I’d make this a poll, but there would be too many choices. I recognize there are so many ways of using Solidworks that it is hard to see the software from every angle, but what area of the software would you say that you and your company need the most help? What do you look to get from training, online courses, youtube, books, etc. If there were some specialized material, what should the topic be?
Specifically:
API and PDM
And maybe getting people to not only learn, but actually USE the things that they learn (but maybe that is outside the scope of this question) 
Would love to see more on how to utilize API and how it relates to Solidworks.
This. And data-management both inside and outside of PDM.
What Dan and Mike said X2.
-
Don’t be afraid of APIs, I see it as if I’m the only company that needs some process streamlined it would be silly to have that added to the software. It’s an unpopular feature that most don’t want and likely cause bugs in others’ environments. Hire a reputable contractor to help you define your process and create a solution for you, be sure that a plan to update it to be compatible with future updates is in place.
-
I’m weary of Solidworks suggestions devoid of the notion of PDM and visa-versa. SW has been pushing their own PDM system that they claim is “seamless” with Solidworks, well it’s not. Then tech support (of all formats) tend to forget that the other exists. How many threads did someone with half a clue about SW and PDM (talking about myself) post a question and forgot to mention that this is SW in the scope of PDM and got a bunch of good, yet wrong, answers because the helpers either don’t use PDM or didn’t make it part of their suggestion?
Example, just had this happen, One employee was told by instructor (school, not VAR) how to change the revision on a SW file by using custom properties. I had sent out numerous emails about not messing around in the custom properties. Guess what email I got, “How come the pdf and dxfs saved with the wrong revision number, and the print shows the wrong revision number?” Well, he thought he could do a no rev change by editing the revision property in the SW file.
I’ve been to most of the in-person courses offered by my VAR, some of them more than once, and I’ve always been surprised that they don’t have one focusing on custom properties. It’s such a powerful tool that I believe more emphasis should be placed on helping people with it.
I think I have a pretty good handle on them now, but getting to this point was a long painful process.
Still trying to learn best practices in organizing everything (naming, how to order features, how to set up parts with ref. geometry properly, how to make stable SSPs, multibody parts & BOMs…) and mostly very specific questions regarding those topics.
Of course also API - like everybody here…
Right now I need to master CAMWorks. I will be doing training in the upcoming weeks from one of our VARS but from past experience I know that only gets me so far. This essentially, at the moment, is my main job. I’m doing it from construct of setting up entire systems for eventually our entire company, machining strategies, setting up tool cribs etc etc etc.
Following that, implementing driveworks in conjunction with CAMWorks. Same thing, applying CAMWorks to our product design that will “Automagically” create updated Tool paths.
After that - Macros. I have little experience with them but seems like a great “Productivity” improvement tool if you can customize and implement them.
That being said that is essentially my current position, “Company wide continuous improvement”…so any tool of any kind related or unrelated to solidworks that makes things like Making parts, tracking parts, designing parts, shipping parts, purchasing parts, inspecting parts…more effecient…that’s what I need help with 
Except CAMWorks I’m interested in all your findings about
Making parts, tracking parts, designing parts, shipping parts, purchasing parts, inspecting parts…more effecient
!
I’d like to see an honest assessment of the new Structure Systems. They touted it as the replacement for Weldments, but in typical SW fashion they rolled it out before it was finished. Is it ready for production use now? At some point they will be dropping Weldments, is that in 2 releases or 5? I don’t want to be caught without knowing how to use it. But, I also don’t want to waste a bunch of time learning it, if it’s still got fundamental flaws. All you can find on the matter is VAR or DS produced, and as we all know, they don’t show you what it CAN’T do, that’s left as an exercise for the user…
I asked a similar question when I first saw Structures as it seemed like a duplicate to weldments. I was told that “Weldments were not going away, ever”
That being said I would like to hear what’s happening in the rumor mill as well on the disappearance of weldments as that would have a significant effect on what we do and how we do it.
I started at this company almost three years ago and quickly got them to migrate from Assy/Part weldments to actual SW weldments. I put a decent amount of work in templates, custom properties etc to get them to work properly. If they get rid of weldments I’m 99% sure we will just fall back to assy/part weldments which IMO suck…you know, but that’s me 
Look Matt, I’m not trying to rain on your parade, but the way I heard it is that development on Weldments has ceased, all those development efforts have been directed at SS, and I’m not sure if I inferred this or was directly told that it would replace Weldments. As evidence of this, I got attached to the SPR to allow Weldments to use splines as paths. That SPR was closed out and the functionality was added to SS, but not to Weldments.
I understand the reasoning of what they did, the foundation of Weldments cannot be changed to do what the new SS does. So, you can do what you did with Weldments in SS, but not the other way around. Weldments was built wrong (not their fault, you build something and after a while you see how it could be done better). So, rather than try to make some awful work arounds to fix it they had to start over.
Anyone know how to tag someone on this forum? I’d like to tag Alin, because he could straighten out anything above I have wrong. I’ll try this: https://www.cadforum.net/memberlist.php?mode=viewprofile&u=128&sid=e2a22c1d0d5d963eaf2e0b1dbd641bb7 but I don’t know if that works.
Edit to Add: Thanks for the help guys, I’ll tag Alin properly here so maybe he can correct me.
Just type out @“Member name” and it will give you a dropdown as you start typing. (minus the quotes of course)
matteo.dosi50
Uh, how many Matts do we have here?
Thanks guys. Will do.
As long as they retain all or most of the functionality of the existing weldments it’s a non issue. If you end up having to go back to square one that’s a different story.
We’ll see, but with their new and improved communication methods, it may be better to be prepared. Besides, the new SS may be better. It can do some things more rapidly than Weldments.
That is probably one of my biggest beefs here. How can you be prepared if you have no idea what is coming down the pipe and or if you can even trust the source that is telling you what is coming down the pipe?
I would go with surfacing.
I use surfaces successfully for what i need (rare case) , but i would like to learn more about some organic shapes.
I’ve got a subscription site on that topic.
https://dezignstuff.com/category/episodes/
https://episodes.dezignstuff.com/blog/
The hardest CSWP for me was the Surfacing one, mainly because it was difficult to get good training material on the subject matter…And some of the targeted material led me down the wrong rabbit hole (all 3 sources I used were paid). The trainer stated something to the effect on the test you can use either ruled surface or lofted surface. I used the wrong one and failed the test. Looking back I didn’t know that the mathematical solution for one vs. the other was more correct in that situation. So, the trainer misled me, but I guess I should’ve know the difference.
So, Lapuo, I don’t think that Matt would make that kind of mistake in his training material. And, unlike with other subjects there’s not a lot of good material out there that’s free…at least that I could find last year.
I have several of his books and he does a pretty good job with those…So, I’d be surprised if the Surfacing content wasn’t a good value.