Delete option for product/library in Windchill

[ndiwalkar]

Windchill is not having delete option for products. But it is present for projects.

There might be some cases where user by mistake create any product in Windchill and then wants to delete that. As currently there is no option for deletion, that product remains as it is in Windchill.

Loss of data present in that product will be major concern here, but if we can give some constraint to users that they need to move/purge data before deletion and should not allow then to delete it until they do this, then data loss issue also would not there. Also user should resolve all access policies related to that product before deleting it.

[BenLoosli]

Products are usually tangible things, so once created, why would you delete one?

Projects are a collection of tasks or objects to be worked on. When completed, deleting the project is ok.

IF Product delete is implemented, a requirement shall be that all files and folders under that product have been moved to another Product before the Product container itself can be deleted.

What I have done when we set up some containers then changed our mind was to just rename them until we needed a new Product and then renamed it again to the new product.

[tivancso]

I definately see a need for this type of functionality in Windchill for many reasons products not created correctly, or if a company were to sell off products and that data needs to be completely removed from the originating system. It just makes good housekeeping sense to help keep the system lean and usable.

[slapha]

Looks like a duplicate or similar request: https://community.ptc.com/t5/Windchill-Ideas/Remove-Products-and-Libraries/idc-p/575707 At a minimum, it would be nice to have the option to virtually delete it from the interface, even if it doesn't actually go away or "Hide" Product and cut off Team access. I'm ok with Org and Site admins seeing them if the goal was to prevent data from being permanently stuck behind the scenes. One of the issues we have is when a product is made incorrectly. Say you use shared teams, you use the wrong shared team - Time to make a new product. You forget to click the checkbox for "extend shared team locally" - Time to make a new product. There's no way to correct these issues so a tiny slip up can cause a new product to be useless. The big problem with removing access is if you use shared teams, you can't remove the shared teams so they forever see the product unless you put in specific ACL's to block their access.

[bmessenger]

Another issue I see is this recommendation from Windchill about modifying a product template, creates a new product that you don't actually want.

https://www.ptc.com/en/support/article?n=CS20918&source=snippet

Surely, there should be a way to modify a template without creating a whole context that you do not require, or if there is not, please allow us to delete the offending product created by this process.

[scottcordeau]

There really needs to be something that allows site administrators to delete contexts. I have found numerous reasons for this need. One of them is the obvious cleaning up of products and libraries that were not setup correctly and were abandoned OR products/libraries that people created for test purposes that they should not have. Not every site we manage has a development instance of Windchill PDMLink because it is not in the budget for an extra license of Oracle and OS licenses.

I currently am in a situation where I am separating a project off onto its own instance in another location. They only have three products and two libraries in the system that occupy probably 300 GB of data. Re-hosting would be the easiest path forward; however, in the entire instance there are over 20 libraries and 60 products that total over 7 TB of data. There is no way of deleting the unrelated contexts after re-hosting so this becomes more complicated than it should be.

[Mat]

Looks like PTC finally found a solution for this problem.

They just discontinued Windchill Essentials.

"Pay us, but do not bother us."

[Mat]

By the way, my previous post was edited by the forum's moderator, because "[a] line [...] felt was not appropriate for the community".

The line missing was:

This is just another way, how PTC shows its customers how they appreciate them.

[kpark-2]

Our company created a lot of Product Contexts and Libraries during our initial migration into Windchill that are not utilized.  Would be nice to have the ability to remove them.

[praynaud]

I would like to reaming that decision to delete or not a Product is coming from the business.

Provider, so PTC, as to offer an OOTB solution to satisfy business request and system's constraints (Not able to delete a non empty product).

[stulza]

I agree strongly with the idea. Create, Change and Delete are basic functions in IT systems.

[SteveShaw]

Thank you for the idea, the comments and votes. Your idea is interesting and we can see the benefit for your use case. However, it is not currently part of the strategic roadmap at this time and there currently are no plans to introduce the delete action for these objects.  If in the future this position changes we will update the idea accordingly.

[MikeLockwood]

Might be a good idea to have a brief standard recommendation on the way to handle contexts that would be deleted if they could be:

- Edit the Context Team

- Remove all Roles other than Manager and Members

- Map the Admin group to the Manager Role

Result: Only admin sees the context and any data in it; can add others to the Members Role if ever needed.

It's worthwhile because it minimizes the list of contexts many places, including where to create a workspace, where to search, etc.

[Mat]

---

. Your idea is interesting and we can see the benefit for your use case. However, it is not currently part of the strategic roadmap at this time

---

Another example how tone-deaf PTC is regarding (paying) user requests.

At least give us a chance to move a product / library to another organization within our windchill installation.

This should be easy as altering one object property ("product belongs to org ...").

• Windchill installation
  • productive organisation
    • product A
    • product C
    • Library B
  • obsolete products org
    • product B
    • Library A

crossing my fingers, that one day there will be an OpenSource alternative to Windchill.