In Windchill 10.1 we have introduced a preference to lock all objects not checked out during the Add to Workspace action. This is supported by Creo Elements/Direct and Creo. Although it is not as elegant as basing it on permissions it is a start in helping to prevent users from inadvertently modifying objects in their workspace. The preference can be found under Workspace > Add to Worksapce and Check Out > Automatically lock objects added workspace in the Windchill preferences. It can also be controlled by a new check box in the Add to Workspace and Checkout dialog boxes.
In the future we would like to extend this behavior as you have suggested to set these locks based on a users permissions for a given item added to his/her workspace.
Regardless of user permissions to check in or not, an option to lock on add to workspace would be excellent. The automatic feature for objects without permission would be nice too. It just makes sense to allow the user, upon adding items to a workspace, an OPTION to lock everything they are adding. It is always a problem when I update out of date items and I forget to go back and reset the lock on those items.
Moreover I believe that a better Creo integration is required, in other world the locking should be extended, in a Creo connected session, to the File > Open action.
Otherwise the files will be added to the workspace without locking and regardless to the other settings.
