Windchill Ideas

  1. Product and Version: - Running on Windchill + Release: 12.1.2.4   2. The Problem: - The "Only Main Body" attribute from CATIA objects is not being synchronized to Windchill.   3. Workaround: - There is no workaround available currently.   4. Use Case for the Organization: - The required weight does not get synchronized, which is essential for accurate CAD data management. This is effective multiple customers and Windchill installation   5. Impact on the Organization: - Without a workaround, this issue presents an absolute no-go.    Proposal: We propose developing a feature to synchronise the "Only Main Body" boolean attribute of each CATIA objects from CATIA to Windchill. This feature should also include synchronising the right calculated weight of the CATIA Product or CATIA Part based on the attribute value to Windchill.  ... View more

Please include detailed documentation such as screenshots, images or video. 1. What product and version are you running? Windchill PDMLink 12.1 M020-CPS04 2. What is the problem? After configuring thumbnail worker, processing CAD publication job, CAD Worker will handle thumbnail generation as a part of publication sublevel process instead of creating separate job to thumbnail worker. So we have to check the wvs job log for thumbnail generation status. There is no feature/feasibility to view/check thumbnail generation status in WVS job monitor if it is internal request. 3. Are you using a workaround? If yes, please describe it. No. There is no workaround. 4. What is the use case for your organization? Describe how your idea would work in context or how it would apply to a practical situation. After configuring thumbnail worker, processing CAD publication job, CAD Worker is handling thumbnail generation as a part of publication sublevel process. But we have no option to check the status of the thumbnail generation except wvs job log. If there is any column or feature in WVS Job monitor, then we can see the thumbnail generation status for all jobs. 5. What impact does this problem currently have on your organization? (Number of users affected, hours of lost productivity, etc.) Not blocking any activity but all users are not able to see the thumbnail job status.  ... View more

Please include detailed documentation such as screenshots, images or video. 1. What product and version are you running? Windchill 12.0.2.13 2. What is the problem? Not possible to edit classification attributes when using "Save As" function. User wants to create a part by saving as existing part and only change one attribute value, So basically user is creating duplicate and then change attribute.  After the change of the attribute value "Similar part" checking funtion is not running so there is a risk of creation of duplicate anyway. 3. Are you using a workaround? If yes, please describe it. Manually cheking for duplicates by function "Find Similar Objects" which is not used very often as it requires additional time 4. What is the use case for your organization? Describe how your idea would work in context or how it would apply to a practical situation. Idea of the process: During the creation part by the save as option, the window save as wizard should pop up (like we have during the creation new part or edit part), but the attribute will be filled in as it is in the existing part which the user save as. Steps: Select the Save As option   2. You should see the Save as a Part wizard with a selected Part classification such as an existing part 3. Click Next 4.All attributes are filled in as in the existing part 5. Click Finish 6. You should see a Similar part already exists notification 7. Click Cancel 8. Change any value of any attributes 9. Click Finish 10. You should see a notification that Part has been created 5. What impact does this problem currently have on your organization? (Number of users affected, hours of lost productivity, etc.) Impact on around 200 users in PLM and many more in next system which utilize parts from Windchill. Risk of duplicates have high impact on purchase process (big impact on pricing process). When duplicates are found later it requires additional work to update product structures, purchase orders etc. ... View more

Please include detailed documentation such as screenshots, images or video. 1. What product and version are you running? WINDCHILL 12.0.2 2. What is the problem?   SELECTIVE EXPORT NOT WORKING ON PRODUCT FOLDER TABLE SEE BELOW   HAVE A FOLDER TABLE THAT HAS CROSSED THE TABLE LIMIT AND IT SHOULD HAVE BELOW  ERROR   SELECT FEW OBJECCTS FROM THE TABLE AND SELECT THIS CHECKBOX:   SELECT FOLDER TABLE ACTIONS AND CLICK ON EXPORT TO XLSX, OPEN THE FILE AND SEE ALL OBJECTS ARE GETTING EXPORTED ONLY SELECTED OOBJECTS SHOULD BE EXPORTED 3. Are you using a workaround? If yes, please describe it. NO, THERE IS NO WORKAROUND 4. What is the use case for your organization? Describe how your idea would work in context or how it would apply to a practical situation. WINDCHILL SHOULD ALLOW SELECTIVE EXPORT FOR ALL USE CASES. IF TABLE HAS CROSSED THE TABLE LIMIT, SELECTIVE EXPORT DOESN'T WRK. 5. What impact does this problem currently have on your organization? (Number of users affected, hours of lost productivity, etc.) IT IS CRASHING SERVERS, IT HAS ALREADY BEEN SHOWED TO PTC VIA CASE: C17001699, REFER IT. ... View more

Please include detailed documentation such as screenshots, images or video. 1. What product and version are you running? Windchill pdmlink 12.0.2.7 Workgroup Manager 13.0.0.1 SOLIDWORKS 2022 SP05   2. What is the problem? Creo View Adapter does not support the creation of eDrawings (ePRT, eASM, eDRW). Thus we can´t create eDrawings on a PTC Standrad Worker. eDrawings is the most available viewing format in my company as we are useing SOLIDWORKS since about 20 years. In an hybrid environment, where not yet all business units are useing Windchill, we can´t only focus on the Windchill viewing formats. 3. Are you using a workaround? If yes, please describe it.   To create eDrawings we set up an on premise custom worker. From a strategic point of view we would like to focus on a SAAS solution. Operating a custom worker is only a fallback solution because eDrawings is not supportet by Creo View Adapter. 4. What is the use case for your organization? Describe how your idea would work in context or how it would apply to a practical situation.   Business units which are not yet useing Windchill can still use eDrawings for visual studies in R&D and production.   5. What impact does this problem currently have on your organization? (Number of users affected, hours of lost productivity, etc.)   Numbers of affected users ~ 2000   eDarwings need to be created on a custom worker which is quite an effort. Additionally the whole process needs to be administrated and supported. Thats very cost intesive. ... View more

1. What product and version are you running? Windchill 12.0.2.10 2. What is the problem? Users who need their browser zoomed greater than 100% must continually resize workflow Add Participant pop-up windows.   This article does not address the issue and PTC advised submitting an idea. 3. Are you using a workaround? If yes, please describe it. Use a browser set to 100% zoom. 4. What is the use case for your organization? Describe how your idea would work in context or how it would apply to a practical situation. For workflow tasks that involve assigning a user to a role (e.g. Assign Purchasing Agent), when clicking the Add Participants icon (see screenshot) you will get a pop-up window for you to Find a Participant and Assign to Role.  For users who have their browser zoomed greater than 100%, each successive time the Add Participants icon is selected, the pop-up window comes up smaller and smaller (see series of screenshots).  So, the user must continually resize the pop-up window.    Note:  This happens in reverse if the browser is zoomed less than 100%.  Pop-up window would get larger and larger.     5. What impact does this problem currently have on your organization? (Number of users affected, hours of lost productivity, etc.) We have a subset of users who are interacting with tasks like this many times a day as part of their job.  Users that need the browser zoomed greater than 100% to read things on screen must continually resize the pop-up window.  The user must choose between keeping their browser zoomed to the proper level for them from an ergonomic perspective or take a hit to their productivity due to time spent re-sizing pop-up windows. ... View more

Please include detailed documentation such as screenshots, images or video. 1. What product and version are you running? Windchill 12.0.2.13 2. What is the problem? When performing Find Similar Search using attribute which is Legal Value List with values includes spaces ex. Schema 01,Schema 02,Schema 03 etc. system shows results not based on specific entered value (see picture). Because of that we are not able to perform needed searches. Search result is useless, we need to perform additional filtering in excel. We are not even sure if we are getting all data. 3. Are you using a workaround? If yes, please describe it. Manual additional filtering in Excel,  Workaround to be sure that we will get all items which we want, we are importing by importable spreadsheet  for all existing items with classification, it takes approximately 2h plus additional time for filtering. 4. What is the use case for your organization? Describe how your idea would work in context or how it would apply to a practical situation. We want to search for items which has specific value for reporting, mass updating, duplicate validation, data correctness etc. 5. What impact does this problem currently have on your organization? (Number of users affected, hours of lost productivity, etc.) All users working with data (Data Stewards, Purchasers, Parts requestors, Designers, Administrators etc.) We need to use excel for additional filtering and additional reports to be sure if we get all items which is time consuming. Depends on amount of items it may take few hours. Workaround to be sure that we will get all items which we want, we are importing by importable spreadsheet all existing items with classification, it takes approximately 2h plus additional time for filtering.   ... View more

Please include detailed documentation such as screenshots, images or video. 1. What product and version are you running? 12.0.2.11 2. What is the problem? CAD worker is limited to the export file types. There are certain cad files that require other export formats to downstream teams, like EMN and IDX for PCB designs. 3. Are you using a workaround? If yes, please describe it. Having a user run a mapkey in Creo that attaches it as a windchill attachment  4. What is the use case for your organization? Describe how your idea would work in context or how it would apply to a practical situation. A mechanical 3D PCB file is promoted and an EMN or IDX file would be generated in addition with the Step file. It would need to know which models are PCB, but that could be done base on a parameter or naming convention. 5. What impact does this problem currently have on your organization? (Number of users affected, hours of lost productivity, etc.) It would ensure the latest data is generated, not rely on a user, save lots of time and help the downstream teams get the information they need. This would impact over 100 users, and hundreds of hours of productivity per year. ... View more

1. What version of the software are you running? 12.0.2.10 2. What is the problem? A designer is supposed to think about the dispositions. Today the fields are always pre-filled with "Keep Order", "Use Existing" and "Use Existing". Often these values are simply taken over - whether they are correct or not. Now, of course, the fields could not be pre-filled and provided empty. However, there is then the risk that no value is entered here if the designer does not touch this field. So to summarise the problem: Either we have no values or wrong values in the disposition fields. It would therefore be a great advantage if we provide the disposition fields empty, but make them mandatory fields that have to be filled in. This way, a designer has to think about which values are correct here. 3. Are you using a workaround? If yes, please describe it. At the moment we cannot find a suitable workaround for this. 4. What is the use case for your organization? Describe how your idea would work in context or how it would apply to a practical situation. The disposition fields should be filled correctly with every change. This setting has an influence on work preparation, purchasing and production itself. With this idea we can force a designer to think about which values are correct here. 5. What impact does this problem currently have on your organization? (Number of users affected, hours of lost productivity, etc.) The work preparation department is the last instance to check the ECN and all included articles before they are released. If incorrect values have been entered here, or the values have not been changed, then: Parts are still in use that should have been scrapped. Parts that should have been reworked are still in use. Our products work with people and around people. In the event of a serious error, this can result in personal injury. Our products are not mass-produced (about 1500 devices per year), but the individual assemblies/parts are usually very large and very expensive. If these are produced incorrectly, immense costs arise. A central part of our products can cost over 30,000€, a whole device is several times more expensive. Communication should take place via these existing fields. If this does not happen, there is an effort in communication (queries, explanations, etc.). The data quality in the system suffers from the wrong values. Later evaluations to avoid problems become almost impossible. ... ... View more

1. What product and version are you running? Windchill 13 and windchill REST Services 2.6 2. What is the problem? Get to less information on license usable with script language. 3. Are you using a workaround? If yes, please describe it. 4. What is the use case for your organization? Describe how your idea would work in context or how it would apply to a practical situation. The objective is to get data on license to show if we need more or less license. It's also to get data on who really use is license or not to rearrange like if some users don't use their BASE license to create or modify a document to change their license to a Navigate VIEW.   5. More information I already find a API that used to generate the license information on the utilities "License Management" https://ServerYouUse/Windchill/servlet/rest/lm/getLicenseInfo     ... View more

Need to have the ability to revise when sending objects back to PDM from a Project. As mentioned before, if you want to develop a possible new option without interfering with the current released objects, you need a way to iterate in ProjectLink and then share it back to PDM as a new revision. This should flow just fine as a workflow, and ECN is required to update the state, but you want a way to initiate that new revision based on the iterative work you have done in ProjectLink.   Old post for reference: To support better interaction between Product and Project link I will suggest to allow a PDM check out on Released CAD objects from Product to Project... You can then create the new design ideas on the Released Project version and when design is accepted as part of the Send to PDM choose to Revise and make new version in Product.   This will help not to revise in Product before you can do a PDM Checkout... and if change i Project is cancelled no new revision is created i Product.. This will reduce the management of new revision not used in Product. ... View more

Please include detailed documentation such as screenshots, images or video.   1. What product and version are you running? Windchill PDMLink 12.0.2.13 Windchill Desktop Integration (x64) 12.0 M020-CPS13 (x64) 2. What is the problem? During creating IKEA Industry Document using DTI as a first step you have to select context from drop-down list exact context. As a next step system requires to select location by clicking location icon: Once doing that the Set Location pop-up window is stucking.   You have to close the window and leave Location field empty. There is no negative impact leaving it empty therefore I recommend to remove that field. I have checked it for product context and for document library and results are correct in both cases.  3. Are you using a workaround? If yes, please describe it. To create IKEA Industry Document you have to leave Location field empty. It is quite obvious when you are working constantly with the documents however for new users it is very confusing. They are convinced that they have done something wrong or that the system has crashed. 4. What is the use case for your organization? Describe how your idea would work in context or how it would apply to a practical situation. At the moment process stuck when user wants to set location in Location field. Whether user is leaving it empty the process and results are correct. 5. What impact does this problem currently have on your organization? (Number of users affected, hours of lost productivity, etc.) The issue affects all users working with DTI. There are more and more users since we have started roll-out process for other units. First opinion from new users are that it should be removed because it makes confuse and it looks like there is something wrong from system perspective. ... View more

This is based an an older suggestion. Users can have old versions in their workspace and do not see the obsolescence because of the lack of the Obsolete column. If this older version is not set to a restricted life-cycle state, user may check out non-latest version, modify, and check in. In this case this may result a lost of work. Note that setting the preference 'Allow checkout of non-latest iterations' to 'Do not allow checkout of non-latest iterations' does not prevent this. This preference simply locks old iterations of each version, without locking old versions. See CS18485, User able to check out non-latest version and check back in when "Allow checkout of non-latest iterations" set to "No" in Windchill PDMLink, https://www.ptc.com/en/support/article/CS18485.   Suggestion: Allow the admin to determine whether to allow older versions to be checked out or not instead of the current behavior of only checking for non-latest iterations. ... View more

1. What product and version are you running? SOLIDWORKS 2022 SP5, WWGM Version 13.0.0.0 2. What is the problem? Assembly A - revision 03, with 3 instances exists in the workspace. The aim is to add Assembly A - revision 02, with 2 instances to workspace loading rule as stored -> Event Management Console shows warning message -> Message comes up: Cannot update the workspace. It would cause the family with generic .... become incompatible. 3. Are you using a workaround? If yes, please describe it. Manually deleting all family tables CAD objects (generic + instances) with this issue and executing add to workspace again 4. What is the use case for your organization? Describe how your idea would work in context or how it would apply to a practical situation. Round about 70% of our CAD-Objects are handled as family tables.  5. What impact does this problem currently have on your organization? (Number of users affected, hours of lost productivity, etc.) More than 1500 users are affected and they are loosing a lot of time. To improve user acceptance the event mangagement console should automatically substitute the CAD-Objects. ... View more

1. Describe your environment: What is your industry? What is your role in your organization? Describe your stakeholders. Industry: Engineering company with many thousands of Winchill users, in a complex structure of different organizations, contexts, groups. Role: Admin and standard user. Stakeholders: Admin and standard user. 2. What version of Windchill are you currently running? 12.0.2.10 3. Describe the problem you are trying to solve. Please include detailed documentation such as screenshots, images or video. Since References Documents are linked to several parts (e.g. Standards) they dont have to be revised every time one of the linked parts is revised. But with the current collector (Collect affected objects) its not possible to collect Described By Documents only, which means the Reference Documents have to be removed manually. This can be easily forgotten. 4. What is the use case for your organization? Revision of a part without a revision of the linked Reference Documents 5. What business value would your suggestion represent for your organization? The manual steps to collect the required documents are reduced and revisons of Reference Documents are not created accidentally, ... View more

Please include detailed documentation such as screenshots, images or video. SCCM not suported: Article - CS262396 - Windchill PDMLink: Support for installation and/or uninstallation of Workgroup Manager using SCCM (ptc.com) 1. What product and version are you running? WGM 13 2. What is the problem? No Support for proper SCCM based installs/uninstalls 3. Are you using a workaround? If yes, please describe it CS262396 Not part of Windchill Workgroup Manager functionality To request this functionality, refer to Product Ideas @ PTC Community => hereby requested 4. What is the use case for your organization? Describe how your idea would work in context or how it would apply to a practical situation. Efficient Management of 1200+ Users,  5. What impact does this problem currently have on your organization? (Number of users affected, hours of lost productivity, etc.) The Windchill installer tries to launch parts of the application during install process. This is captured and blocked by Softwarecenter resulting in a popup advising the user not to run any applications during install. PTC Support response: SCCM not supported. This Idea is the next step in trying to solve the issue. ... View more

1. Describe your environment: What is your industry? What is your role in your organization? Describe your stakeholders. Industry: Engineering company with many thousands of Winchill users, in a complex structure of different organizations, contexts, groups. Role: Admin and standard user. Stakeholders: Admin and standard user. 2. What version of Windchill are you currently running? 12.0.2.8   3. Describe the problem you are trying to solve. Please include detailed documentation such as screenshots, images or video. An article is linked to an ISPMaster document. An ISpTranslated is assigned to the ISpMaster. User wants to collect the affected objects within the ECT. He uses the collecting button, see screenshot. See attached picture!   Only the ISpMaster is displayed to the user? 4. What is the use case for your organization? When releasing articles which are linked with ISpMaster and ISpTranslated, all documents can be collected via the collect command.   The ISpTranslated does not have to be collected separately. The ISpTranslated is not forgotten and recognized only by a validation error!   5. What business value would your suggestion represent for your organization? The manual steps to collect the required documents are reduced. Our users have a advantage to find the ISpT directly if they edit the ECT. They haven´t to search in a separate way for the ISpT document. ... View more

Please include detailed documentation such as screenshots, images or video. 1. What product and version are you running? Windchill 11 M020 CPS11 2. What is the problem? Referenced parts in Inventor assemblies are not excluded while publishing 3. Are you using a workaround? If yes, please describe it. No workaround 4. What is the use case for your organization? Describe how your idea would work in context or how it would apply to a practical situation. Designers have made assemblies using referenced parts, and these referenced parts views should also be available in related drawings, so that manufacturing team has additional information about the part or assembly. However, when same assembly is published, the referenced parts should be excluded. Our technical documentation team who use these Creo View representation for illustration purpose, referenced parts are of not much interest, they have to manually remove referenced parts. Which is time consuming, and tedious. 5. What impact does this problem currently have on your organization? (Number of users affected, hours of lost productivity, etc.) We have technical documentation team spread across the globe there are around ~30 users working in this team, we have more than 3000 machines worked by this tech doc team.   ... View more

1. What version of the software are you running? At the moment i'm testing this functionality on the latest windchill release.   2. What is the problem? In our company we use multi-cad (Inventor and Creo parametric) When checking in items using the wwgm, we receive a message for each part that was checked in. This makes is easy for the users to see if their action behaved as expected. But when doing the same action in Creo Parametric we receive less information when we check in objects. See below a test to show the differences. The setup for this test is:  Assembly A_Creo               Assembly A_Inventor - Part B_Creo                       - Part B_Inventor - Part C_Creo                       - Part C_Inventor 2 new assemblies and parts. To test the difference we modify all parts + top assembly off both structures. After check in on assembly in inventor we receive these message logs in the wwgm:   When we create the same assembly in Creo parametric and perform the same action we only receive these message logs:     As an improvement we want more feedback for the users after saving/checking-in/uploading objects in windchill.   3. Are you using a workaround? If yes, please describe it. No. 4. What is the use case for your organization? Describe how your idea would work in context or how it would apply to a practical situation. Daily use during CAD data management in Windchill 5. What impact does this problem currently have on your organization? (Number of users affected, hours of lost productivity, etc.) In Inventor, when saving/checking in an assembly or drawing, children that are also saved are all mentioned in the Workgroup manager status bar. In Creo only the top level file is mentioned, making it unclear if children are also uploaded/saved/checked in...   ... View more