Windchill Tips

Recently a customer asked if it were possible to disable Owner association, and instead have the system default to using Contributing Image association between WTParts and CAD Documents.  I figured there might be others interested so I thought I would post the solution, as the steps to achieve this desired behavior might not be entirely obvious. Before doing so, however, I have to give credit to my colleague, Jennifer Pierron, for providing me with these steps. Here we go… In this case, the goal is disable Owner association for CAD assemblies and parts and display Contributing Image as the default association type in the Edit/Auto Associate UI.  You configure a set of Site preferences to accomplish this task.  I repeat - Site preferences.  These preferences cannot be set on a per-user or organization level basis. They apply across your entire installation. First, you need to establish which attributes you want to pass from CAD Documents to WTPart via the Contributing Image association.  This can be done by setting the Site preference EPM Service Preferences > Build Service Preferences > Contributing Image Attributes to * for all attributes, or you may specify individually using a list of attribute names.  If you do not specify any attributes, then the system defaults to using an Image association instead of a Contributing Image association. In effect, the preference settings in the following figure enable Contributing Image associations in your system. Next, configure the CAD Document types for which you do not want to build structure (disallow Owner associations).  In this example we disallow the building of structure for Creo Parts and Assemblies.  To accomplish this, we add CADCOMPONENT and CADASSEMBLY to the list of types for which building structure is excluded.  This is done by editing the preference Operations > Auto Associate > Disallow Structure CAD Document Types > Creo as shown in the following figure. As a final step, If you want to allow Auto-Associate to create parts, you need to set the value of the preference Operations > Auto Associate > Create New Part to Owner and Contributing Image as shown in the following figure. The default is to allow this for Owner association types only. Once these preferences have been set, when you perform an Edit Association, you should be presented something similar to the following. I hope you found this useful.

Starting in Windchill 10.2 M020, security labels and their values can be displayed in your workspace views.  If you have security labels configured, you are now able to add security labels to your workspace table views, just like any other attribute.   You do this by creating a new table view in your workspace.  In the New View wizard, add your security labels as part of the Set Column Display (step 4).  This can be done by either adding the “All Security Labels” from the "Available Columns" list on the left over to the “Selected Columns” list on the right. This, as the name suggests, adds all of your defined security labels into your table view in one step.  Alternatively, you can select individual security labels by name from the Available Columns list as shown in the following figure with the security label “Training Required” moved over to the Selected Columns list. Now that your workspace table view is saved to include your security labels, you are able to view them directly from your workspace listing. This eliminates the need to navigate to individual information pages to find out specific values. In addition to the workspace itself, this is applicable to all workspace related UIs such as the model structure report on the CAD document information page and the Check In UI (more on that in my next post).

PTC is happy to announce the new HTML5 based drag-n-drop file upload utility with Windchill 10.2_M020. This new utility will replace the existing Java based drop target and give people a much simpler and more intuitive way to upload new documents and attachments. This video demonstrates how easy it is to create a single document and its associated attachments using the new drag-n-drop upload utility on MacOS with Safari.   This video does not contain audio.     Unable to play video. Please try again later. (view in My Videos)

PTC is happy to announce the new HTML5 based drag-n-drop file upload utility with Windchill 10.2_M020. This new utility will replace the existing Java based drop target and give people a much simpler and more intuitive way to upload new documents and attachments. This video demonstrates how easy it is to create a single document and its associated attachments using the new drag-n-drop upload utility.   This video does not contain audio, yet...     Unable to play video. Please try again later. (view in My Videos)

Check out this video on Using Type and Attribute Manager in Windchill from PTC Application Engineers Presenters: Ryan Butcher (Technical Specialist, Fellow) and Donna Fedeli (Technical Specialist, Principal) Original Date Presented: November 2, 2021 To dive deeper into the subject, check out Windchill Type and Attribute Management - PTC University.   (view in My Videos)

Check out this video on MFG Process Management in Windchill from PTC Application Engineers Presenters: Steve Ingham (Technical Specialist, Principal) and Ryan Butcher (Technical Specialist, Fellow) Original Date Presented: October 19, 2021   To dive deeper into the subject, check out Windchill MFG Process Management - PTC University.   (view in My Videos)

Check out this video on Using Change - BOM Redline in Windchill from PTC Application Engineers Presenters: Dan Mittelstadt (Technical Specialist, Principal) and Ryan Butcher (Technical Specialist, Fellow) Original Date Presented: October 5, 2021   To dive deeper into the subject, check out Windchill Change - BOM Redline - PTC University.   (view in My Videos)

Check out this video on Using Design Reviews in Windchill from PTC Application Engineers Presenters: Jason Petersen (Technical Specialist, Principal) and Ryan Butcher (Technical Specialist, Fellow) Original Date Presented: September 21, 2021 To dive deeper into the subject, check out Windchill Design Reviews - PTC University.   (view in My Videos)

Check out this video on Using Creo View in Windchill from PTC Application Engineers Presenters: Ryan Butcher (Technical Specialist, Fellow) and Jason Petersen (Technical Specialist, Principal) Original Date Presented: September 7, 2021 To dive deeper into the subject, check out Windchill Creo View - PTC University.   (view in My Videos)

Applicable Release: Windchill release 10.0+   Description: In this video, we will be enabling server side DEBUG Logs by adding additional properties to log4jMethodServer.properties file.              log4j.logger.com.ptc.windchill.uwgm=DEBUG log4j.logger.wt.method.server.timing=INFO log4j.logger.wt.adapter.verbose=INFO

Hello again!   I am pleased to announce that our PLM Virtual Conference is now available On Demand in English, French, Italian, and German via the following link: www.plmvirtualconference.com. You can login to the conference with the email you used to registered. If you haven't registered, you can do so here: https://www.ptc.com/en/special-event/plm-virtual-conference.     We hope you enjoy the sessions!   Katie   

We are happy to announce that PTC PLM has been named overall leader in a competitive vendor ranking.   PTC has found itself at the top of another competitive vendor ranking, this time in the Industrial Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) Software report by ABI Research (ABI). ABI Research developed this competitor ranking to offer an unbiased assessment and ranking of PLM vendors.  ABI ranked vendors based on the two key areas of innovation and implementation, with Windchill leading the rankings in innovation by helping manufacturers create and manage their Digital Threads.   For more info and to learn more, here are some links:    On Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/posts/ptc-windchill_ptcs-plm-is-named-1-overall-leader-in-competitive-activity-6753072919775068160-O3FL Our Blog on PTC.com: PTC Named Leader in Industrial PLM Software by Top Independent Research Firm (Again) | PTC For the Analyst Report:  ABI Research Names PTC Leader in Vendor Ranking | PTC Please feel free to pass this on.

We are bringing the Liveworx UX Lab to you this year! Contribute to the design and development of PTC’s PLM products from the comfort of your home.   Participate in online 1:1 session with PTC Researchers and Designers to take our prototypes & conceptual designs for a spin, share your expertise to directly impact the experience of our future products.   For all Liveworx 2020 UX Lab sessions, click here   PLM session links: WINDCHILL: Actions Menu WINDCHILL: Dynamic Positioning and Visualization using Virtual Product Architecture WINDCHILL: MPMLink BOM Reconciliation NAVIGATE: Create Problem Report WINDCHILL: Change Redline WINDCHILL: RV&S 12.4 (formally Integrity Lifecycle Manager) WINDCHILL: Modeler 9.3 (formerly Integrity Modeler) CREO & WINDCHILL: Windchill Replace Assembly Action in Creo

Polaris strives to give a great end-to-end experience for its riders, from customized purchase options to enhanced safety features. To achieve this vision, Polaris is adopting a step-by-step approach to digital transformation through PLM. In this series of 10 technical demos, you'll see what Polaris has either currently implemented or is considering as a part of its PLM/digital transformation roadmap.    BOM Management and Global Platforms — Manage and link CAD data, bills of material, and visualization for a modular EBOM structure and generate options and variants for design verification and visualization Family Management — Plan product families and manage options, choices, and assignments in multi-year product structures Change Management — Manage change of a new option from EBOM to MBOM through process plans and work instructions Augmented Reality — Variant-specific AR design review and visualization and process plan visualization BOM Transformation — Associatively transform EBOM to MBOM and EBOM to SBOM with options and logic Manufacturing Process Planning — Concurrently develop mixed-model assembly process plans Role and Task-Based Access — Access digital product information based on the task and function within an organization BOM Costing Application — Create custom mashups of variant-specific cost tracking and roll-up Interference Detection — Develop variant-specific validations with DMU/interference analysis Visit: https://www.ptc.com/en/products/plm/everyday-innovation/innovator-spotlight-polaris/polaris-plm-demonstrations to check out this great demo series - we hope this gives you some inspiration in your own digital transformation initiatives.  

An example of uploading multiple representations to one CreoView session rather then having to start new sessions for each one.   I was adding as a comment on a Product Idea but it was not letting embed it so I added this a separate video and linked it.  The idea is the following:     (view in My Videos)    

When there are a large number of objects in a Windchill workspace, it is difficult to identify the object representing the top-level object of a large assembly without any clue of its identity information.With the same or similar intent, the featured object live has been provided

PTC is happy to announce the new HTML5 based drag-n-drop file upload utility with Windchill 10.2_M020. This new utility will replace the existing Java based drop target and give people a much simpler and more intuitive way to upload new documents and attachments. This video demonstrates how easy it is to create multiple documents using the new drag-n-drop upload utility.   This video does not contain audio, yet...     Unable to play video. Please try again later. (view in My Videos)

Check out this video on Using Windchill "Managing Creo NC Data in Windchill" from PTC Application Engineers Presenters: Lee Goodwin (Solution Sonsultant, Principal) and Ryan Butcher (Solution Consulting, Fellow). Original Date Presented: April 17, 2024  

Windchill can display menu items / table headings / actions, etc. in several languages. Each user can decide at any time which to display from those installed.   Windchill can display menu items / table headings / actions, etc. in several languages. Each user can decide at any time which to display from those installed.   This example has only one language installed in addition to English – French. Install         Every Windchill file that are used to display English words now has an additional similar file with the language (fr for French in this example).       Because these exist, each user can select their desired language (of those installed) at any time.   Default English:     Each user has this choice (list will include those language(s) which have been installed). Does not affect any other user. By moving English back to the top, it will revert to English at any time.             After browser refresh:                       Many multi-national companies are not aware of this and don’t take advantage of it (no cost / no performance penalty / no issues for upgrades).  

Version 2.08 includes the following new features:     - New right-click Context Menu added to the results list for:             o Recovering Selected Files             o Recovering All Files             o Exporting the Results Table     - Timers that report:             o Elapsed time during the file “examination” process, i.e., File > Open,                and total elapsed time at the completion of the file examination process             o Elapsed time for file recovery, i.e., Recover Selected Files or Recover ALL Files.     - Minor clarification changes to the text of some dialog boxes.     - Minor bug fixes.     - Help option on the menu bar with options that will:             o Open the PDF User Guide             o Display an About dialog Special thanks to those that assisted with testing.   I am attaching the 64 bit version of the installer.  If the 32 bit version is still required, I will add it.   NOTE: This will be my final version of the tool.   I have retired and after a 50-year career that I have enjoyed thoroughly, it is time for me to bid you adieu! I wish you great success in your endeavors.   Now to the question many of you are likely asking. What will happen to the tool? At this point I haven't decided. Windchill Cache Recovery Tool version 1.0 development began in 2008 when I was between jobs and it was released at the end of that year. Version 2.0 was a rewrite of the UI and features were added with each release to where we are today - version 2.08.   I have years of effort developing this tool and to be honest, I don't want to give it up. But without access to the PTC tools and files needed, it will become impossible to continue its development. And with the amount of time I have invested in it, I don't feel I can just give it away. So, for now the source code remains in my possession.   Ron Thellen