Use DriveWorks Solo & SOLIDWORKS to reduce the cost of custom designs, respond quickly to sales enquiries, enhance product quality & reduce repetitive tasks.
Setup and use DriveWorks Solo in the engineering department to generate the 3D Designs, detailed manufacturing drawings & quotes for each new order-specific design.
Enter new dimensions or order specific details into your own custom forms inside SOLIDWORKS for each variation required. The output is all the information required to manufacture and market product variants.
DriveWorks Solo is a SOLIDWORKS Certified Gold Partner Product
You can generate your SOLIDWORKS Parts, Assemblies and detailed Drawings automatically. DriveWorks Solo even lets you preview and generate quotes to help you respond quickly to enquiries from your sales team.
DriveWorks Solo harnesses the power of SOLIDWORKS so you can preview the effect of your selections and see the changes to your design. Preview mode is great for ‘what if’ scenarios too. You can make changes, zoom in, zoom out, rotate and check the model before finalizing your design.
DriveWorks Solo has an inbuilt Form Designer, which you can use to design your own forms, to help you configure valid permutations. Include images as well as guidance messages and feedback in your form to help you select the right options. You can even add your own rules-based form-to-form navigation to help you move quickly through the forms depending on what options you need to select.
Companies that design and manufacture custom products, invariably rely on data that exists in other company systems, spreadsheets, note books, co-workers heads! DriveWorks Solo lets you copy information and then save it in Solo so that that data can be re-used in your project on the forms and as you build the rules for your custom designs.
By linking the values entered on your DriveWorks forms to the rules and data inside DriveWorks Solo, you can provide a fast response to sales enquiries from your sales colleagues and customers. Use the in built DriveWorks Solo template quote, covering letter and BOM to create a professional response automatically and all based on your rules.
With DriveWorks Solo you can use rules to control the state and scale of Sheets. You can also control the state, scale and position of Views, the position of Break Lines, Annotations, Annotation Positions, Layers, and Custom Properties. DriveWorks Solo can also save Drawings out in other file formats, such as PDF, JPEG, DWF and DWG.
When you are happy that your specification meets your requirements, you can finalize your results. Your models will be saved where you want them with the final file names assigned (and based on your rules); your detail drawings and documents will also be generated… so that you are ready to start manufacturing.
It is easy for errors to creep in when you are short of time.
It’s easy to make a mistake when you are entering the same information again and again.
It’s easy to lose track when personnel change and when there’s just not enough time to get things done.
DriveWorks Solo lets you capture your design intent and know-how and express it as rules. Once you have defined the rules, you can apply them to the creation of same but different designs. Rules based design provides you with a valuable audit trail and enhances product quality.
Do you ever find yourself doing the same things again and again? Do you look at the design projects you are working on and think “that is the same but different?” Doing these same tasks over and over again can easily lead to errors and is not the best use of an engineer’s time.
Who wouldn’t rather be doing more productive and interesting things?
By automating repetitive, often mundane tasks, DriveWorks Solo frees you up so that you can concentrate on the more interesting, valuable and productive projects. Better for you and better for your company.
Demand is higher than ever for customization and personalization. We all want products to our own specification. Without economies of scale this can be hard to achieve and expensive to deliver. However, with DriveWorks you put the best methods and processes of your best engineers in to your configurator. You capture the rules and know-how; then next time you specify a variation of your design, you can let the computer do the calculations and repetitive work.
The Result? Lower design costs, shorter sales cycles, higher levels of customer service, more sales success.
DriveWorks Solo is also of benefit if as a design engineer or product designer, you are asked to support your company’s sales activities. This may involve providing supporting documentation, such as General Arrangement Drawings or data that can be used for Quoting.
As well as detailed manufacturing drawings, DriveWorks Solo enables engineers to re-use engineering and 3D CAD data to automatically generate custom quotes, covering letters and a Bill of Materials. Accurate, good looking documents, delivered fast are an undeniable competitive advantage.
From stand-alone seats to company-wide solutions, DriveWorks software can be used for Design Automation and Sales Configuration by most companies creating ‘Same but Different’ products.
Whether you are an engineer looking for a Design Automation solution or a company wanting to provide CPQ Product Configurators and Guided Selling for your own teams, distributors dealers and even customers, DriveWorks software is modular and scalable so you can set up and use the products to your advantage and at your own pace.
To find out more about each feature, simply click on the ticks in the product columns!
DriveWorks Product Comparison
Learn about the differences between DriveWorksXpress, DriveWorks Solo and DriveWorks Pro and decide which software solution is right for you.
From stand-alone seats to company-wide solutions, DriveWorks software can be used for Design Automation and Sales Configuration by most companies creating ‘Same but Different’ products.
Whether you are an engineer looking for a Design Automation solution or a company wanting to provide Product Configuration and Guided Selling for your own teams, Distributors and Dealers, DriveWorks software is modular and scalable so you can set up and use the products to your advantage and at your own pace.
Supported Operating Systems and Browsers
| DriveWorks Xpress | DriveWorks Solo | DriveWorks Pro | |
| Windows 7 (SP1), Windows 8.1, Windows 10 (DriveWorks Desktop Applications) | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| All of the above plus Windows Server (2008 R2, 2012, 2012 R2, 2016, 2019) (DriveWorks Live Web application) | ✓ | ||
| Google Chrome 8+, Mozilla Firefox 4+, Microsoft Edge 12+, Microsoft IE 11+, Safari 5.1+ (Configuring products in a Browser through DriveWorks Live) | ✓ | ||
| Cloud Hosting: Microsoft Azure | ✓ |
CAD – Controlling SOLIDWORKS 3D Models and 2D Drawings
| DriveWorks Xpress | DriveWorks Solo | DriveWorks Pro | |
| Drive Dimensions, Features and Custom Properties | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Drive Color, Material and Textures | ✓ | ✓ | |
| Drive Advanced Feature Properties (Hole Wizards, Sheet Metal, Weldments) | ✓ | ✓ | |
| Drive Advanced Feature Properties | ✓ | ✓ | |
| Drive Instances | ✓ | ✓ | |
| Replace Components (with existing files or dynamically driven files) | ✓ | ✓ | |
| Create additional model file formats (STEP, STL, PDF, DXF, JPEG, etc.) | ✓ | ✓ | |
| Full control over new model file names and locations | ✓ | ✓ | |
| Control multiple model sets from a single project | ✓ | ✓ | |
| Run SOLIDWORKS Model Macros | ✓ | ||
| Generative design – create new features on the fly (configurations, insert components, mates, etc.) | ✓ | ||
| Create a drawing for each part and assembly | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Create multiple drawings for each part and assembly | ✓ | ✓ | |
| Full control over new drawing file names and locations | ✓ | ✓ | |
| Create additional drawing file formats (PDF, DXF, DWG, JPEG, etc.) | ✓ | ✓ | |
| Control Drawing Sheets (Re-scale, Rename, Delete) | ✓ | ✓ | |
| Control Drawing Views (Re-scale, Re-position, Delete) | ✓ | ✓ | |
| Control Annotations (Dimension Text, Notes, Symbols, etc.) | ✓ | ✓ | |
| Control Dimension positions | ✓ | ✓ | |
| Control Custom Properties, Break Lines and Layers | ✓ | ✓ | |
| Run SOLIDWORKS Drawing Macros | ✓ | ||
| Run additional tasks on the fly (Auto Balloon, Arrange Dimensions, Rescale and Position Views, etc.) | ✓ |
Document Creation
| DriveWorks Xpress | DriveWorks Solo | DriveWorks Pro | |
| Create documents (such as Sales Quotes, Purchase Orders, Bills of Materials, etc.) | ✓ | ✓ | |
| Built in document templates | ✓ | ✓ | |
| Fully customizable document creation (from Word, Excel, XML, etc.) | ✓ | ||
| Send HTML emails with attachments | ✓ | ||
| Create Additional File Formats (PDF, HTML, TXT, XML, etc.) | ✓ |
Output Generation
| DriveWorks Xpress | DriveWorks Solo | DriveWorks Pro | |
| Immediate generation of SOLIDWORKS models and drawings | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Real Time Preview (On Demand) – updates model while specifying | ✓ | ✓ | |
| Manual release of generation queue – allows multiple specifications to have their models generated from a queue | ✓ | ||
| Automatic generation – unattended generation of outputs | ✓ | ||
| Load balancing – distributes output generation over multiple machines | ✓ | ||
| Priority processing – Change the order that outputs are created based on rules | ✓ | ||
| Output Tagging – Generate outputs on targeted machines or in specific locations | ✓ |
User Interface Design
| DriveWorks Xpress | DriveWorks Solo | DriveWorks Pro | |
| Automatic Form designer | ✓ | ||
| Expert Form Designer (Resolution and Control Guides, Control Grouping, Control Property Grid, etc.) | ✓ | ✓ | |
| Multiple form creation with dynamic navigation | ✓ | ✓ | |
| Basic Form Controls (Text Box, Numeric Text Box, Drop Down, Spin Button, Check Box) | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Enhanced Form Controls (Hyperlink, Label, List Box, Option Group, Picture Box, Slider) | ✓ | ✓ | |
| Advanced Form Controls (3D Preview, Child Specification List, Data Table, Date Picker, Frame Control, Macro Button, Upload Control, etc.) | ✓ | ||
| Dynamic options for list controls | ✓ | ✓ | |
| Dynamic control of Enable and Visible properties of form controls | ✓ | ✓ | |
| Dynamic control over fonts and colors | ✓ | ✓ | |
| Static validation and validation messages | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Dynamic validation and validation messages | ✓ | ✓ | |
| Copy and paste form controls | ✓ | ✓ | |
| Re-skin controls | ✓ | ✓ | |
| Support for responsive forms (allows re-positioning of controls when used on screens of different sizes) | ✓ | ✓ | |
| Project hierarchy (run a specification inside a specification to any level (For example a contract with multiple configurable line items) | ✓ |
Working with Data and Rules
| DriveWorks Xpress | DriveWorks Solo | DriveWorks Pro | |
| Use tabular data to calculate rules | ✓ | ✓ | |
| Copy and paste Excel data | ✓ | ✓ | |
| Create internal data tables | ✓ | ✓ | |
| Use dynamic data from ODBC Data sources in rules (SAP, Oracle, MySQL, SQLServer, etc.) | ✓ | ||
| Export data to ODBC data sources (for example SAP, Oracle, MySQL, SQLServer) | ✓ | ||
| Pull and Push data dynamically to and from SQL Server Databases using SQL or Windows authentication | ✓ | ||
| Create Group Level Tabular data for use across an entire implementation | ✓ | ||
| Create Calculation tables where each cell can be calculated from other cells | ✓ | ||
| Create Rollup data tables – where information such a price or BOM Quantities is rolled up through the project hierarchy | ✓ | ||
| Web Service integration – communicate with any web service OR use DriveWorks as a web service | ✓ | ||
| Over 260 engineering, mathematic and scientific functions | ✓ | ✓ | |
| Rules builder with function wizard and rule insight (rule breakdown and drill down, function assistance, syntax highlighting and function helper text) | ✓ | ✓ | |
| Reusable rules (Variables) | ✓ | ✓ | |
| Pervasive search/filtering capabilities | ✓ | ✓ |
Maintainability, Reporting and Diagnostics
| DriveWorks Xpress | DriveWorks Solo | DriveWorks Pro | |
| Rules commentary | ✓ | ✓ | |
| Rules revisioning | ✓ | ✓ | |
| Reporting on model generation success or failure | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Reporting on specification process success or failure | ✓ | ||
| Real time testing during form design | ✓ | ✓ | |
| Rules analysis and breakdown | ✓ | ✓ | |
| What-if scenarios (Specification Test Mode) | ✓ | ||
| Interactive step through of model generation | ✓ | ||
| Rule Profiling (rule specific error debugging, performance solving and insight features) | ✓ |
Scalability
| DriveWorks Xpress | DriveWorks Solo | DriveWorks Pro | |
| Import DriveWorksXpress Projects | ✓ | ✓ | |
| Import DriveWorks Solo Projects | ✓ | ||
| Underlying database – Microsoft SQL Server | ✓ | ||
| Security – Users and Teams | ✓ | ||
| Security – Active Directory compatibility | ✓ | ||
| Granular permissions | ✓ | ||
| Zero-Conversion web access | ✓ | ||
| Unattended model generation | ✓ | ||
| Standalone user seats | ✓ | ||
| Fully customizable work flow – (who, what and when) | ✓ | ||
| Automatic processing of external data | ✓ | ||
| Fully documented API with Software Development Kit | ✓ | ||
| Plugins | ✓ |
Integration
| DriveWorks Xpress | DriveWorks Solo | DriveWorks Pro | |
| SOLIDWORKS PDM Professional (Automatic check-in of models, drawings and documents) | ✓ | ||
| Salesforce | ✓ | ||
| 3rd party system Integration through file import and export | ✓ | ||
| 3rd party system Integration through SQL\ ODBC connections | ✓ | ||
| 3rd party system Integration through web services | ✓ | ||
| 3rd party system Integration through fully documented Application programming Interface | ✓ |
Online Configurator and DriveWorks 3D
| DriveWorks Xpress | DriveWorks Solo | DriveWorks Pro | |
| Direct web access through the application | ✓ | ||
| Run as a service through Internet Information Services (IIS) | ✓ | ||
| Application Mode – replicate desktop running directly on the web | ✓ | ||
| Web Theme with basic re-skinning | ✓ | ||
| Choice of fully responsive skins | ✓ | ||
| Integration Theme with Web API enabling full integration with existing websites | ✓ | ||
| Session Management – control license usage over the Internet | ✓ | ||
| Image gallery – display image files as they are created | ✓ | ||
| Configurable 3D in a browser | ✓ | ||
| Virtual Reality support | ✓ | ||
| Real-time 3D text support | ✓ | ||
| Server side rendering of web optimized DriveWorks 3D files | ✓ | ||
| Image fall back mode when no WebGL on client machine | ✓ | ||
| Model click interaction | ✓ | ||
| Transparent image support | ✓ |
With a 30 Day FREE trial, over 25 How to Video Clips, regular Getting Started Webinars, FREE Online Training, Online HELP file, templates for Quote and BOM, and a range of industry specific Sample Projects, make sure you take a trial today to see how you could benefit.
Free to download from our website.
Get email support if you need help getting started.
Be proficient in an hour, expert in a day!
Quote, Covering Letter & BOM templates included.
Comprehensive ‘How to’ Video Clips
Several Sample Projects included and more available to download.
Try DriveWorks Solo free for 30 days. Find out for yourself what is involved in setting up your own time-saving Design Automation project inside SOLIDWORKS. You can take advantage of all our Online resources: Getting Started Webinars, How to Video Clips, Training Tutorial and much more, during your trial period.
Be proficient in an hour, an expert in a day!
We run regular DriveWorks Solo Getting Started Webinars, a step by step guide to get you started with DriveWorks Solo. You will be taken through the quick and easy steps involved in automating your design process. Starting with a basic SOLIDWORKS model, you will learn how to:
• Capture the parameters you want to control.
• Create a form.
• Build rules.
Whether you are using a DriveWorks Solo trial license, have recently purchased the software or just want to refresh your knowledge, join us to pick up tips and tricks and ask any questions you have.
Join our instructor-led online training sessions.
Learn to build a complete design automation project from start to finish and see how easy it is to master DriveWorks Solo and boost your productivity.
The training is covered over 2 one hour sessions on the last Monday and Tuesday of every month. See our Webinar & Events page to register for the next session.
Download the complete training manual for DriveWorks Solo from the DriveWorks Community. There’s a video that walks through each lesson and you can also download the accompanying SOLIDWORKS files to get started quickly.
The training is available to anyone using DriveWorks Solo, whether you’re using a temporary trial license or you have a permanent license, you can access the training in the DriveWorks Community.
Log in or create an account to get started.
Our DriveWorks Solo How to Video Clips cover every aspect of setting up your DriveWorks Solo design automation project and beyond. Each video is 2-3 minutes long so you can learn in manageable sections and at your own pace, or easily find a quick refresher on a certain topic. The videos cover the following themes:
• Getting Started
• Model Capture
• Drawing Capture
• Form Design
• Data and Documents
• Running Your Projects
Download and use our range of DriveWorks Solo Sample Projects inside SOLIDWORKS.
Each project has already been set up so all you need to do is run it to see how it works. Explore the project, make changes and try out different rules to learn more about using DriveWorks Solo.
Find information, best practices and solutions. Available online, whenever you need it, our help file is there to help you to help yourself.
We have a dedicated technical documentation team who work on our online help files to make them a valuable resource for all of our customers.
Join the conversation in the DriveWorks Solo forum. Share tips and ideas, find answers and discuss features and new software releases.
Entry level product built inside SOLIDWORKS. Set up and use in the engineering department to automate your design process and reduce repetitive tasks.
More powerful Design Automation for SOLIDWORKS CAD Engineers and Product Designers. Download the software and try it FREE for 30 days. Online Training resources available.
Configurator for desktop, mobile and tablet. Add specific software modules as you need them and as you automate more. Extend and share the benefits of Automation to others in the organization AND online.
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You’ll also be able to create customizable forms, preview your results on screen, use more functions and variables in your rule building, together with advanced drawing-view capability and control. These are just some of the additional features that you can take advantage of in DriveWorks Solo.
Use DriveWorks Pro Administrator to set up and manage your projects. Once set up, add more DriveWorks Pro Modules such as DriveWorks Pro Live and DriveWorks Autopilot so others can fill out the forms to design and configure new variations.
Other users can be other engineers, non-technical staff, colleagues on the network or external users, such as distributors or customers. They will be able to specify new variations simply by filling out the forms which can be integrated within your existing website. Specifications can be processed by DriveWorks Pro Autopilot, automatically taking care of the creation of 3D Parts, Assemblies, 2D Drawings as well as any documents (DWG, DXF, PDF, Word, Excel, JPG, XML) required.
Results such as quotes and eDrawings can be emailed using functionality in DriveWorks Pro Autopilot and even passed to other company systems such as ERP and SOLIDWORKS PDM Professional.
It is a ‘must have’ for all businesses using DriveWorks Pro as an Online Product or Sales Configurator. The app allows mobile-friendly versions of configurable 3D CAD files to be viewed, used and even shared by anyone using an iPad, iPhone, Android or Windows 8 tablet and who wants to show off their products in 3D.
To download the software and receive your 30 day FREE license key please log in below.
If you do not already have an account with us, you can create one by clicking on the link.
As DriveWorks Solo is an Add In for SOLIDWORKS you will need SOLIDWORKS 2014 or later to run the latest version of DriveWorks Solo. If you do not have SOLIDWORKS already please visit our Reseller page for details of SOLIDWORKS/DriveWorks Resellers in your area.
