.
- The servers that allowed you to store and work on your data to do nothing else and the software on these machines would be installed and configured automatically, the exact same way every time.
- Your servers to be in secure facilities around the globe with multiple levels of physical access control, armed guards, and a guarantee that your machines would never leave these facilities.
You get all of these security measures with Onshape. To learn more about protecting your IP, read this post by John Rousseau, Onshape’s Director of Technical Operations.
5. You Can Revert Your Document to Any Previous State, Anytime
Ah, the power of the cloud. With Onshape Documents, you can revert to any stage of your project’s Edit History at any time. Here are a couple of scenarios where you will find this useful:
- If you’ve reached a point in your design and realized you need to go back, you can do that with a few clicks. In desktop-installed CAD, you’d be stuck (unless you manually created a copy of your work with every edit you made). Onshape does that automatically for you.
- You want to go back and review a previous version of your work. Perhaps even branch your design at that point and test an alternative. You can also create versions in Onshape to bookmark a milestone in your design that you’d like to hold onto.
6. There Are Only Two Types of Onshape Documents: Private & Public
It’s important to know how Onshape’s Private and Public Documents work and how they relate to our pricing plans. You can create and edit unlimited Public Documents in our free Free Plan. You can create and edit unlimited Private Documents in our Professional Plan. Private Documents are only visible to you unless you grant view or edit permissions to your colleagues, manufacturers or other partners. Try Onshape Professional.
7. You Have Complete Control Over Who Can Edit Your Public Documents
Public Documents are visible to anyone who wants to browse and they can also be copied. But only you have control over who edits your Public Document. We’re happy to continue supporting hobbyists, makers and open source designers with professional-grade 3D CAD for their public projects.
8. Integrated Cloud Apps in the Onshape App Store Work Within Your Documents
Need simulation? How about rendering? We’ve got it. And yes, it works right within your Onshape Document. If you browse the Onshape App Store, check out apps that are labeled “Integrated Cloud App.”
Here’s a video on how to use an integrated cloud rendering app, One Render:
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9. You Can Create & Maintain Your BoM in an Onshape Document
Our partner openBoM works within your Onshape Document. Here’s a video that walks you through how to use openBoM in your Document.
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10. You Can Send Feedback to Customer Support Within a Document
Built into the Onshape Document help menu is a feedback tool that allows you to take screenshots, mock up the UI and send that directly to the Onshape team. Once submitted, your feedback is reviewed by Onshape’s Product Definition Team. We’ve received feedback from thousands of users and we’ve made product enhancements based upon that feedback. Because Onshape releases every few weeks, we’re releasing user-suggested enhancements every month. So please don’t hesitate to send us your feedback. Here’s a video on how to use the feedback tool:
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The above 10 things is by no means a comprehensive list. Please comment below to share your own experiences with Onshape Documents.