Where is the clamping table from project 1483? One person in the department knows straight away: third project folder, subfolder "def", and not the assembly with "v2" in the name, because that one is actually the old one. Everyone walks to the same desk with questions like this. Convenient, until that colleague is on leave, off sick, or has a new job. Folder knowledge feels like experience, but it is unwritten knowledge that walks out the door with a single goodbye.
There is an alternative that does not depend on people: finding CAD files by metadata, by what they are instead of where they sit. Project number, part number, customer, description: whoever can search on properties needs no map of the department in his head. In this article you will read how that shift works, which fields have to be filled for it, and how helpers from a toolbox like Thundercad speed up browsing as long as folders still lead the way for you.
Folder knowledge is a memory, not a system
Every folder structure that grew over time is logical to whoever watched it grow. To everyone after that, it is a maze with unwritten rules: custom machines live under "projects" but repeat machines under "products", the folder called "old" is sometimes newer than the folder called "new", and you should definitely not trust file names with a version number in them. A new engineer spends months learning that folklore, and a contractor never becomes fully at home in it.
The sums are quickly made. Suppose, as an assumption, that someone searches eight times a day and averages four minutes per search because the department's memory happens to be at lunch: that is well over half an hour per person per day on searching alone. And it is not just about time, it is about risk: whoever finds the wrong file carries on working in the wrong revision with full conviction.
The shift: from "where is it" to "what is it"
Finding by properties turns the question around. Instead of "which folder would this be in?" you ask: "what do I know about this part?" A project number, a part number from the ERP, the name of the machine, the words "clamping table". If those facts hang on the files as iProperties, any search entry point can find them, whether that is the search of your PDM system or a colleague filtering a column.
The nice thing is that this way of working forces nothing on your folder structure. The files are welcome to stay in project folders; they are simply no longer findable only through those folders. The structure becomes storage instead of a card index, and that is precisely the division of roles it is good at.
What has to be filled before you can rely on it
Searching on properties works only as well as the properties are filled. Start small, with a minimum set every engineer and work planner can sustain:
- Project number: the key that ties quotation, order and aftercare together.
- Part number: the link to ERP and purchasing, unique per part.
- Description: in agreed wording, so "clamping table" does not also float around as "fixture table" and "workholding table".
- Status: in progress, released or obsolete, so a hit also says something about usability.
Four fields, no more. Filling them consistently becomes a lot more feasible with a fixed data card: with iProperty Panel from Thundercad you configure per document type which fields appear, so a part asks for different input than a drawing and nobody has to remember what was mandatory again. How to then measure whether those fields are actually filled and consistent is covered in How healthy is your CAD data? How to measure your metadata quality.
A data card per document type turns filling metadata into a habit instead of a chore. You can try it alongside your current way of working for a month, right in your own projects.
Try 30 days freeFaster browsing while folders still lead the way
The shift to properties is not an afternoon's work, and until then you keep browsing. That browsing can be a lot quicker too. Recognise this: you have an assembly open and want to do something with the file itself, copy it, rename it, drop an export next to it. Then the clicking starts: open the file browser, pick the drive, find the project folder, walk down the subfolders. With Go To Folder from Thundercad you jump straight from Inventor to the folder of the open file, one click instead of a series. And with Frequent Folder you keep the folders you visit daily, such as the running projects and the standards library, ready in a fixed list, so you never have to descend from the drive letter again.
Feel free to do the maths: whoever navigates to a folder twenty times a day and skips half a minute of clicking each time wins ten minutes daily. More important still, it requires no folder knowledge: the route to the file runs through the open model, not through the memory of a colleague.
From habit to system
Filled properties pay out twice as soon as a system arrives that searches on them. In Vault, searching on properties becomes the central way of finding, with an index that combs through older projects in seconds; how to use that search well is described in Searching in Vault: finding what you need in seconds. Whoever fills consistently today migrates later without a catch-up effort: the data is already there, only the search engine is new. Searching on properties is also coming to the toolbox itself: Find Item is on the Thundercad roadmap.
So start filling today and let the search technology follow. The other way around does not work: the best search finds nothing in empty fields.
Frequently asked questions
Does finding by properties work without Vault or PDM?
Partly. Windows often cannot index the iProperties of Inventor files, so on a bare network drive it remains makeshift. The value lies in filling the fields now: whichever search solution you choose later can work with them straight away.
Which property should I tackle first?
The project number, because that is the key planning, purchasing and post-calculation already work with. Then the part number, because it is the bridge to your ERP. Those two fields alone answer the bulk of the search questions in a department.
How do I get the team to keep filling in fields?
Make it light and visible: a fixed data card, one mandatory key field and a short check at release. If you want to experience how that works with iProperty Panel, Go To Folder and Frequent Folder, you can try the toolbox free for 30 days.