Enforce Start models and start templates

[cying]

We are moving from WF5 to CREO 4, I know....a major jump.  Just curious, how are companies enforcing the start model/templates?   We have folks both working within and outside Windchill.  The config.pro parameters are only good for a one environment.  

[DavidBigelow]

That is a major jump.  One tip - pay attention to your config.pro settings... if you see anything odd occuring there may be a conflict with old config.pro settings.  This has bit us a couple of times.

[cying]

Thanks for the heads up, I will probably highlight what’s important in WF5 and create them from CREO 4 manually. 

[MikePhillips]

One way to find obsolete config options is to launch into Parametric 4 (using your current config.pro file) and find the "std.out" file located in your start directory. It will contain a list of all invalid settings.

[dnordin]

Your method of enforcement would depend on how the users switch from working in Windchill to working outside of Windchill.

If the users have Creo Parametric open, and then switch from a connection to Windchill to no Windchill connection (off-line & NO SERVER) without getting out of Creo Parametric, then you cannot use the config.sup file to define the templates to "force" the use of them.  In this case, I would recommend creating mapkeys to connect/disconnect from Windchill and then read in a config.pro file that specifies the different templates to use.  You can name these files something like connected.pro & disconnected.pro.  Assuming your users are disciplined to use the mapkeys you've created to switch connections, this should work.

If the users exit Creo Parametric to switch connections, you can use the config.sup file.  You'd simply have a different startup preparation script configuration that copies the proper config.sup file (as well as any other configuration/setup), to the load point of Creo Parametric before Creo Parametric starts.

We created our own custom startup script & GUI, which is not part of the parametric.bat script, that allows the users to select which configuration to run.

In general, I'd suggest creating this type of script to allow other configurations besides the connect/disconnect configurations.  It works well for project specific setups, test setups, metric vs. standard setups, etc.

Regards,

Dan N.