There are many tools to control the configuration of Windchill code. However, one that is very lacking is the configuration control of the Windchill Workflow.
Use Case: Say for instance you define changes required to support new features/tasks within a Windchill workflow. You provide a definition of changes, etc. However, how are you sure of all the changes that have been done and how can you confirm that pieces of the workflow that were not changed have not been modified.
A comparison of exports of the workflow (best practice for migrating from dev to qa to production) cannot be examined by a text compare or an xml compare because:
1) PTC exports of the workflow xml isn't true structured xml but instead a bastardize version of a script to create the objects. HOwever, every time you export the workflow it exports differently
2) Every version of the workflow completely reidentified the obid (id numbers) for every piece of the workflow, so you cannot match old and new items in the flow.
..... for example, if you change name and move a task, there is no way that you know same tasks exist in rev 1 and rev 2
I would like to suggest enhancement that every item in the workflow template be identified by a unique id number when its first place on workflow template. Thereafter each revision of workflow template can continue to have its own obid number, however that base id stays the same so we know its still the same object from version to version.
This then makes documentation of version to version changes AND validation of version to version changes possible.
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