Drawing Templates with Windchill

[cying]

I have a mapkey which prompts the user for a name and selecte adrawing template. Everything works pretty good except the wait time to retrieve the drawing template (and format) from Windchill. Our dataserver is local so this is just the normal process time I guess to "add these objects to your WORKSPACE". It can take up to a minute, may not seen like a lot of time, but I know the users will start trying to kill the process thinking the mapkey is frozen.

Just curious to see if how others are managing the "start drawing" procedure. I can have the drawing templates locally in the hard-drive but then thenformats are created in your WORKSPACE as *NEW OBJECT.

Here are the steps I am using:

* FILE -> NEW

* Select DRAWING -> UNCHECK Use default template

* Select USE TEMPLATE -> BROWSE

* Select WINDCHILL CABINET -> Enter the template name (we have ~20 diff templates)

* Select OK

It may be just a training issue and let the users know that this will take a while, at least for the first time. Once the format is added to the local workspace, the speed is almost instant.

Calvin Ying

[pcnelson]

I believe there is a config.pro setting that is supposed to point to the folder in WC, but we never got it to work. There was a huge delay time. We are on 10.0. We store them on a local drive and use the config.pro setting to point to it.

[BenLoosli]

We have the formats in Windchill but the templates are on a shared disk location.

In config.pro, I have: template_drawing $ptc_cfg_path\templates\drawings\c_part.drw
Ptc_cfg_path is defined in our Wildfire start up script. It is basically x:\ptc_settings and the x: drive is mapped from a network shared folder.
All of our drawing templates are in that one folder.

By putting the format in Windchill, you eliminate the New Object in your workspace, since the format is already in your Windchill Library. The system will pull the format in and then apply the things from the template for your new drawing file. I have various symbols that get added to a drawing depending on the drawing security classification. These get switched by one parameter for the classification and then a drawing program turns layers on and off depending on the classificiation.

[@_1647]

Hi BenLoosli,

I need a guidance how can we add Cn details parameters in drawing template so that end user will get those params on WC UI .

we don't want to update design dynamically we just want those attribute for user UI.

[BenLoosli]

Not sure I can help as we do not use Change objects, so no CN information.

If you can grab the CN information in a parameter, then you can map that to a Windchill attribute and display it in the UI.

[BenLoosli]

One comment I forgot to add.

When I edit a format, this done from the format file in my Windchill Library and then backed up to the disk format folder. I then move the old format to a subfolder for archive history.

When I edit the template, these are done by setting the working directory to the disk template folder and then saving the changes. This will put a copy of the format in that folder which is then deleted. Old template files are moved to a subfolder for archival history.

There are a lot of times that I have to edit the template for little things that change. We use the Restricted_Params file to limit title block and classification signoff names to so the user does not have to type them, just pull from a drop down list. Every time we change that file, the templates should be updated since the 'stored' list in the template does not match the 'master' file loaded when Pro/E starts.

[DonSenchuk]

This is what we do:

config.pro option PRO_FORMAT_DIR wtpub://Windchill/Libraries/<library name=">/<folder name=">

If you create these by going into the config editor and picking browse it will give you the correct path. That location holds both the start part files (asm and prt) and the drawing templates.

Our formats are stored in a different folder within the same library.

With that config set you don't have to browse to the windchill cabinet. The templates show up as a list when you pick USE TEMPLATE.

There is no delay at all when users create drawings. It defaults to EMPTY instead of USE TEMPLATE, but once they change that radio button the templates are all listed and they can pick one before continuing with their drawing creation. Once they choose the template they want to use and pick the OK button, there is no delay.

I'd check on both those config options first to make sure they're set correctly. If it's normal speed only after the format is added to the workspace it may be something to do with that config option.

In Reply to Ben Loosli:

I have a mapkey which prompts the user for a name and selecte a drawing template. Everything works pretty good except the wait time to retrieve the drawing template (and format) from Windchill. Our dataserver is local so this is just the normal process time I guess to "add these objects to your WORKSPACE". It can take up to a minute, may not seen like a lot of time, but I know the users will start trying to kill the process thinking the mapkey is frozen.

Just curious to see if how others are managing the "start drawing" procedure. I can have the drawing templates locally in the hard-drive but then then formats are created in your WORKSPACE as *NEW OBJECT.

Here are the steps I am using:

* FILE -> NEW

* Select DRAWING -> UNCHECK Use default template

* Select USE TEMPLATE -> BROWSE

* Select WINDCHILL CABINET -> Enter the template name (we have ~20 diff templates)

* Select OK

It may be just a training issue and let the users know that this will take a while, at least for the first time. Once the format is added to the local workspace, the speed is almost instant.

Calvin Ying

[DonSenchuk]

Should have said "...that first config location holds both the start part files ... and the drawing templates".

The second one, obviously, holds just the formats.

In Reply to Don Senchuk:

This is what we do:

config.pro option PRO_FORMAT_DIR wtpub://Windchill/Libraries//

If you create these by going into the config editor and picking browse it will give you the correct path. That location holds both the start part files (asm and prt) and the drawing templates.

Our formats are stored in a different folder within the same library.

With that config set you don't have to browse to the windchill cabinet. The templates show up as a list when you pick USE TEMPLATE.

There is no delay at all when users create drawings. It defaults to EMPTY instead of USE TEMPLATE, but once they change that radio button the templates are all listed and they can pick one before continuing with their drawing creation. Once they choose the template they want to use and pick the OK button, there is no delay.

I'd check on both those config options first to make sure they're set correctly. If it's normal speed only after the format is added to the workspace it may be something to do with that config option.

[SimonLucas]

We have ours set up in the same wya and works a treat with 1 pre-requisite, all users MUST register the server using the same alias as they share a common config.pro.

Simon Lucas

[BenLoosli]

Registering the Windchill server with the same name for all users is a MUST!!!
It took a few rounds with the engineers at one company when I moved the files into Windchill and they kept complaining that they couldn't see them or formats were coming in as new objects.

Sometimes you just need a bigger bat!

I took to writing quarterly 'newsletters' to the Windchill users explaining the way things had to be done or clarifying issues that had come up over the past months. This way everyone eventually got the message and proper methods.

[MikeFoster]

We put our formats and templates in a Windchill library and using the following configs it works fine - no waiting at all:

pro_format_dir wtpub://Intralink/Libraries/Pro Standards/Formats
start_model_dir wtpub://Intralink/Libraries/Pro Standards/Templates

It's very easy to get the syntax wrong with these paths:

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For these config paths to work users MUST properly register with the server. In the example above the server name

[cid:image003.jpg@01CF41AA.201BC3D0]


The following statement by Don is also our experience:

" There is no delay at all when users create drawings. It defaults to EMPTY instead of USE TEMPLATE, but once they change that radio button the templates are all listed and they can pick one before continuing with their drawing creation. Once they choose the template they want to use and pick the OK button, there is no delay."

Mike Foster
ATK

[mdebower]

We created a mapkey that registers the Windchill server. That has eliminated most of the trouble with getting the name correct for our users. It is also much easier than doing it manually, so everyone would rather use the mapkey. That makes adoption easy once the engineer knows about the mapkey.