ProjectLink should allow the Revise action on Documents and Parts

[TracyNIU]

PDMLink and ProjectLink all have a level Folder. And we want to put some document in Product folder and other in Project folder. But document or part in project can't be revised. It's really unreasonable. I suggest project should allow the document revise.

[ChristopherLewi]

We would totally agree, our process requires a rev to be pulled as a traceable mechanism for a drawing even for a quote. We want to be in project to avoid generating huge quantities of cad files that are difficult to purge out but then due to the revise limitation end up spending way to much time 'round tripping' data via PDMLink just to get a rev.

[jbailey]

Remember, ProjectLink is an area of Windchill that is designed for collaboration and early stage development... not Revision control.  Once your items are revision controlled, they should be on the Product side of the house. 

If you want to send out drawings and indicate which version it is (Version = Rev + Iteration- so in PJL rev is always initial rev... so iteration 1 would be -.1, iteration 2 would be -.2)

The parameter to call would be &PTC_WM_VERSION instead of &PTC_WM_REVISION

[sm]

Does anyone have a clear definition of exactly what they'd like to Revise in ProjectLink and how it would work?

This seems like simple work for objects that originate in the project. However, which revision scheme should they follow and what revision should be assigned if the object is "Sent to PDM"? I like the idea of making a simple revision scheme that can be defined at the project level, but we also have the revision scheme associated with the object when it is initialized. Does a preference need to be created to choose between resetting the revision or keeping the revision during a Send to PDM action?

Objects that originate in PDM do not need revision control in the project becuase their revision is controlled from the PDM container which they were shared from. Is there anyone out there who really wants to control the revision of an object that originates in PDM who's project status could either be Share or PDM Checkout? If so, how would you expect that to work?

It would also be nice to know what type of objects we're talking about here. I'm assuming wt.docs, wt.parts and epm.docs. Is there any other object type people would like to revise at the project level?

I'm open to ideas and would love to hear your feedback. To consider a change in the current behavior, we need to fully understand the requirements and determine how it impacts objects that originate in PDM before we propose a solution.

[sm]

Its been almost a year without a comment on this topic. Is this a critical request for people? It is a frequent ask, but it's not getting much attention here in the Windchill Community as a new Idea. Love to get some feedback from people about it.

[mdebower]

It would be of great benefit to us.  We typically leave CAD Documents in the Project until they go through our release process, then they are sent to PDM.  So all of our prototypes are created and tracked with a manual revision level on the drawing since we cannot revise in ProjectLink.

There have been internal efforts to get the engineer to move the item to PDM sooner to take advantage of the revision control but those have all failed.  The engineers have their reasons for not wanting to have the object available in PDM until it is released.

In general, ProjectLink should just be a sandboxed area of PDMLink, without some of these artifical differences.  The users don't understand and it just ends up slowing them down.

[SteveVinyard]

I can certainly see value in being able to revise data (EPM, Doc, WTPart) that was created in Project.  I don't like the complexity of having to deal with odd revising mechanisms just to revise an object that was from PDMLink.  Perhaps a "New Revision Request" mechanism would help with that...to be honest that would be nice for PDMLink too.

I'd also like to see objects that are shared to Project update automatically.  Many people want to use ProjectLink as a portal for suppliers etc but it completely fails at that use case being that it won't automatically update data as new Released Rev's come in. I've certainly heard both of these more often than not.

[ChristopherLewi]

Folks like the concept of ProjectLink because it gives them that sandbox. But the sandbox is kindof rigid. Thus a project that starts out with folks loving the dead easy, no rules ends up hating projectlink starting at about quote time (before you beat on me, we're obliged because we're such a huge dumb company to 'lock revs' way before production and 1-1.2 is not a valid scheme for the other enterprise system) thus starts up the 'round tripping' as i said years ago. I guess we kindof want PDM lite from our project. In hindsight we'd probably have been better off doing our dev all in PDMLink instead but the allure of ad-hocness won out. IMHO if 'round tripping can be done with that revision request (usually the person doing it has full rights in both places BTW) then all the better. From a CAD Mgmt perspective the users actually think of ProjectLink as being a Common Workspace or rather they for whatever reason seem to expect that is what it is.

[kpritchard]

and CAD Documents!

There has been discussion on this in PTCUser going a fair ways back.  Feedback would indicate a split amongst Users... some want it some don't so enabling by a Preference would be Requirement number 1.

The use case that I see as compelling is to use a Project for early development work and then transfer control to PDM (Products/Libraries).  This would address the number one complaint raised when it comes to Change Management Objects/Workflows - being that it is too cumbersome and time consuming for early concept and developments work.

It should be noted that I see value in "freezing" (Releasing?) Concepts, and definitely anything that gets communicated externally outside of a given Enterprise.  Case in point was a casting that I went several versions back and forth before arriving at a solution that met requirements (stiffness/strength via FEA results) and what was possible in terms of tooling.  For this, developing in a Project would allow Routing to lock down each Revision that was communicated externally.

It's kind of ironic that the tool that in theory, would appear to be so well suited for early concept/development work precludes itself because of the whole no Revisions thing.  Ideally you'd stay lightweight early on and then shift to PDM/Change Managed when the impacts of a change go beyond the Designer and the CAD model so a bit of "friction" is appropriate.

Creating objects in PDM to get the Revision capability and sharing and/or transferring control to the Project is way to clunky and so is a non-starter.

[Lohbauer]

It's been over a year since the last comment.  I would like to see a revise capability for our Product development process.  We maintain a spreadsheet to track a number of Objects still outside of Windchill.  This document gets updated and routed as part of our phase-gated development process.  Its confusing for users to see the same lifecycle state when they are used to seeing state changes during revisions in PDMLink.

The revision control is not so much to protect data but for reference on that particular documents state.

[Pekholm]

Hi

A common use-case is to manage design alternatives / change proposals without "pollute" the PDM system with new revisions describing obsolete data. A prototype need to be manufactured, why revised drawings are needed. A proposal shall be to create the new revision in a project, isolated from PDM, and after evaluation check-in as a new revision. If the revision is rejected, it shall stay in the project as history only.

[Arjen]

ProjectLink is also used to collaborate with external parties. Only objects the external partner is allowed to see are shares and/or checked out to a project. The current functionality in ProjectLink to support this is limited. Missing functionality is indeed revising an object, but also change management. In the use case of managing collaboration with external parties PDMLink like functionality is required in ProjectLink.