AutoCAD Electrical 2017 - Released

If you haven't heard by now, AutoCAD Electrical 2017 has been released. We are very excited about the features that are part of this release, especially since the features were all customer requests. If you are a subscription customer, you may have seen some of these updates in the AutoCAD Electrical 2016 Subscription Advantage packs.

Optional SQL Server Support

You can now choose to use SQL Server for the catalog and footprint lookup databases. The databases are supplied in Access format as in previous releases. But, you can use the Content Migration Utility provided to migrate the content to your SQL Server setup. Then you can choose to configure your SQL Server instance when you are creating your AutoCAD Electrical 2017 deployment, or installing AutoCAD Electrical 2017. Once AutoCAD Electrical is installed you can even set up your SQL Server from within the product.

Improvements to Electromechanical Workflows

• You can now create a combined Bill of Material report that takes into account your AutoCAD Electrical project and the linked Inventor assembly. Just run either the Schematic or Panel Bill of Material report in AutoCAD Electrical and check to Include Inventor Parts.
• The Location View tab has a new top node so you can view and export the entire project.
• To make it easier to link components between your AutoCAD Electrical drawing and Inventor assembly, you can now select both components right in the Location View. The option has been added to the Location View on the right-click menu.
• You can now insert parametric connectors in AutoCAD Electrical if your Inventor assembly contains parts defined as connectors. This option has been added to the Location View shortcut menu. You can right-click on the Installation or Location nodes to insert multiple connectors.

Electrical Audit

Some "errors" reported by Electrical Audit may not actually be errors or need to be corrected. For example, a ground wire with no wire number or a component with unconnected wire connections. Once you have determined an issue is not something that you need to fix, you can set the issue's status to Ignored and then hide all ignored issues. Unhide them at any time. Ignored issues are indicated in the new Status column. The status is remembered each time you run the audit and across sessions of AutoCAD Electrical.

Resequence Item Numbers

A new version of the Resequence Item Numbers is used in 2017.

• Drawings are no longer opened for processing. This provides a huge improvement in performance especially for large projects.
• The manufacturers are sorted across the project, not per drawing.
• The entire project is always processed, keeping item numbers in sync for components with the same catalog.
• The project property, Reset with each Drawing, has been removed and is no longer valid.

Note: Use the AEITEMRESEQUENCEMODE system variable to return to the pre-2017 item number resequencing method.

Balloon Update

If you change your item balloon style using the Panel Configuration you can now apply those changes to existing balloons on the active drawing. Depending on how different the new style is from the existing balloons, you may need to manually adjust the existing balloon or leader.

Security Updates

Security continues to be a major focus for both AutoCAD and AutoCAD Electrical. To minimize the possibility of loading and executing malicious code, some files previously installed in the public folder, C:\Users\Public\Documents\Autodesk\Acade {version}\Support\{language code}, are now installed in C:\Program Files\Autodesk\AutoCAD {version}\Acade\Support\{language code}\Shared\.

These files include the sample user post .lsp and .dcl files, and a few other support files. To modify these files you may need to move them to another folder and add that folder to the TRUSTEDPATHS system variable setting.

Any files in the Program Files folder tree that are under the operating system's UAC protection are now trusted. This trust is indicated by displaying the implicitly trusted paths in Trusted Paths UI and graying them out. Also, the AutoCAD code itself continues to be hardened against more sophisticated attacks.

Miscellaneous

• When you insert panel footprints from a schematic list, the sort settings are now saved across sessions.
• You can now sort the terminal strips in the Terminal Strip Table Generator by clicking the column header. The terminal strips are generated in the sorted order.
• When you add or edit signal arrows, related source and destination arrows are updated automatically, even if they are on other drawings.
• The product now supports Installation, Location, and Tag values of up to 255 characters each. Where Installation, Location, and Tag values are concatenated, the concatenated string allows a maximum of 255 characters.

AutoCAD 2017 New Features

There are some new AutoCAD features you might be interested in also. You can see the Help topic, AutoCAD 2017 New Feature Summary, for details.

Enjoy.

Pat Murnen

Comments

[Lyudmila Galashkina]

What are the benefits received by the user, using the SQL server?

[Lyudmila Galashkina]

When you add or edit signal arrows, related source and destination arrows are updated automatically, even if they are on other drawings.

How it works?

I could not get.

[Pat Murnen]

Regarding the question on the source\destination arrows - this happens automatically when you click OK on the dialog as long as the drawing you are working on is part of the active project. It is basically the same as picking OK+Update in older versions of AutoCAD Electrical. If it isn't working for you make sure all drawings are part of the active project and you have write access to the drawings.

[Lyudmila Galashkina]

Thank you, Pat!
I understood.