About Opening Designs From ENOVIA

Opening a design copies it from the ENOVIA database to your computer and opens or inserts it in another design open in Inventor depending on your choice.

Your preference settings and global preferences set by Integration Administrator control the open process. You can open a design to download a file updated by another user or to modify the design in Inventor. You can find the designs you want to open using the Search and select the designs you want to open from the ENOVIA Open dialog box.

The options to open a file from ENOVIA in Inventor are,


  • ENOVIA > Open. Use this option to open designs from ENOVIA in Inventor.
  • ENOVIA > Insert . Use this option to insert the design from ENOVIA in the currently active design in Inventor.

About Opening Designs With Attachments

Attachments are non Inventor files that are embedded or linked to a Inventor design.

When you open a part, assembly, or drawing which has a linked attachment in ENOVIA Collaborative Design for Inventor, then the attachment is also opened along with the model.

The ENOVIA Open dialog box does not display the attachment in the structure of the design displayed. The attachments are copied with the design from ENOVIA to the specified Checkout directory.

Attribute Synchronize

Attribute synchronization ensures that the attributes in the design file on your computer match the attributes of the associated ENOVIA object.

Attribute Synchronization is done each time you open a design in Inventor. If you are not connected to ENOVIA while opening a design, the ENOVIA Attribute Synchronization message is displayed. Click Login to ENOVIA to launch the ENOVIA Login dialog box or click Continue Load to load the design without synchronizing attributes.

Your Integration Administrator specifies which attributes and properties can be synchronized.

See ENOVIA Designer Central Installation and Administrator's Guide for details on mapping attributes, and enforcing attribute synchronization.

You can also synchronize attributes when you save a design to ENOVIA.

Attribute sync from ENOVIA while open happens only if file is writable for user.

Attribute Synchronization for Read-only Designs:


  • For read-only designs, attributes are not transferred on file from ENOVIA.
  • If user selects "Yes" to lock the read-only file while opening from local disc, then attrib sync from ENOVIA is done.

Opening Multiple Designs

Using ENOVIA Open or ENOVIA Insert dialog box you can search, select, and open or insert multiple designs from ENOVIA in Inventor.

The Global Preferences set by the Integration Administrator or the options selected in ENOVIA Options dialog box are applied for all the selected designs.

Preferences that are enforced by the Integration Administrator cannot be modified.

Selected designs are opened to the working directory and are loaded to the active session.

It is possible when selecting multiple designs to open simultaneously that a confiict may occur if your business process is not enforcing the "Latest Version" rule. Multiple versions of the same design may not be opened at the same time.

An example of version collision is, version 1 of component X which is not a part of any assembly and version 3 of the same component which is a part of the assembly are selected for opening in the ENOVIA Open dialog box. When you try to open the selected designs an error message is displayed to indicate the version collision.

Read Only Behavior

This section lists the behavior changes in the Open feature when MCADInteg-FileReadOnlyBehavior is set as TRUE in the global configuration object by your Administrator.

The behavior changes are,


  • The file will be read-only if the design is not locked by the user and checked out.
  • If the design is locked by the user, the file stays writable.
  • Durin Open, attributes are synchronized only if you have write permission for the file.

Read Only Behavior While Opening Designs from Local Disk

This section describes the behavior of the integration depending on the lock status when you try to open a design from your local disk.

When you try to open a design that is not locked by you then a message is displayed asking you to acquire lock while opening from local disk.

  • Click Yes to lock the root document and make the document writable. All other components remain in the original state.
  • Click No to keep the document status as read only.