When you are modeling in a project, you must make changes to the catalog or reference data in the correct order to avoid modeling errors causing project delay and cost overrun. This section provides best practices guidance on how to manage changes to the Smart 3D catalog and reference data during a project. The general procedure includes management of specification data, symbol definition, rules, and parts data, as well as required catalog schema changes to support the life cycle phases of a project.
This section does not include the benefits of using SmartPlant Reference Data Plus
(SPRD) to manage corporate specifications in a global environment. You must separately
purchase SmartPlant Reference Data Plus (SKBXXXXX).
Terminology
Flavor
Holds and caches the actual graphical representation of the object.
Part definition
An object in the catalog database that contains part data.
Part occurrence
An instance of a part in the model database.
Proxy
A representative of an object from another database.
Symbol
An application programming interface (API) .dll file that creates a set of outputs for a given set of inputs.
Symbol definition
An object in the model database that defines the inputs and outputs used to create the graphical representation of the object.
Symbol occurrence
An object with specific values for the parameter of a flavor.
Unique ID Definition
A unique string created from a combination of rule properties that defines the uniqueness of catalog object.
Catalog Task
Do not use the Catalog task to make changes to the catalog database, as no easy mechanism exists for exporting your changes from the catalog database back into a Microsoft Excel workbook.