From the Project Schematic, you can interact with applications that are native to Ansys Workbench (called workspaces), and you can launch applications that are data-integrated. Native workspaces are built entirely on the Ansys Workbench framework and can use all of its services. Examples of native workspaces include the Project Schematic, Engineering Data, and Design Exploration.

Data-integrated applications are created independently of the Ansys Workbench framework but have been extended so they can be driven by the Project Schematic and share key data and parameters with Ansys Workbench and Ansys Workbench-enabled applications. Data-integrated applications include the Mechanical APDL application, Ansys Fluent, Ansys CFX, DesignModeler, and the Mechanical application.

The difference between native workspaces and data-integrated applications is an important consideration for Ansys Workbench journaling and scripting. All operations that modify the data associated with a native workspace are journaled and can be fully automated with Ansys Workbench scripting. For data-integrated applications, only those operations initiated from the Project Schematic are journaled. Such operations include system updates and data transfers. Operations performed within data-integrated application are not necessarily journaled or controlled by Ansys Workbench scripting. For example, steps to construct geometry in Mechanical APDL or solution methods in Ansys Fluent are not journaled.

Although data-integrated applications do not fully support Ansys Workbench scripting, many of them have their own native scripting language which is accessible through the Ansys Workbench scripting interface. For more information, see Table 1: Scripting Support for Data-Integrated Applications. For example, Mechanical APDL is based on the powerful Ansys Parametric Design Language (APDL), and APDL commands can be directly incorporated within an Ansys Workbench script.

You use SendCommand to pass native scripting commands to data-integrated applications. You can insert SendCommand calls into your Ansys Workbench scripts to drive data-integrated applications. However, data-integrated applications do not necessarily record operations in the Ansys Workbench journal. Most scriptable data-integrated applications have an independent journal where native commands are recorded.

In Table 1: Scripting Support for Data-Integrated Applications, a Yes in the Supports Scripting with SendCommand column indicates that the data-integrated application can be driven from an Ansys Workbench script by manually inserting SendCommand calls.

A Yes in the Supports Journaling with SendCommand column indicates that the data-integrated application records its operations with SendCommand and that the state of the application can be restored from the Ansys Workbench journal itself. To learn more about SendCommand, see Mechanical APDL and Sending Commands to Integrated Applications and the detailed description of the method in Part , Data Containers.