CREO 4 not retrieving existing Windchill models from Windchill

[MarcHaren]

My current employer just converted over to Windchill at the beginning of this year and as a result a lot of items have to be brought into CREO 4 off the work server (not Windchill).  That being said most of our assemblies that we pull in from the server contain parts that already exist in Windchill.  I was under the impression that if you open an assembly with parts that exist in Windchill they would automatically be pulled into my assembly because they exist in Windchill.  Right now some parts which are showing up as missing (which are in Windchill) I'm having to go into common space, search for the part, add it to my workspace and then do a regen for it to load the model into the assembly and fix missing components error.  I also tried the method of directly typing in the part/assembly name in the "open" window to retrieve it that way and it also doesn't work (IE. Part.prt or Assembly.asm).  Any thoughts on why CREO 4 isn't communicating with Windchill to retrieve the missing components on its own?

[StephenW]

If you open an assembly from a working directory, Creo will first try to find the components in the working directory.

Once it can't find the files on your working directory, Creo should try to retrieve the files from the windchill commonspace. I tested this on my setup and it works as expected.

You can not have the already imported files in the directory that you are opening the assembly from, Creo will always search the directory you are opening from first.

I don't remember what happens if you have search paths specified in your config.pro. I would suggest eliminating those to be sure you are not retrieving non-windchill files.

I also am able to open a random part or assembly file that is not in my workspace from the commonspace by typing the name in the file open folder (usually I need to add the extension, ie .prt, .asm, .drw)

**EDIT**

I re-read your post and I believe your expectations are correct.

[MarcHaren]

Steve, I think you restated what my expectations are for how it should be working and how it has worked for me in the past.  For this employer I have to pull the parts/assemblies off the company server to my local drive (typically a desktop folder).  From there I import it to my workspace or just open it directly from the folder and save it to my workspace.  In the past if I pulled an assembly into my workspace from outside of Windchill and the parts of that assembly were already in Windchill they would update automatically without retrieving them or adding them to my workspace.  For some reason it's not acting the same as it did in the past and I was just wondering if maybe a config option was tweaked at some point along the way.

[StephenW]

We'll have to find someone more knowledgeable on the Windchill settings. When I looked I didn't find anything that stood out as a potential setting. If no one has a solution early next week, we can move the discussion to the Windchill board to see if someone there can help.

[magnus.salomons]

Instead of opening an assembly from your local drive use Tools - Import to Workspace

The import dialogue sequence gives you the option to Reuse models from Common Space in Windchill.