PDMLink commands in ProjectLink

[Pekholm]

To manage larger development projects, PDM functionality is needed within the project.

Prio 1:

• Revise within a project
  It shall be possible to revise a version controlled object within the project. The new revision shall be available in PDMLink first after PDM checkin. Its OK to only provide this feature in integral mode.
• Create Project Baselines
  A project baseline shall capture the project data at a certain point in time, including product data. It shall be possible to compare different project baselines to identify what has been created/changed/removed
• Manage changes within a project
  For large projects, changes need to be managed within the project with traceability. These changes need to be separated from product changes (in PDMLink). The change process might be dependent of the project model/template.

Prio 2

• Sharing data between projects
  It shall be possible to share data between projects without check in the data to PDMLink. If a designer creates a concept, and like to create a variant of the concept, he should just copy to data to another project and make the changes in the new project. No data in PDMLink shall be affected until he select to do a check in to PDM.
  
  

[sm]

This is a big request. I will comment on each item individually.

Revise in PJL

Yes, I am a big advocate for this capability. However, I believe the person creating a new Revision must have access to PDMLink and the object must originate in the Project. This would allow independent Revision control of the object while in the Project context and be reset when, and if, it is sent to PDM.

Create Project Baselines

This is a great idea. I am assuming you are referring to content vs. Plan. Windchill Plans have Baselines as of 10.2, but containers do not have "content" baselines. In you example, I am assuming you are considering Project Baselines to be different from standard Windchill Baselines; not a collection of objects, but a collection of everything in the project container?

Manage Changes in PJL

This has been a long requested capability. I am not an expert in this area and do not know if there are any plans to consider offering anything more than Problem Reports in a Project. Hopefully we'll get a reply from someone else at PTC on this topic.

Sharing Data Between Projects

Can you provide more clarification on this one? It sounds like you have described how the existing Sharing capability works. Maybe you are looking for the ability to not mark the originating data as Shared? If so, would you want to bring the shared files back to PDM as a new iteration or revision? You could achieve this with Copy, but you would then have two independent copies of the files and I am not sure if that is the desired outcome.

[Pekholm]

Many thanks for the comments. Please see my answers below

Revise in PJL

The major use case is to provide a area where a designer can work with change proposals, new concepts without creating revisions in PDMLink. As today, they have to do this on local disk to not "pollute" the data in PDMLink. If the proposal / conceptual design is rejected, the revision shall only remain in the project.

Another use case is when dealing with long lead-time projects, where you need to revise drawings for prototyping etc during the project.

The main requirement is to have a isolated area where you can update/change data without affecting the data in PDMLink. Some customers are very keen to not mix up the data with rejected versions. To delete versions in PDMLink can be very difficult due to all relations. ProjectLink are fulfilling many of these requirements, but miss the revise button.

Create Project Baselines

When a project has reach a certain gate, the status of the project has to be stored for review. Both activity status as content status need to be captured in a static view.

Manage Changes in PJL

This requirement has been raised from companies running long time projects (2-3 year), and are also related to revise capability

Sharing Data Between Projects

If a designer create several design proposals in different projects, he like to reuse som designs from one project to the other project, without need of store the date in PDMLink. As today, you need to check in the data to PDMLink before you can share to another project.