With the release of CamWorks 2010 we now have the ability to link our Technology database directly into SQL.  Currently the TechDB resides in access.  While this works really well it is nice for me to have it in SQL with my Enterprise PDM databases.  This also makes it easier to backup and share my customized database with other users.  With 2010 CamWorks installed on my machine I set out to link it with my SQL for EPDM.  Below are the steps I went through to link the Databases.  Along the way I also found a little sticking point to remember to make this all work together.

We will start our process in SQL.  As a note my screen images are from SQL 2008 so if you are using SQL 2005 the pages may look a little different.  The first step is to right click on your database folder and hit “Restore Database”.

Next you will see the Restore Database page shown above.  The first area to look at is the “To Database”.  This is where you tell SQL to put the imported or restored information from the TechDB.  Step 2 in the process is toe Select “From Device”.  When you pick from device you will select the box to the right that will let you browse to the access database.  The last step before you hit “O.K.” is to check the box under the “Restore” column.  Lastly hit “O.K.”.

When the Restore has completed you should see a notification similar to what is shown above.  Our next step is to open the Technology Database from CamWorks.

On the CamWorks TechDB mainpage we will select the button that says “Maintenance”.

We will now select “Link Database”.

Step 1 gives you general information as to why you would use this option.  In our case we want to use this command so we will select “Next” to go to step 2.

Step 2 gives us the option to link to a Access or SQL database.  We will select “SQL”.  In SQL we start by entering the server name that is hosting the database we want.  Authentication mode can be either Windows or SQL.  Once you enter the database name and log-in information you can select “Get Database”.  This will then populate the Database Name drop down list.  From here you can pick the Tech DB name from the previous step.  With this information filled out we will select “Next”.

Step 3. is where we can pick the button “Start Linking”.  This should then link your Tech DB to SQL.  When it is done linking you can hit “Finish” to exit out of this command.

 (Note:  If you do not have correct permissions or access rights set in SQL then the linking will fail.  To exit out of this command if a failure occurs you will need to re-link the database back to the tech db backup we used to import into SQL.)

Now for the fun part of what I learned going through this process.  To start it is easy and painless to link the TechDB to sql as long as you have the correct SQL permisions.  My SQL was originally setup to use SQL login only.  I used the SA (system admin) for everything and it worked well for EPDM.  However for this link to work you need to enable windows authentication as well.  Once I added windows authentication everything linked smoothly.  So if you are going to go through this process remember to turn on Windows Authentication and life will be good during the process.

mbuchli