About Data in a Simulation Process

Data in Process Composer for Dashboard can be either parameters or content. Data flows between the simulation activities and steps when your simulation process runs, and files and folders are written to the working directory.

This page discusses:

Parameters

You use parameters to represent the data that is input to a simulation activity and to represent the data that is output from a simulation activity. You can think of a parameter as a variable, such as a length or a peak stress, that is passed from one activity to another when your simulation process runs. All steps within a simulation activity have access to the parameters and share the common set of parameters defined for the activity.

Parameters can store a value directly, or you can provide an expression to define the value of the parameter.

For more information, see Parameters.

Content

To help you organize the data associated with a simulation process or activity, Process Composer for Dashboard provides categories. Searching for a document is made easier if you know in which category it is stored. Categories contain documents, which, in turn, contain one or more files. You can also create folders in categories, and folders can contain documents. Categories, folders, and documents are referred to as content.

The figure below shows an example of two categories and the folders and documents that are stored in each category:

For more information, see Data Categories and Folders, Documents, and Files.

Working Directory

When you run a job, the data (files and folders) generated by the simulation process are written to a folder in the working directory by the 3DOrchestrate Station.

You can download a file from a category in Process Composer for Dashboard to the working directory, where it can be accessed by a script or an application. Similarly, after a script or an application has created or modified a file, you can upload the data from the working directory into a category in Process Composer for Dashboard.

Unlike the data in your simulation process, data in your working directories is not stored in the 3DEXPERIENCE Platform and cannot be shared with others. You cannot guarantee that a working directory will always be available, and data in a working directory can be lost. For example, if the working directory is created by a 3DOrchestrate Station on an LSF cluster, the directory may be scrubbed after a certain time period to recover disk space.