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Remove Products and Libraries

Remove Products and Libraries

Our company is still in the process of getting Windchill setup to fit our needs. One of the things we have come across is how the original person setting up Windchill setup our Products. We have a few ideas of what we would possibly want to do for organization. I have been looking around but am not able to find a way to actually delete a Product from Windchill. I posted in the discussions area about this and there isn't a true way to delete products or libraries. It was suggested to me to post this in the product ideas area.

So I think it would be beneficial to be able to completely remove products and libraries without having to change user permissions and only hiding them. I think even with items still in these products or libraries, if an administrater decides to delete the product, a popup will occur stating that there are items left in the folders and require a new location for these to be stored so the product can be deleted or if all of the items inside can be deleted then allow them to be removed from the server.

Right now, when you view all the products or libraries, it only has the add buttons at the top of the table. The only way to even rename a product or library is to right click on the name. I only found this out after a while of trying multiple things. Adding an actions dropdown box would improve this table as well.

14 Comments
HugoHermans
9-Granite

When I want to make a Product or Library redundant, I make it invisible for everyone.  This way, it disappears for most users, unless the administrator.  I have some work to remove all the objects from it, and to delete all the additional container specific configurations (OIR, ACL, ...).  Finally, I rename it so it's clear for me this is a container waiting for a new live.

doehr
1-Newbie

Not sure on this one. I understand completely what you're saying but what happens when there are hundreds of old legacy files in the context? You shouldn't delete that legacy data and it could be quite painful to move them to the new locations. However, altering the access to it can be very quickly and easily done.

Oh, and to edit the name and description of a context go to its Details page and from Actions click Edit.

STEVEG
21-Topaz I

The problem is many people created a context for testing or training purposes only.  I have two (1 Product and 1 Library) that I would love to deleted because there is nothing in them.

What I did was renamed them to Hidden then removed all access.  Nobody sees it but it's an annoyance.

doehr
1-Newbie

...you let your users create new contexts?

We had that restricted to site administrators only quite some time ago. It's now a very formal process since every context has to run the same with identical team role layouts, etc...

As for the Hidden ones, if they are really empty (including no locked down End Items) perhaps consider using one of them, overhauled of course, when a user requests a new context instead of creating yet another one from scratch. It's basically nothing more than a data folder with some extra bells and whistles, so why not repurpose it for a new need?

STEVEG
21-Topaz I

No.  When I say that I mean many people (admins) in other companies.

STEVEG
21-Topaz I

And very rarely do we create new contexts.  We have a total of 3 products and 4 libraries created since Jun 2008.  In fact, the last one we created was back in 2011.  The two that I renamed to Hidden and want to delete.

doehr
1-Newbie

Oh okay. Definitely different from mine, we have about 120 active contexts, and maybe 25 disabled ones hidden as you've described, but we have to keep the disabled ones in there for history purposes.

pwilliams-3
11-Garnet

At Steelcase we have roughly 1,200+ contexts (most are products).  At times the Engineering teams want to consolidate the product data which empties out 1 context.  I would love to be able to delete these unused/empty contexts to have a more "clean" system.  In our process today we rename the product to "REUSE - <original product name>" and when a new context is needed we just rename one of the "REUSE" products and populate the team.

PTCModerator
Emeritus
Status changed to: Acknowledged
 
slapha
15-Moonstone
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.
praynaud
4-Participant

Do not forget that business must drive the IT and not the opposite.

If business is asking to remove a Product (empty or not, we may have choice), an Administrator should be able to do it out of the box or using sql DB command.

Rename a product is not the solution, because if you update your ACL, then, next step should be generating a new template to be use for new product. When you will use an old product for a new need, ACL will not be the right one so not follow your new rules. This is dangerous.

stulza
6-Contributor

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

Mat
13-Aquamarine
13-Aquamarine

I would like to mention, that there was a similar product idea with 139 votes, when PTC closed that thread with a "no plans to implement" comment.

 

https://community.ptc.com/t5/Windchill-Ideas/Delete-option-for-product-library-in-Windchill/idi-p/46...

 

@ptc: Your users ask for a really basic functionality (ability to delete objects). Please listen!

slapha
15-Moonstone

This goes along with the ideas on moving items and "hiding" the old context.

An issue we've had for items that were created in one product, but migrated to another product, sometimes it retains the access from the original product. I've yet to figure out the true nature of the issue behind the scenes but adding a person's access to the old container gives them access to the object in the new container. A virtual "delete" process could help clean up some of these residual policies