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I have a drawing of a single part. The part has a string parameter called "DESCRIPTION". This is called out in the drawing's title block with "&description" in the usual fashion.
We also have this parameter linked to Windchill so we can see it in its own column. That's handy, so I am trying to use this aspect of Windchill more. I want the DESCRIPTION column to return the same value for the drawing as it returns for the model used in the drawing. So I can put a string parameter in the drawing, with the same value as for the part, but I would prefer to use a relation if possible so they are linked. Is this possible? Logically it would be like this:
DESCRIPTION (drawing) = DESCRIPTION (part)
Windchill has this odd way of thinking in terms of wt.parts. I guess it's the EPM Document that can be set up in such a way that once a CAD model is checked in, including the drawing having the same name, both the model and the drawing are attached to a wt.part. This wt.part can then inherit the attributes from the model. The drawing is always there linked to the wt.part as well, so there is no need to duplicate params.
How to exactly set up Windchill to generate these wt.parts i have no idea, this is just how it works in our company, and i just happen to be the clueless Windchill admin.
WTparts can be created at check-in time by using a Custom check-in and then selecting Auto-associate. This can also be set as a preference for the user or context. I have set both our Machine context and the Parts Library context to automatically create the WTpart on check-in.
The fact that the WTpart is a collector for associated parts, assemblies, drawings and related documentation can be a big help when doing promotion requests and change management tasks.
I could be wrong here, but I don't think GRAHAME WARD is talking about WT Parts, I think he's talking about Creo parts (models). Assuming that's the case, the only solution I know of to keep the Creo drawing and model (part or assembly) parameters synchronized is to use a drawing program. This is very straight forward to do and will update the drawing parameter values any time the model parameters change.
Here is the program we use in our drawing templates: (We also have a mapkey to add this to old drawings.)
(Note: the ":MDL" will automatically switch to the session ID of the model when the new drawing is created.)
Yes, that is true, I am talking about regular Creo part files. Thanks for that info, that looks like what I need. I will try it out. It looks like a series of relations. Maybe I can add one or two as a relation to see how it works.