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Manufacturing Apps Best Practices

nahuel
14-Alexandrite

Manufacturing Apps Best Practices

Hi there,

 

I'm starting two Manufacturing Apps projects and I'd like you gave me some advice on best practices. Some key features that I'd like to address are:

  • Clean instance. Best practices for having a clean ThingWorx instance.
  • Working with two Manufacturing Apps projects on the same ThingWorx instance. How to switch from one project to the other one without mixing entities, data, nor extensions between them (keeping them isolated).
  • Solution Central. How the developing workflow with Solution Central should be to work with two Manufacturing Apps projects on the same ThingWorx instance. (After developing stage, each project will be deployed to different customers)

If you think there are some other good Best Practices advises for starting off new projects, feel free to mention them. It will be highly appreciated.

 

Regards,
Nahuel

11 REPLIES 11
ganeja
11-Garnet
(To:nahuel)

Hi @nahuel ,

 

Could you please let me know if is there any document that you are referencing to connect two Mfg Projects to same Thigworx instance .
As per my knowledge there is no such recommendation.

 

Thanks

Gunjan Aneja

nahuel
14-Alexandrite
(To:ganeja)

Hi @ganeja,

 

We currently have one ThingWorx license instance and we have to deliver two Manufacturing Apps projects for different customers. How could we address this? I think that for doing that we need to address the bullet list items I posted in the initial post. Please let me know your thoughts.

 

Also, in a near future we'll possibly have another another ThingWorx license instance so could you kindly point me out on collaborative best practices?

 

Regards,
Nahuel

nahuel
14-Alexandrite
(To:nahuel)

Hi @ganeja 

 

Any suggestions on this?

 

Regards,

Nahuel

katte
11-Garnet
(To:nahuel)

The best practice would be to make use of "Projects" entity in ThingWorx, by creating two project entities and adding the entities (things, mashups, etc.,) to the corresponding project. In that way, there would be no mix of entities. 

 

WRT solution central, it depends on how you are publishing the projects. If you are publishing projects to 'One cloud solution central instance', then you can provide the details (group-id, artifact-id) of the project to the  customer who is connected to the same solution central instance and they will be able to deploy it in their own instances. 

nahuel
14-Alexandrite
(To:katte)

Hi @katte.

 

Thanks for your reply.

 

I did a little test. I created an asset in Mfg Apps and then I looked for what entities were created in Thingworx Composer and to which project they were associated to.

 

 1) testEquipment_Name equipment was created

Screenshot from 2020-06-26 16-39-31.png

2)I searched for *testEquipment_Name* in composer

Screenshot from 2020-06-26 16-43-51.png

But neither of those two entities was associated with a project.

 

Creating two Project entities for two MfgApps projects seems a good approach. Although it is not as straight forward as I'd like to, I could add those two above entities to a project entity.

But how can I "tell" the extension MfgApps to which project entities to look for? I mean, how can I change between projects from a MfgApp point of view?

 

katte
11-Garnet
(To:nahuel)

From MfgApps point of view, I believe we cannot change between projects. The Project entity is specific to ThingWorx platform, and is intended to use in ThingWorx Composer. Even the publishing of projects to a Solution Central repository is done from ThingWorx Composer. 

 

By any chance are you looking to create and publish projects directly from ThingWorx MfgApps?? If so, I believe it isn't allowed as of ThingWorx 8.5.

nahuel
14-Alexandrite
(To:katte)

So, if you have developing for N Manufacturing Apps customers (ie, different businesses), you need N ThingWorx instances?

 

Well, I'd like to publish/deploy my Manufacturing App from my ThingWorx development instance, to ThingWorx production instance.

As far as I know, there is no way to publish a Manufacturing App from within Manufacturing App GUI (ie, there's no button for that purpose) to Solution Central.

Is there a way to publish a Manufacturing App from ThingWorx Composer to Solution Central?

Also, what is the best way to publish/deploy a Manufacturing App from a ThingWorx development instance to a ThingWorx production instance without Solution Central

 

I'm looking forward to see your comments. Regards.

katte
11-Garnet
(To:nahuel)

From ThingWorx Composer, we can add the corresponding entities of the Manufacturing apps under one Project entity and can publish the project to the Solution Central. In that way, the Manufacturing apps could be published to solution central. 

 

I would suggest following the export/import route to deploy Manufacturing apps from development instance into a production instance. 

nahuel
14-Alexandrite
(To:katte)

Thank you for your reply.

 

For adding the corresponding entities of Manufacturing Apps to a project, I first need to find those entities.

What is the search criteria to find them? How can I do that programmatically (like from a thing service)?

katte
11-Garnet
(To:nahuel)

From coding perspective, we can make use of services like 'GetIncomingDependencies' and 'GetOutgoingDependencies' on the corresponding entities to get the list of dependencies. 

Whereas with UI, ThingWorx composer has the 'View Relationships' tab. 

slangley
23-Emerald II
(To:nahuel)

Hi @nahuel.

 

If you feel this thread has answered your question, please mark the appropriate post as the Accepted Solution for the benefit of others with the same question.

 

Thank you for your participation in our community!

 

Regards.

 

--Sharon

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