Allow Workspaces to be renamed

[dhermosillo]

Currently, there is no way to rename a Workspace in Windchill PDMLink

PTC, please allow this basic functionality.

Ref:

How to rename a Workspace in Windchill PDMLink

https://support.ptc.com/appserver/cs/view/solution.jsp?n=CS49917&art_lang=en&posno=1&q=rename%20work...

Can you rename a workspace in Windchill

https://community.ptc.com/t5/Windchill-Questions/Can-you-rename-a-workspace-in-Windchill-10-2/m-p/28...

[SteveShaw]

I am curious, what is your business case for needing such a capability?

[dhermosillo]

Business case? I'm not sure how that applies to this issue. It would be nice, however to have the option to rename a workspace in the interest of general organization. I work on a lot of different projects at once, and sometimes I want to name a workspace a certain way to differentiate it from a similar one. The real question is why Windchill limits the user. In the workspace view, there is very little that can be shown about the contents. No metadata can be shown, such as date of creation, etc. That information must exist, but PTC does not allow the user to access it. It's just extremely shortsighted that PTC wouldn't think that someone might want to rename one at some point.

[dhermosillo]

I just remembered another reason for having this option available: Windchill's poor synchronization capabilities across multiple workstations. If I delete a workspace on one machine, and just happen to create one with the same name on another machine, when I log back into the first one, Windchill duplicates the workspace. Now, because there is no information displayed about the workspaces, I have no idea which is which. If I had access to the metadata, then I could rename them to differentiate the old from the new.

[kpark-2]

This would be a nice functionality to have.  Our users name their workspaces based on the engineering notice number and sometimes the work gets transferred to another number.  Or users will start the work without an engineering notice because one hasn't been pulled yet and then would like to rename the workspace to match the engineering notice number once it has.  Just today a user asked if a workspace could be renamed.

[BenLoosli]

While this may be a nice enhancement for some, It really does need a better business case than just 'It would be nice to have.'

There are many reasons that make this a hard case to justify and harder to program. Windchill has to keep track of all workspaces out there on everyone's computers. When you make changes to a file in your workspace or commonspace, Windchill has to keep track of where that change needs to be propogated to. If someone is out for a week, comes back and renames a workspace that had files renamed in commonspace while gone, Windchill now has to reconcile the workspace name change along with all of the file name changes.

To me the use of workspaces is a housekeeping issue. They do have a description field that can be edited. Make your workspaces simple names, I recommend users initials and a context plus a number, bhl-machine-1, bhl-parts-201802, etc. Then use the description field for your project naming, etc.

[LawrenceS]

The business case is not loosing work and spending time trying to find what WS it might be in.  Sometimes the nature of a project or the purpose of the WS changes as you are working on it. The fact that you cannot easily move cad objects between WSs amplifies this.

[BenLoosli]

Do not complicate this issue with a second one.

Renaming a workspace is one issue by itself. There are many interactions that make this complicated and I mentioned a few earlier.

You are now introducing a second issue, moving objects between workspaces. Open a new thread and explain your justification for needing this functionality. A 'It would be nice to have' is not justification!

[LawrenceS]

@BenLoosli

🙂  I am not trying to complicate this, nor promoting 1 idea under another.  The request was for a business case, and that I have provided.  Part of the business case is undeniably supported by there not being a decent workaround.

I am curious though, why is renaming a WS so much more complicated than renaming a folder in PDMLink?  We can rename folders in PDMLink, even when objects are checked out.  Although Folders in PDMLink are not typically synchronized across multiple devices like WSs are, synchronizing folders that can be renamed is now common practice with Cloud storage (OneDrive, Gdrive, Dropbox, local email systems, photo managers), which uses labels & folder names.

[olivierlp]

Hello,

We are archiving your idea as part of a general review. This action is based on the age of your idea and the total number of votes received, as per this announcement.

You can always post a new idea with all the details required in the form.

Thank you for your participation.